We hope you will find this page useful, helpful, supportive and educational. ADD/ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit with Hyperactivety Disorder) is very common yet continues to be extreamly misunderstood. So the first order of business is to try to explain it. There are lots of sites that explain it with words well, already. So we're going to try a slightly different approach. Ready? Let's take a typical school day. The teacher instruct the students, both verbally and by writing it on the board, what the assignment is, and they are to start working on it. It's straight forward enough, you get your book, paper & pencil and get to work. It's a good transmition of information, for the "normal" student. Now, let's compair that to how an ADD/ADHD child might be receiving informaion. The teacher is giving instructions, the rythmic tap of the chalk on the board is a little like a basketball being dribbled down the court,
being an observant teacher she notices that one child seems to "not quite get" all of the instructions, she/he goes and rubs the child's shoulder and repeats the instructions, maintaining eye contact. Child tries to do assigned work, but drops pencil on the floor. Have you ever noticed all the different shoes everyone wears? Again the teacher realizes the child has lost concentration. Again, patiently, the teacher calls the child back to the task at hand. Child goes back to work and is doing well. Teacher now calls the reading group over. The child must "shift gears" to reading now. After the group finishes reading, the teacher instructs them to go back and finish their seat work. Chilren go to their desks as the next group goes for reading. On the way back the ADD/ADHD child happens catch a glimpse of a plane out the classroom window. This time however the teacher is busy teaching reading to the other group. The child can not help thinking (AKA - daydreaming) about, "where all those people are off too?" Disney World? "gosh, I wish I could go to Disney World", Washington, DC? "Wow! That would be COOL, to see all those neat monuments and things!". "Wonder where those people are going?" The child is abruptly brought back to the school room by the bell ringing, announcing it's time to go home. Everyone packs up they're back packs and heads home. On the bus everyone is talking about going outside and playing soccer. Our friend isn't smiling and joining in the conversation, this child realizes they have to go home and do not only homework, but the seatwork they didn't get finished - AGAIN. To recap, visually, this is what the last 45 minutes of the ADD/ADHD child's day "looked" like: Pretty busy, rather confusing picture huh?! You see, the ADD/ADHD child isn't lazy, or just not getting it. In fact, it's quite the opposite, they're getting EVERYTHING! But in trying to process the assignment and get the work done, the EVERYTHING gets in the way. The ADD/ADHD child can not screen out the other things going on around them, they absorb it all, and therefore are overwhelmed and can't get ANYTHING done. Ah, but there are places to help these children. There are many many resources! I've listed a few below. The schools are working very hard to help these children and are making great strides. There are ways for parents to help the children stay on task. There are also medication options. These are the "tradiitonal" remedies, however there are many other approaches that have proven very useful. Among them would be natural, herbal remedies. Home schooling. Behavior modification techniques. Just to name a few! For links to resources, please visit my links page If you would like to visit our homepage .or to the main,WELCOME page. We also homeschool. For more information on homeschooling, please go to,Noah's Ark Homeschool
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