Tag: ADHD

November 21, 2014 Book Reviews: Books for Parents, Encouragement, Parenting, Preschoolers, The Joys of Boys, Toddlers Post a Comment

Is there something wrong with my kid?

A friend came to me today with concerns about her nephew. Well, she’s not concerned, but her sister-in-law is. The child just turned three and is, apparently, a bit of a handful. She was asked not to bring him back to the church nursery unless she was going to stay with him. Ouch.

Sis-in-law is now concerned about her child. She’s wondering if he might be autistic.

Now, I obviously have the barest bone sketch of this child, and I am in no way going to attempt to offer a diagnosis. But I did want to offer some general advice to anyone wondering, “Is there something wrong with my kid?”

People who know me know that I hate the idea of labelling a kid. Especially a young kid. Especially an “all boy boy” that may just be nothing more than what I like to call “boy squared.”

[pe2-image src=”http://lh4.ggpht.com/-y-IQyQi17AA/VFLGDNDJaVI/AAAAAAAAFVU/UHj1dDMK0-s/s144-o/IMAG1555.jpg” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/107257479592166177418/20141121?authkey=o7_ybFtLmik#6076136605620988242″ caption=”” type=”image” alt=”IMAG1555.jpg” ]

But sometimes having a label helps you find the resources you need to live in peace with your child. When a parent is struggling with a child, I like to encourage the parent to read a bit about a number of different labels and see if any of them seem to fit the child or if  any of the literature for a particular diagnosis  offers strategies that are helpful with the child.

If you do eventually decide to pursue a diagnosis or professional help, this sort of preliminary research can be really in articulating your concerns to professionals and in guiding you to the right professionals and interventions.

I’m going to recommend some of my favorite books for help with parenting the child that makes you ask “what in the world is wrong with my child?” The books are written for kids with a variety of labels, and if you have a kid that makes you scratch your head or throw your hands up in despair, you might find that one or more of them describes your child and helps you better understand his behavior.

3yearold

Your n-Year-Old. These books (Your One-Year-Old, Your Two-Year-Old, etc.) are classics in child development. They are small, quick reads, and they will almost certainly leave you feeling that someone has been peeping in your windows and watching your child. These books are a great place to start because you may just find that your child’s behavior is completely within the realm of normal. These are not parenting books or how to books, they simply describe typical child behavior. Parents almost always find them very reassuring reads.

spirited

Raising Your Spirited Child. The “spirited trait” will often apply to any child causing a parent frustration. I love this book because it helps normalize the spirited behavior, helps explain the motivation for it, and helps a parent start to value their child’s temperament rather than fight against it. It’s a great place to start for a parent who is struggling. I offer a full review of this book here.

explosive

The Explosive Child. I love this book. I hate the title, but I love the book. This is a really solid, really readable introduction to understanding difficult behavior in children. If your kids seems impervious to time-outs, ‘natural consequences,’ and all of the other traditional advice offered up by parenting books, read this book. It will give you a whole new way of approaching your child’s challenging behavior. The strategies respects and empowers both child and adult. This is a great read.

outofsync

The Out of Sync Child Has Fun. This is the companion book to The Out of Sync Child, the original, definitive “text book” on sensory processing disorder. I like “…. Has Fun” because it is a very practical guide with lots of suggestions for things to do with your child. The first chapter  defines and explains sensory processing disorder, and the rest of the book has super fun, super do-able activities that let you provide occupational therapy for your child at home. As with the “spirited” label, a lot of kids with “issues” will have “sensory issues.” This book will help you figure out if your child does, and if so, what you can start to do about it.

intensity

Living with Intensity. This is a great introduction to gifted children. I find that many parents don’t understand that their uber intense, seemingly scattered, and even destructive children are actually gifted kids who don’t present in the typical “reading-at-age-3” way. It’s worth considering that this is what’s going on with your child.

misdiagnosis

Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults: ADHD, Bipolar, Ocd, Asperger’s, Depression, and Other Disorders. Gifted kids are often misdiagnosed as having one of these ‘popular’ diagnoses. It’s also not uncommon for a gifted child to also have one of these disorders. (Google ‘twice exceptional’ for tons of information on this.) This book gives a good description of each of these disorders, explains why children are often diagnosed with one of these disorders rather than identified as gifted, and helps a parent start to tease out if their kid might gifted, have the disorder, or both. This is a good overview of these common childhood issues. It doesn’t claim that every child with this disorder is gifted, or that these disorders don’t actually exist. It just helps a parent start to sort out what might be going on with their kid.

