One of the hardest things to cope with as the parent of an ADHD is being judged by others. Everyone thinks we're slacker parents who can't be bothered to discipline our children. We feel the stares and glares as we drag an eight-year-old through the store, screaming because he isn't getting what he wants or because we're screaming at him for some misdeed. Other parents don't arrange playdates because our child is too aggressive and confrontational. Sometimes even those closest to us, our spouses, parents, in-laws, and other relatives are full of criticism and unhelpful advice. How often have I heard the condescending, "She just doesn't listen to you, does she?" implying that it's all my fault.
I have only one way to cope with judgment and those who are judgmental and critical. In the friendliest way possible, I simply don't care what others think of me. My daughter and I make spectacles of ourselves on public so frequently that I lack the emotional energy to care. I get hostile, disapproving looks and comments, and I just tell myself, "I wish you well, but I don't care what you think of me." This is not easy, especially since I've really learned to appreciate the sympathetic, encouraging responses I get from total strangers. Of course, I want to be well thought of--I've just learned not to count on it. I let others keep their criticisms and focus my attention where it needs to be--on my child.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Help for ADHD and Learning Disabilities
I am existing from one hopeful possibility to another. I suppose it's natural to cling to possible solutions when you're wrestling with a knotty problem. The latest focus of my optimism is the Shedd Academy, located in Mayfield, Ky. The Shedd Academy specializes in educating children with dyslexia and ADD, with remarkable success.
I spoke to the friendly, helpful lady who answered the phone at length as I inquired about resources for learning materials and curricula to teach dyslexic children the fundamentals of reading and math. The materials available are only to those who have been trained to use them, and however inconvenient this may be to me personally, it is reassuring to know that I could be trained to supplement my child's education if I had to.
My husband is naturally assuming the role of resident skeptic. He didn't grow up with a sibling who struggled with reading and thought her father drove an Avon car. (It was a Chevy Nova.) He didn't watch her trace her spelling words on sandpaper and learn cursive without learning to print as part of what was known as the Shedd Method. He know her when she was mainstreamed in fifth grade reading on the high school level and doing eighth grade math. It's good that he plays devil's advocate. I need the balance.
I don't know of this is one of the solutions to helping my child learn, but I am certainly going to find out.
I spoke to the friendly, helpful lady who answered the phone at length as I inquired about resources for learning materials and curricula to teach dyslexic children the fundamentals of reading and math. The materials available are only to those who have been trained to use them, and however inconvenient this may be to me personally, it is reassuring to know that I could be trained to supplement my child's education if I had to.
My husband is naturally assuming the role of resident skeptic. He didn't grow up with a sibling who struggled with reading and thought her father drove an Avon car. (It was a Chevy Nova.) He didn't watch her trace her spelling words on sandpaper and learn cursive without learning to print as part of what was known as the Shedd Method. He know her when she was mainstreamed in fifth grade reading on the high school level and doing eighth grade math. It's good that he plays devil's advocate. I need the balance.
I don't know of this is one of the solutions to helping my child learn, but I am certainly going to find out.
Keeping Your Peace of Mind
When you have a child who insists on doing the opposite of what you suggest (unless it involves sweets), who responds to firm commands with a wild, "No! Never!" and a mad dash in the opposite direction, who pours your shampoo into the bath, you begin to wonder about your peace of mind. Add that to your constant yelling and threats of punishment, mix in a raging dose of sibling rivalry, and you're wondering if you ever had any peace of mind to begin with.
I can only think of one solution at the moment, and that is taking time for yourself. Never mind that you feel guilty leaving your little tornado in the care of anyone else. Take a deep breath and consider who you can call to give yourself a break. Go sit in a cafe or browse in a bookstore, go to the movies, the batting cages, the spa, a museum. Go sit in a quiet church where all you have to do is kneel in a pew with your hands folded to be left alone. Join a book club, a discussion group. Do whatever feeds your spirit and brings you a sense of calm. That's the first step.
I can only think of one solution at the moment, and that is taking time for yourself. Never mind that you feel guilty leaving your little tornado in the care of anyone else. Take a deep breath and consider who you can call to give yourself a break. Go sit in a cafe or browse in a bookstore, go to the movies, the batting cages, the spa, a museum. Go sit in a quiet church where all you have to do is kneel in a pew with your hands folded to be left alone. Join a book club, a discussion group. Do whatever feeds your spirit and brings you a sense of calm. That's the first step.
