Demands and Capacities

As 2015 draws to a close, I am able to reflect that it has been a good year for us as a family. My daughter continues to do well in school, tested well on the SATs, and is starting to look at colleges that will be a good fit for her. My son is having an easier year, spending much less time per night on homework than last year, and yet is still appropriately challenged. Happy children, happy family.

I am reminded of the work of a professor of mine in graduate school who is well known in the field of Stuttering. His "demands and capacities model"  (Woody Starkweather, 1990) holds that a child is more likely to stutter when his the demands for fluent speech in a situation exceeds his capacity/ability to produce such speech. This model held that decreasing demands (such as using a slower rate, not interrupting the child, not rushing the child, etc.) will lead to less stuttering as the demands are more in line with the child's speech capacities.

It strikes me that the same demands and capacities could be applied to educational performance, especially for children with ADHD and/or learning differences. For example, if the demands in terms of amount of homework exceeds the child's capacities to do such work in a timely manner (due to dyslexia, dysgraphia, attention issues, etc.), then a negative outcome is likely. If the demand is appropriate (such as the recommended 10 minutes of homework per grade, thus 60 minutes for a sixth grader, 120 minutes for a 12th grader), the child is more likely to succeed in school.

Interestingly, my seventh grade son, who needs frequent breaks, is now spending a more appropriate 1 1/2 to 2 hours per night on homework and my AP-loaded 11th grader is spending 4 to 5 hours many nights. In my daughter's case, her capacities still exceed the ridiculous demands of her classes and she is able to do very well and function in this environment. I recognize that her need to do well and drive to impress her teachers may be leading her to exceed the amount of time needed to get good but not great grades. My son, on the other hand, is much more relaxed this year and recently admitted that he used to try to be like his sister, but now realizes that he does not have to get straight A's to be happy.

Perhaps we should all think about our own demands and capacities. Maybe we should admit when the demands placed on us exceeds our ability to do something in a way that feels comfortable to us. As our demands lighten or our capacities grow, we can embrace more. Here's to being able to embrace more in 2016!

To Do: Write To Do List!

It has been a smooth start to the school year for my son, but I don't want to start celebrating too soon as he has only had one full week of school so far. As it stands now, when my son comes home from school, I ask him his plan for his homework, which he begins 45 minutes after he walks in the door. As usual, he is almost completely independent with Math, Science and Social Studies. His biggest challenges are Spanish and Language Arts, and thus far he has done his work for those classes with minimal assistance from me, that assistance primarily being that he runs all of his answers by me before he writes them down in those subjects. Additionally, I am reading the chapters of the book he is reading in LA (the current book is The Pearl by Steinbeck, one of my favorites) so I can understand his answers. The question now is how to move him away from having to process his answers aloud with me before writing them, to having him write his answers and proof them himself.

This week I listened to the ADDitude magazine podcast "How to Stop Hovering," by Peg Dawson, the co-author of the "Smart but Scattered" book series. Dawson recognizes the unique challenge for parents of children with ADHD, i.e., not letting children fail (because, she says, children with ADHD often do not learn or benefit from failure), yet not providing so much help that a child does not internalize the skills necessary for homework autonomy. The key is providing scaffolding and supports that are taken away gradually as the child moves towards independence.

An example of scaffolding is the to do list. Dawson says that one of the issues with children with ADHD is that they think their working memory is a lot better than it actually is; in reality, they can't keep all that they have to do in their heads despite their insistence that they can. Unfortunately, children often don't want to take the time to write a to do list either. Dawson suggests that parents start by writing the list for their child, and then transition to writing it together with their child, until finally the child is able to write the list on his own.

As for me, I may start by using a blank weekly calendar with my son, which is something I use for myself. We can write down what he says he is going to do each day of the week towards tests and long-term projects (such as time studying for a quiz at the end of the week) and he can check each item off as he gets it done. At least it is one more step towards independence, which means independence for him and for me!

Midsummer Post

I haven't posted in a while, which is because I have not had to deal with any real meltdowns or arguments from my son this summer, except one emotional day last week when I tried to enforce the daily requirement for exercise. He did not want to swim in the pool that day, nor did he want to take a walk or ride his bike alone. He finally agreed to take a walk, but only if I could provide a destination (walking six blocks then turning around and walking back is not motivating apparently). I thought back to what I have read about children with ADHD needing more tangible rewards than non-ADHD children. I finally decided we would walk together to a store that would have paper for his Language Arts project. I am hoping that next time he can walk to that store alone, get something we need in the house, and come home. (I don't plan to accompany him to the store when he is 40!)