Okay. That’s enough. If you can even skim these books, you’ll have a much better understanding of what might be ‘wrong’ with your kid. You’ll have some new tools in your belt, and you’ll have a  better idea of what you might want to Google the next time you ask, ‘what in the world is wrong with my kid?!?!’

September 17, 2014 Education Theory, Our Homeschool, Parenting, The Joys of Boys Post a Comment

Using Incentives in Your Homeschool

Yesterday was an agonizing day. I had a certain amount of work I wanted my oldest to achieve. Grueling assignments such as writing 6 sentences and completing a 10 minute spelling lesson. Finishing 5 problems on Khan Academy. You know, things that clearly no reasonable person would ask a 4th grader to do.

There was drama. There were tears. There was eye rolling and yelling. There were threats. And there was googling of schools for kids with ADD.

And I found the school. And if we started eating ramen and selling our blood, we might be able to afford the school.

But I thought, if this school can do it, then it can be done. There are methods they use that I can learn too, right?

I know from my history with this child that he responds exceedingly well to incentives. He used to chew on his shirt. Constantly. I told him if he went three weeks without chewing on his shirt, he could have the Lego Movie video game for the XBox. He never chewed on his shirt again. It was infuriatingly simple. If it was that easy for him to stop, why didn’t he just stop before?

Smart But Scattered, a great book on how to help kids with executive functioning challenges, had taught me that working for incentives is actually an executive functioning strength that my son has. If the price is right, can do just about anything.

Here’s the thing. I HATE incentives. I feel like if you can do something, you should just do it because it’s the right thing to do. It seems to me, that if you can do something for an incentive, then you can do it, and you should do it without a reward.

But apparently, doing the right thing, or just getting it done, is not enough of an incentive for my son to leave behind the incredibly exciting world in his imagination to write 6 sentences about the lost colony of Roanoke. Because sitting in a chair all day really isn’t torture for him. His mind is a fascinating place to be, and it keeps him perfectly well entertained.

This morning he woke up asking what he could do to earn more money. He has finally developed an appreciation for all of the useless crap amazing treasures money can buy him. Like machetes with fake blood and nerf guns and large books from the thrift store that he can turn into secret hiding spots. This is great because when a kid wants money, a parent can generally get him to do things he might not otherwise do willingly.

I told him I’d think about it. I’m a bit of a miser, and I don’t want to just go handing money out like some kind of money fairy or something. I mean, it doesn’t grow on trees now, does it?

It wasn’t long before I’d asked him to do something and he gave me attitude about it. Inspiration. “Every time I have to ask you to do something more than once, you owe me a quarter.”

Ha! See? I’m making money this way, not handing it out.

Later, we were doing school work and he started whining “It’s too hard!” Boom. “Every time you whine about school work, you owe me a quarter.”

I ran down to the basement and grabbed a bag of poker chips and two paper cups. I wrote “Henry” on one of them and “Mom” on the other. I filled the “Henry” cup with 20 poker chips – each worth a quarter. I took two quarters for his earlier infractions.

Because I’ve been trained in such things I know that a strictly punitive system is not likely to be effective for long. So I started offering incentives. “If you write 4 sentences before I come back downstairs, I’ll give you a quarter.” Because I’m a mean mom, I am incapable of a strictly rewards based system. So along with the carrot I proffered a stick. “If you haven’t written at least 2, you owe me a quarter.”

I told him, “Each chip is a quarter. There are five dollars worth of chips in here. You can gain and lose them based on your behavior, and I will pay you on Sunday. Each Monday morning you’ll start out with 20 new chips.” And that, ladies and gentleman, is a glowing example of my stellar making-it-up-as-I-go-along parenting. 

But you know what? He finished everything I wanted him to do by noon. Yesterday, we didn’t finish until five o’clock. That’s right, I bought five hours of extra time with my system. Not bad for 5 bucks.

I will admit, though, that I’m still uncomfortable with the system. I have learned repeatedly that this sort of thing is super effective for my son, but I’ve also read enough Alfie Kohn to feel that this sort of “manipulation” is somehow damaging to my son or to our relationship.

And so I struggle between what I desperately want to believe philosophically, and what I see creates peace and harmony and a happy son in reality.

I’m curious. Have any of you have had success with using incentives in your homeschool? Did it create any unintended consequences that caused problems down the line?

Verified by MonsterInsights