Monday, October 12, 2009
When Parents Hate Homework
Homework might have been boring in the past, in my childhood. It might have been a burden, something I did only because I had to. But I have never truly hated homework until now. How painful it is to haul out the stack of papers and sit with a child who wiggles and fusses, eyes darting everywhere, insisting that she must color, her boo-boo hurts, that the light hurts her eyes. She grabs the pencil and begins to scribble, not waiting for directions.
She groans at the instructions. Each word she writes is a jumble of consonants, a short vowel word written right to left and spelled backwards, or just the first letter of the word. She writes, "I L sme," and I know she loves our dog, Sammy. Her favorite animal is a G-O-D, written right to left D-O-G. She writes letters backwards, common for a first grader, but the letters are sometimes stacked vertically on their sides in a Tower of Babel.
This is a bright child who is struggling to learn to read, to count to twenty without skipping a number. This is a child who has been sent home from school twice for vomiting her breakfast under the strain of learning in a special education classroom. In a strange way, I am grateful to her. She won't fly under the radar and fall through the cracks. But can she learn?
I believe she can learn. I have faith that she can learn well and thrive in the right academic environment. I just have to find the right place and the right tools to help her.
She groans at the instructions. Each word she writes is a jumble of consonants, a short vowel word written right to left and spelled backwards, or just the first letter of the word. She writes, "I L sme," and I know she loves our dog, Sammy. Her favorite animal is a G-O-D, written right to left D-O-G. She writes letters backwards, common for a first grader, but the letters are sometimes stacked vertically on their sides in a Tower of Babel.
This is a bright child who is struggling to learn to read, to count to twenty without skipping a number. This is a child who has been sent home from school twice for vomiting her breakfast under the strain of learning in a special education classroom. In a strange way, I am grateful to her. She won't fly under the radar and fall through the cracks. But can she learn?
I believe she can learn. I have faith that she can learn well and thrive in the right academic environment. I just have to find the right place and the right tools to help her.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Fourth of July with Feingold
Working the Feingold Program to eliminate artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, and salicylates is as enlightening as it is challenging. We’re motivated by our desire to manage our child’s severe ADHD symptoms, of course, but we’ve gained some unexpected benefit from our efforts.
It really is a lifestyle decision, when I think about. On the Fourth of July, many of us like to barbecue, and we’ve enjoyed many a meal cooked on the grill that our daughter could eat. This year, however, we chose not to cook out. Instead, I decided to go with a Mexican theme and make homemade tortillas and refried beans. It was a brave choice for me. I’m a lazy cook, I might as well admit it, and homemade tortillas and refried beans is the most labor-intensive dish I make besides spanikopita.
The first thing I discovered as I studied the recipe is that I had no acceptable shortening. The popular name brand shortening I had in my cupboard had TBHQ on the label, so I knew my daughter couldn’t eat the tortillas I’d planned to make. I had acceptable tortillas from Trader Joe’s (I also find acceptable tortillas at Whole Foods Market) so my daughter wouldn’t notice the difference. She claims she doesn’t like them anymore, so I wasn’t concerned. Out of curiosity, I checked the Feingold Foodlist and found two brands of shortening I can buy when I run out.
I used several cooking tools to make this dish—the KitchenAid mixer with the dough hook to work the dough, a potato masher to mash the beans, a rolling pin to roll out the tortillas (I can never seem to make them come out perfectly round), and a griddle to cook them. I use the recipes for Refried Beans and for Flour Tortillas from Joy of Cooking. Joy is an excellent resource because the recipes are all from scratch and they don’t call for processed ingredients.
The hardest part is getting started, so I jumped right in and prepared the dough. While I let the tortilla balls rest, I prepared the beans. My husband started the rice in the rice cooker as soon as I announced my intention to make the meal, and he kindly grated the cheese, chopped the tomatoes and avocado for me.
Tomatoes, by the way, are to be avoided in Stage One of the Feingold Program because they are high in natural salicylates. Fortunately my daughter responds well to tomatoes so she can eat them, but in this dish, a corn salsa made with lime juice and cilantro makes a nice substitute for tomatoes or even a nice addition to the dish as a whole.