In any case, it seems the slower pace of summer and limited homework has decreased the stress in the household. Even this week, when my son has a three hour camp in the morning and a one hour guitar lesson in the afternoon, followed by 30-45 minutes of work (Spanish or math practice/games) and a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise, he seems so much calmer than during the school year. This seems to be the pace that works for him, at least at this point in his life: some structure interrupted by frequent breaks. Not everyone needs to pause as frequently (my daughter does not seem to), but the breaks really reset and recharge my son, which is typical of the child with an ADHD brain.

I am thinking about one of my son's teachers, who told me (and my son) that my son is one of the hardest working students she knows. It is great to hear that about him, but I am sorry that he has to work that hard at the age of 12 when he has so many years of work ahead of him. During the school year, I hope he can remind himself of these lazy days of summer and know that they will come around again.

Countdown to Summer

The end of the school year for my son is fast approaching and overall I am happy about that. For three months I will not have to oversee 2-3 hours of homework a night and up to 6 hours on weekends. The end of school also means that my son will have a lot more free time and a lot more time with me, which I will have to manage. Thus, I will have a whole new host of challenges, like monitoring computer time, food intake, amount of exercise, and boredom. In the end, the fight over homework will be replaced with the fight about why doing 5 hours of Minecraft while eating chicken tenders and fries three times a day is not a prescription for a healthy summer.

The most recent podcast I listened to from ADDitude magazine is titled "The Calm Parent" by Kirk Martin. Martin, like many of his colleagues, reminds us that we as parents need to control our own behaviors before addressing our child's, which includes recognizing our own emotional triggers and being present with them. In addition, Martin discusses many strategies he has found useful for interacting with  children with ADHD, such as:

- When emotional, both of you should sit down. A change in posture changes mood.

- Use code words and actions to achieve a cool down. "Get chips and salsa" and "popcorn" are two he uses. The time it takes to pop the popcorn in a microwave is a cool down period for the child. He also uses the word "opposite" to remind a child that his behavior is having the opposite result that he wants.

- Praise your child for progress, not for perfection.

- Children with ADHD have busy, disorganized brains, Martin says. They often do not feel like they have any control or ownership of anything. Saying "no" to a child teaches impulse control, but you should say "yes" to something else. For example, give your child the opportunity to do chores or help another adult to make money to buy a video game he wants.

- Recognize and honor your child's gifts, talents and passions. Design your own report card for your child, grading them on items like compassion, leadership, creativity and initiative.

Martin often reminds children of the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." I can see that I will have to remind myself of that when I overreact to one of my son's behaviors. I need to model calmness and equanimity. For more information, see Martin's website: http://celebratecalm.com/about-us/

The Yin and Yang of ADHD

I'm not sure if having more than one kid is easier or harder when one has ADHD and the other does not. Despite knowing better, I too often expect the one with attention issues to do things the way his older sister did at the same age. His older sister not only does not have ADHD, but she is the kid who has been independent with her homework since 4th grade and who could focus on her homework if Mt. Vesuvius were erupting outside her window. She makes dinner for herself and washes her own sheets. She is not a good yardstick for typical development and certainly not a good one for her brother.

ADDitude magazine has ADHD Expert Podcasts that are published every week. I went back to listen to their first two podcasts: Russell Barkley's "Why Does He Do That?" and Neil Hallowell's "The Bright Side of ADHD." In his podcast, Barkley talks about how ADHD's main issue is not attention but in emotional regulation. He also advises parents to have compassion for their children and to trust their instincts in terms of what their children are capable of at each stage of development. He goes on to say that it is helpful to take off 30% from the age of a child with ADHD to determine their actual emotional developmental maturity. Thus a child who is 10 is more like a 7-year-old in terms of emotional maturity and a 12 year old is like an 8 year old.  This should help parents determine what their child should be capable of in terms of chores, independence with assignments, etc. Barkley cautions parents not to be pressured by others in terms of what their children are ready for. He says that if you believe your child needs more help with homework, he probably does. As far as letting a child with ADHD get his driver's license at 16? Probably not a good idea.

So, according to Barkley, when my son is 21, he will be more like a 14-year-old in terms of maturity. He won't reach be like an 18-year-old until he is 26. Suddenly I am feeling like I will be picking towels off the bathroom floor and checking homework until I collect social security.

Neil Hallowell, a doctor who has ADHD and Dyslexia himself, has a more hopeful message. He considers ADHD a "trait" rather than a disorder and he says he wouldn't trade having these conditions for the world. While he does recognize that untreated ADHD can lead to negative outcomes like unemployment, substance abuse and trouble with the law, those will treated ADHD are the "movers and shakers" of the world: the Pulitzer-prize winners and entrepreneurs. He says that ADHD is common among "hugely successful people" who tend to be "nice, warm and forgiving." These are the risk takers and the pioneers, who "have an itch they have to scratch."

What am I left with as a parent? The yin and yang of ADHD. The incredible challenge and amazing potential.

