2 Second Pause

Today on Hay House Radio I listened to Suvrat Bhargave, a psychiatrist, give advice to a woman whose child has ADHD and has taken a break from medicine over the summer. The son's behavior has been a little difficult without the medicine; for example, the boy has been more impatient, hyperactive, and impulsive. The mother asked about putting her son back on medication during the school year. Dr. Bhargave acknowledged that medication is not for every child, but indicated that it can be an effective tool for the right child because it created a "two second pause" between when something happens and when a child with ADHD reacts, thus slightly remediating the impulsivity often characteristic of ADHD. Dr. Bhargave said that how the child behaves after the two second pause is up to them, however. Dr. Bhargave indicated that medication is only one of seven tools for children with ADHD. The seven are:

Structure
Routine
Reward
Consequence
Motivation
Organization
Medication

On his radio show, Dr. Bhargave said he will be discussing ADHD more in depth in the upcoming month, so stay tuned!

Script writing

Many children on the Autism Spectrum benefit from social skills training, usually in the form of a group that helps with social interactions with similar aged peers. These same children seem to benefit from memorizing "scripts," or stock phrases, to use in certain situations so they don't have to figure out how to "read" a situation, which can be difficult for them. Actually, some of the most polite children I know use these "scripts" when interacting with adults.

While my son is in no way on the spectrum, he too could benefit from the learning of scripts, especially when his amygdala hijacks his frontal lobe, i.e., when his emotions get in the way of his reason. While taking deep breaths and counting back from 10 certainly helps, sometimes even I find it helpful to say to someone who upsets me "Let's just agree to disagree on this and move on." For me, one of the hardest things is to let my son find his own scripts that reflect his personality and not my own.

Anticipation

Like many parents, I am looking towards the end of summer with a sense of both excitement and anxiety. On one hand, I look forward to crisp weather, long pants, and fires in the fireplace. On the other hand, I worry about new teachers, increases in schoolwork, and tightly scheduled days and weekends.

Today I will try to be as present as I can, so I can recall these "lazy days of summer"when the snow and homework both start to pile up.