Cooking from scratch does take more time and effort than preparing convenience foods. However, much of what we make from scratch—from salad dressings to easy cakes—doesn’t take that much more effort since we’re in the kitchen preparing a meal anyway. We’ve gotten comfortable with our style of cooking, it tastes better, and we feel that it’s worth it.
It really is a lifestyle decision, when I think about. On the Fourth of July, many of us like to barbecue, and we’ve enjoyed many a meal cooked on the grill that our daughter could eat. This year, however, we chose not to cook out. Instead, I decided to go with a Mexican theme and make homemade tortillas and refried beans. It was a brave choice for me. I’m a lazy cook, I might as well admit it, and homemade tortillas and refried beans is the most labor-intensive dish I make besides spanikopita.
The first thing I discovered as I studied the recipe is that I had no acceptable shortening. The popular name brand shortening I had in my cupboard had TBHQ on the label, so I knew my daughter couldn’t eat the tortillas I’d planned to make. I had acceptable tortillas from Trader Joe’s (I also find acceptable tortillas at Whole Foods Market) so my daughter wouldn’t notice the difference. She claims she doesn’t like them anymore, so I wasn’t concerned. Out of curiosity, I checked the Feingold Foodlist and found two brands of shortening I can buy when I run out.
I used several cooking tools to make this dish—the KitchenAid mixer with the dough hook to work the dough, a potato masher to mash the beans, a rolling pin to roll out the tortillas (I can never seem to make them come out perfectly round), and a griddle to cook them. I use the recipes for Refried Beans and for Flour Tortillas from Joy of Cooking. Joy is an excellent resource because the recipes are all from scratch and they don’t call for processed ingredients.
The hardest part is getting started, so I jumped right in and prepared the dough. While I let the tortilla balls rest, I prepared the beans. My husband started the rice in the rice cooker as soon as I announced my intention to make the meal, and he kindly grated the cheese, chopped the tomatoes and avocado for me.
Tomatoes, by the way, are to be avoided in Stage One of the Feingold Program because they are high in natural salicylates. Fortunately my daughter responds well to tomatoes so she can eat them, but in this dish, a corn salsa made with lime juice and cilantro makes a nice substitute for tomatoes or even a nice addition to the dish as a whole.
Cooking from scratch does take more time and effort than preparing convenience foods. However, much of what we make from scratch—from salad dressings to easy cakes—doesn’t take that much more effort since we’re in the kitchen preparing a meal anyway. We’ve gotten comfortable with our style of cooking, it tastes better, and we feel that it’s worth it.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Feingold Foodlist
Today, I’m preparing to go grocery shopping. Buying food, not cooking it, is at the heart of making the Feingold Program work. The Feingold Foodlist is the cornerstone of the program, the grocery shopping Bible of those who follow it. I keep my Foodlist in my glove compartment so I don’t have to worry about forgetting it at home.
What is the Foodlist, anyway? Most of the food available in grocery stores is processed with artificial colors and flavors, as well as preservatives to keep it from spoiling on the shelf. Simply reading labels while I shop won’t help me much because food companies are not required to list trace amount of products used to prepare the food. The packaging may claim that the product is “all-natural” with no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives, but if the product is not on the Foodlist, it is not acceptable.
The wonderful folks at the Feingold Association of the United States patiently research all the products in our food supply, and if a company won’t release all of the ingredients used in a product, that product won’t go on the Foodlist. The booklet is divided into categories such as beverages, baking products, deli meat, convenience foods, snacks, and soups. I am restricted to buying only the products that are on the list, but with patience and determination, I’ve become familiar with the list and created shopping habits that support the program.
What does this mean for my shopping excursion, practically speaking? I make a shopping list that identifies specific flavors of specific brands of specific products. I write down which flavors of which brands of soy yogurt I can buy. The same goes for potato chips, cookies, cooking oil, pasta, bread, and deli meat. I don’t have to be concerned about items such as flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and fresh meat. For fresh vegetables and produce, I need only be mindful of which high salicylate items I’m avoiding. My list includes berries, peaches, plums, and peppers, to name a few.
This seems like a lot of effort, figuring out what to buy. Yet all of us make shopping choices all the time. We have certain brands of certain product that we prefer, mostly as a result of advertising. The difference is for me is that the behavior of my child and her academic and social success are at stake.