Kindle Saves Me Again

My son is not a strong reader. While he technically reads at grade level, he is a slow reader and his attentional issues make reading even less efficient for him. In order to help him with reading comprehension, I load the book my son is reading in school on my Kindle Touch and read the chapters ahead of him so we can discuss what is going on in the story and the themes in the book. I find that my son tends to do much better when he can talk out his ideas to someone who is reading the book along with him.

Recently, my son has been assigned vocabulary words to locate in the book he is reading, which he finds overwhelming. I am having him use the Kindle search feature to find the target words in the book, look up the pages they are on, and look up the meaning - all directly from the Kindle. This has made a cumbersome task much more manageable for him.

Last week, when my son had a bad cold. I allowed him to turn on the Text to Speech feature on the Kindle to have the pages read to him. As I discussed in a previous post, this is a computerized voice that reads the text in a rather clunky way, but it seems to work for my son. Unfortunately, I found out that the new Kindle, the Paperwhite, does not have this Text to Speech option. This concerned me: what will I do when my Kindle dies, which it will eventually?

Not to be deterred, I searched Google to find out if I could have books read on the iPad using iPad features and the Kindle app. I went to eHow and found out that this can be achieved by turning the iPad's VoiceOver feature on (which is  under "Accessibility" under "Settings" on the iPad) and then accessing the book on the Kindle app.

Obviously, another option for having books read aloud is to buy the books he is reading through Audible (a seller of downloadable audiobooks). Because I don't usually want to have to books read to him and the books and membership are fairly expensive, we are not using that option at this time, although we may in the future (I am thinking it will pay for itself when he has to read Shakespeare, The Odyssey and Beowulf…). Additionally, some books are not available on Audible, including the one he is currently reading.

Meanwhile, I am grateful every day for the Kindle and how it has helped us make reading more fun and less of a chore.

A Little Bit of ADHD

A few days ago I received an email with a short video attachment from Dr. Russell Barkley, one of the foremost experts in the field of ADHD, encouraging professionals working with children with ADHD to screen the parents of these children to determine if one or both parents also has the disorder, as there is a 40% chance one of them does. In the video, Barkley goes on to say that that the majority of children (65% on average) with ADHD will eventually develop ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder). Unlike ADHD, which Barkley recognizes is a genetic disorder and not a result of parenting, Barkley believes ODD often develops as a result of disruptive or inconsistent parenting, which might be expected if a parent also has ADHD. http://kidsconference.kajabi.com/fe/77690-adhd-causes-odd

I am reflecting back to my earlier post about how my son's issues with emotional dysregulation sometimes plays into my emotional temperament. Although I myself do not have ADHD, I can definitely react to stress in an emotional way, especially when interacting with my son, and I recognize that my reactions can often exacerbate our verbal exchanges. While I am working on "being present" and not "taking things personally," I have started to wonder if there is something else I can do.

After viewing Barkley's short video, I went on to watch an hour long lecture that Barkley gave at the University of California in 2008 on ADHD. http://www.uctv.tv/shows/Advances-in-the-Understanding-and-Management-of-ADHD-14660 Much of what Barkley said was familiar to me, however, I found some things enlightening, some of which I plan to post at a later date. What Barkley said that really affected me was that as he is getting older, he is experiencing some symptoms of ADHD himself, such as going in a room to do one thing and then starting to do another. As per Barkley, each of us has a little ADHD as our memory declines, including men over 50 and women in perimenopause.

I've always been concerned about people saying that they have a "little bit of ADHD" because I worry that this minimizes the impact of ADHD on an individual and a family. In reality, Barkley says that while older people may experience this "little bit of ADHD," people who truly have the disorder are experiencing these symptoms at four times that intensity.

Putting all of this together, does that mean that in addition to my temperament, my perimenopausal symptoms (intermittent tiredness, irritability, and brain fog) are increasing my son's oppositional behaviors? I think the answer may be yes if these symptoms are influencing my reaction to him. This is a reminder of what I can do (and more often than not, try to do) to take care of myself:

1. Get enough sleep
2. Eat healthy food
3. Exercise regularly
4. Take natural supplements
5. Meditate

Most of all, I need to have empathy not only for my son, but also for myself.

Opting Out of "One Size Fits All"

A while back I posted about the Keystone exams in Philadelphia, which are standardized tests in biology, literature and algebra that students attending public high school in Pennsylvania must pass in order to graduate, beginning with the graduating class of 2017. The tests must be taken by all students, including English Language Learners and students with special needs. A student can retake the exam up to three times, and then can complete a project that will be graded by teachers from other school districts after two failed attempts.

Recently, some parents have discovered that they can "opt out" of Keystone testing for their children on the basis of religious or philosophical grounds and have the student complete a project in their place. Unfortunately, current freshman and sophomores cannot "opt out" because they are slated to graduate in 2017 or after so must pass the subject tests (or at least make two attempts) in order to receive their diplomas under the current rules.

