An ADHD Adventure...





ADD and ADHD, each can be seen as a curse, a disability, a blessing, or simply an adventure.
Our family has decided to see it as an adventure. Yes, this adventure often resembles a de-railing  freight train, but still, it's an adventure! And like all families with children, we have our good days and our not-so-good days.

I won't go into the long details, but a few years ago we, I, finally admitted, (hubby knew for a long time, I just took awhile longer to admit that he was right) that we have a child who has been blessed with ADHD. Yes, I say blessed, because I don't believe God curses anyone. I believe that we are given the opportunity to take our life and all the baggage, and make something of it, and to show others just what God sent us here for!

I know that each child with ADD or ADHD has a very different life. Some children are much more affected by their add/adhd than other children, and some are far more limited in their abilities than others due to add/adhd or other.

In our case, we have a wonderful young boy, who at 9 years old is incredibly busy, smart, very compassionate, and has an amazing imagination. On the other hand, he has a difficult time sitting still or focusing on school work. He is often distracted by noise, light, movement, or the thought that he might me missing something. He also has struggled with reading and writing for a long time.
Though this last few months he has improved greatly in his reading ability, and now will read...for fun! Previously, it was like pulling teeth to get him to read, and he could only get a few lines in before he was so frustrated that he'd give up. But slowly, we found ways to help him focus and to not have to work so hard to read. We worked, and worked, and worked together to read more and more, until finally he was comfortable reading on his own. Now, after his hard work, and finding a book that interested him, he is reading a large, for him, book and his confidence has soared.

Another area of struggle for him, is writing. He is able to write but has a very difficult time getting thoughts from his brain onto paper, he also has a hard time with spelling which adds frustration. What we have done to help, is when he is going to write something, I often will write, in his words, what he is to write on a small dry erase board. He then will copy that onto his paper. It really helps him get everything onto the paper. Otherwise, his mind is so busy that what he wanted to say, is long gone before he gets it written on the paper.

Today, he surprised me and reminded me just why I love homeschooling. His handwriting has always been rough, another struggle for him. Yet, today he was beginning a letter to his new pen-pal, and he worked so hard to make his writing neat and uniform. His letter looked wonderful! I was so proud of how hard he worked and how neat his handwriting was! I made sure to let him know how great he did. The best part was watching him smile at his own work, and show me each letter that he felt he wrote well. It was nice to see him have such pride in his work.

When children struggle with things like reading and writing, it's incredibly important to point out that which they do well, and to help them see how their hard work has paid off!

In our home, we have re-named ADHD from

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to:

 

          A- amazing ability to  

D- do, see, learn, and

 H- handle all things

 D- differently