I don’t rely on product preference as much as I rely on food companies to produce foods without harmful additives. With our growing awareness of the perils of eating American food, I can only hope that food companies will read the writing on the wall and make my job easier. For now, however, I’m relying on the Feingold Foodlist.
What is the Foodlist, anyway? Most of the food available in grocery stores is processed with artificial colors and flavors, as well as preservatives to keep it from spoiling on the shelf. Simply reading labels while I shop won’t help me much because food companies are not required to list trace amount of products used to prepare the food. The packaging may claim that the product is “all-natural” with no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives, but if the product is not on the Foodlist, it is not acceptable.
The wonderful folks at the Feingold Association of the United States patiently research all the products in our food supply, and if a company won’t release all of the ingredients used in a product, that product won’t go on the Foodlist. The booklet is divided into categories such as beverages, baking products, deli meat, convenience foods, snacks, and soups. I am restricted to buying only the products that are on the list, but with patience and determination, I’ve become familiar with the list and created shopping habits that support the program.
What does this mean for my shopping excursion, practically speaking? I make a shopping list that identifies specific flavors of specific brands of specific products. I write down which flavors of which brands of soy yogurt I can buy. The same goes for potato chips, cookies, cooking oil, pasta, bread, and deli meat. I don’t have to be concerned about items such as flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and fresh meat. For fresh vegetables and produce, I need only be mindful of which high salicylate items I’m avoiding. My list includes berries, peaches, plums, and peppers, to name a few.
This seems like a lot of effort, figuring out what to buy. Yet all of us make shopping choices all the time. We have certain brands of certain product that we prefer, mostly as a result of advertising. The difference is for me is that the behavior of my child and her academic and social success are at stake.
I don’t rely on product preference as much as I rely on food companies to produce foods without harmful additives. With our growing awareness of the perils of eating American food, I can only hope that food companies will read the writing on the wall and make my job easier. For now, however, I’m relying on the Feingold Foodlist.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Experiments with Medication
Yesterday morning, my daughter pulled off half her clothes and ran around the backyard drenching herself with the hose. By evening, she had peed on the bathroom floor without telling anyone about it, thrown a screaming fit over her punishment for the morning’s antics—not going swimming, and jumped fully clothed into the baby pool when we went to pick her sister up from the pool. You could say that all of the above behavior resulted from a lack of supervision on my part, but is that the behavior of a typical six-year-old?
Yes, my daughter has severe ADHD, which means that she has a devil of a time sitting still, paying attention, and thinking before acting. For the past couple of years, we have controlled her behavior with nutrition, eliminating artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, and salicylates from her diet. This strict nutritional regimen, known as the Feingold Program, has worked wonders. Ana is not nearly as hyperactive and impulsive as she had been before we started the program, but she still has such difficulty paying attention that it affected her schoolwork. So we decided to try medication.
The first medication we tried had none of the offending ingredients we work so hard to avoid, but it caused alarming side effects. Now we’re trying another med that is only manufactured with artificial colors in pill form and artificial flavors in liquid form. We’re trying it anyway.
Why? Why would we give our child something we know is not good for her? Perhaps the medication will be strong enough to counteract the effects of the dye, or perhaps not. We’ll never know unless we try, and with her academic and social success at stake, we feel obligated to try. Such is the adventure of raising a child with ADHD.
Yes, my daughter has severe ADHD, which means that she has a devil of a time sitting still, paying attention, and thinking before acting. For the past couple of years, we have controlled her behavior with nutrition, eliminating artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, and salicylates from her diet. This strict nutritional regimen, known as the Feingold Program, has worked wonders. Ana is not nearly as hyperactive and impulsive as she had been before we started the program, but she still has such difficulty paying attention that it affected her schoolwork. So we decided to try medication.
The first medication we tried had none of the offending ingredients we work so hard to avoid, but it caused alarming side effects. Now we’re trying another med that is only manufactured with artificial colors in pill form and artificial flavors in liquid form. We’re trying it anyway.
Why? Why would we give our child something we know is not good for her? Perhaps the medication will be strong enough to counteract the effects of the dye, or perhaps not. We’ll never know unless we try, and with her academic and social success at stake, we feel obligated to try. Such is the adventure of raising a child with ADHD.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)