What is it like to have ADD?? Part 2

This week will end with the last five things that make life hard for the ADD person.  Next week I will be discussing a book by Priscilla Vail, Liberate You Child's Learning Patterns.  Ms. Vail is one of my favorite authors in this area of learning differences/patterns. 

...people are multifaceted, each person has more than one way of learning.  Vail

We will first look at how you can tell if your child is available for schoolwork: physically, emotionally, intellectually.

Ok, now for the last five things that make life hard for the ADD person:

*Some students with attention deficits have a lot of trouble waking up in the morning to go to school, and some have trouble falling asleep at night.  They stay up very late.  Some kids say they can concentrate much better at night than they can during the day.  Anyway, there are some student with attention deficits who have a hard time keeping alert in school.  they get very tired when they try to concentrate.  Sometimes they feel as if they're going to fall asleep in class.  Other times they just feel like yawning and stretching.  Many of them find that they have to move around a lot in order to stay fully awake and tuned in...

*Many people with attention deficits have trouble controlling their desires for the things they want.  They seem to want things all the time, and as soon as they get the things they want, they don't want them as much anymore.  Instead, they want something else.  In other words, they are too hard to satisfy!...

*Some kids with attention deficits have trouble controlling their moods. They seem to vary too much from being very happy to being very sad.  They never feel quite right, and it's hard to predict how they are going to feel from one moment to the next. 

*There are kids with attention deficits who are hyperactive. (enough said, huh?  But, do be aware that there are children that are not outwardly active with ADHD.  The "hyper-ness" is going on in their brains, while their body is somewhat inactive.  I call this "passive ADD" and I have seen it in girls more than in boys.)

*Kids with attetion deficits do not have problems with attention all of the time.  ...their attention is strong sometimes, but it is also often weak.  This means they are inconsistent.  They concentrate sometimes, and then they lose their concentration at other times.  (I see this a lot in the students that are referred to us.  I call it the "consistency of the inconsistency"...think about that for a minute...)

Keeping A Head in School, Dr. Mel Levine

I hope you enjoyed the last two weeks with Dr. Levine's book: Keeping A Head in School. Join me right here on Monday for Priscilla Vail's book: Liberate Your Child's Learning Patterns.  I have a link attached below for easy purchasing. 

Liberate Your Child's Learning Patterns