It boggles my mind that in a poor school district like Philadelphia's, which has had to cut out art, music and mentally gifted classes and has schools functioning with part time nurses and minimal counselors, is spending so much money on this exam, especially for the multiple administration attempts that will be needed for many ELL students and students with special needs. That is not even to mention the classroom time that will be wasted on test preparation.

I am also amazed that in a world of increasing diversity and globalization that there is so much effort to assess children with a standardized instrument as a graduation requirement. We as a society now know so much about brain differences, cultural differences and multiple intelligences that one would think this "one size fits all" approach would seem an artifact of the 20th century.

I personally would like to see schools that produce what our society needs in addition to doctors, lawyers and teachers: designers, innovators and creative thinkers of all types, which is the belief of Daniel Pink, author of the New York Times and BusinessWeek bestselling book "A Whole New Mind." As Pink says, "the MFA [Master of Fine Arts] is the new MBA…many MBA graduates are becoming this century's blue collar workers -- people who entered a workforce full of promise, only to see their jobs move overseas." What we need, it seems, is more creativity, not standardization.

Articles referenced:

http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/education/75396-phillys-opt-out-movement-grows-as-council-holds-hearing-on-standardized-tests

www.examiner.com/article/what-feltonville-taught-philly-about-opt-out

Mirror Mirror

I have always been an emotional person, and I am sure that my son gets some of his emotional wiring from me. I don't think I really matured emotionally until I was in my late twenties or maybe even my early thirties (studies show that the human brain is still maturing quite a bit until the mid-twenties, so I was on the late side). Over the years I have learned how to not take things as personally and not make assumptions about another person's motivations (two of the "Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz), how to use "breath work" to calm myself down during stressful moments, and how to limit time with negative people in my life.

Still, when my son is upset, I find that I am back to feeling the way I felt as a teenager and all of my strategies seem to vanish into thin air. When my son is complaining, crying or yelling, I feel my blood pressure rising and I feel like crying or yelling back at him. In short, I am a sponge for his emotions.

More recently I realized that so-called "mirror neurons" may be at the root of this. Mirror neurons are specialized neurons in the brain that researchers believe are responsible for things like learning language, feeling like you are part of the action during spectator sports, and experiencing empathy for another human being. Mirror neurons are why you can feel like a spider is crawling up your leg when you see it happen to someone in a movie and they are also why being around someone in a bad mood can put you in a bad mood too. In my case, I believe that my mirror neurons are making me feel what my son is feeling when he is frustrated, angry or sad, and they are becoming my undoing.

While empathy, especially for my child, is certainly a good thing, I think am going to have to find a way to mediate these mirror neurons in order for me to be an effective parent. Consciously "being present" is the best way I have found to not get sucked into another person's mood. Of course, I will also fall back on my repertoire: don't take it personally, don't make assumptions, and breathe…Also, to remember that this too will pass...

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Giving up something to get something

A new year brings hope for a fresh start and for making positive changes, such as giving up habits or patterns that are not serving you well. It is sometimes helpful to have a ritual around this, perhaps journaling about your goals or writing what you want to give up on pieces of paper and burning the pages in the fireplace.

This year my son is giving up something he likes that has also become a burden, which is being a member of the Keystone State Boychoir, a prestigious singing group. While he loves singing and performing, my son found the almost 4 hour practices every Saturday morning, combined with the extra practices around performances, was taking a toll on him, especially with the added pressure of 3-6 hours of weekend homework.

Still, giving up the Choir was very hard for my son, who had a lot of difficulty giving up something he had worked so hard to join. I finally had to step in and help him make the decision since it was giving him so much anxiety and even led to what appeared to be an anxiety attack one Saturday morning when he realized how much homework he would have to do on Sunday. His free time is very important to him, which I respect; my free time is very important to me!

I recently read a book that really affected me to the degree that I gave a copy to my son's teacher and to my father. Boy Without Instructions, by Penny Williams, is a personal account by a mother about the day to day challenges of parenting her son with ADHD. There are so many lessons from the book that I could not possibly list them all here, but a section on how hard it was for Penny's son to give up baseball ( he kept telling his mother that he was not a quitter) affected me profoundly. As parents, we don't want to be teaching our children to quit, but there are times when something is not serving you well. I believe this was an opportunity to teach my son HOW to quit something the "right way." I wrote a letter to the Choir directors weeks in advance essentially giving "notice" and required that my son stay through the holiday concert (a five hour Sunday which followed a five hour Saturday practice). Also, I made sure the door would be  open for my son to return to the Choir later if he wishes.

So this year I will mourn that my son is not a part of this wonderful group, but I will also be happy on Saturday mornings when he can relax for a change and enjoy the lazy Saturday mornings I myself remember having as a child. I guess you have to lay something down to pick something up.