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Learning Problems often blamed on ADHD Behavior

March 08, 2012   admin
Poor Self Esteem and Confidence ADHD Problems

Poor self-esteem and confidence problems must be corrected before ADHD behavior learning problems can be “fixed”!
Many times teachers and parents blame an ADHD child’s learning difficulties on his or her behavior and insist the ADHD behavior must be “fixed” before learning problems can be corrected.  
Unfortunately, this is sort of like putting the proverbial horse before the cart. If you ask a hundred parents and teachers to describe an ADHD child’s behavior, many of us can predict what they’ll say. Just about 100 percent of those asked know a child with ADHD will show:

Impulsive behavior
Poor attention span
And sometimes hyperactivity.

Of course, these are all core symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and they have been drilled over and over into everybody’s brain. Erroneously, we’re told these are the things, teachers, parents and doctors are supposed to look for when a child isn’t learning or cuts-up in class.
Unfortunately, with so much hype on the core symptoms of ADHD, the other more often outstanding and life-altering symptoms of poor self-esteem, lack of confidence, and poor self-image are overlooked or out-right neglected.
It is literally impossible to improve a child’s ability to learn without first addressing … Read the rest

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Underactive Thyroid can cause ADHD behavior

March 01, 2012   admin

An underactive thyroid or hypothyroidism can cause a child or teen to have the symptoms of ADHD, thus confusing the real diagnosis leading to ADHD misdiagnosis.
In the past three months, we’ve evaluated four children and teens for failure to respond to their ADHD medications… Read the rest, only to discover they all suffered from the same problem; low thyroid hormone levels.
Just like me, you might wonder why we saw so many children and teens who were supposed to be ADHD, but instead were suffering from hypothyroidism in such a short time. After taking a second-look at these cases, I discovered they had several things in common.
In each case, the kids and teens:

Were inattentive and had a difficult time focusing
Were making pretty good grades, but teachers and parents thought they were capable of much more
Were thought to be withdrawn, depressed, or shy
Had some increased impulsivity-maybe a little more than normal for their age
Had quit playing a sport or playing with friends because of fatigue or muscle weakness
Had a poor appetite, but didn’t lose a lot of weight
Felt cold most of the time
Slept too much or were sleepy during class or

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Principles of Good Discipline in Children and Teens with ADHD

January 26, 2012   admin

Parents and teachers can use good discipline techniques to improve ADHD behavior.
In a previous article we discussed how parents might employ good discipline techniques to improve misbehavior in their ADHD children and ADHD teens. Once again, let me reiterate discipline and punishment are not the same things. They are actually 180 degrees apart in intent and in improving behavior.
The Latin word discipline literally means to teach, while punishment in both ADHD kids and those who are not ADHD is often defined as giving pain or attaching negative consequences to a particular event or behavior. Unfortunately, more than 75% of parents, caregivers and teachers consider the two words and actions to be the same.
It’s been often said that children learn best when nurtured in a positive manner… Read the rest, not when punished or provided with negative reinforcement! If you pause to think about what things were like when you were growing up, I’m sure you can clearly remember learning better and being able to recall what you learned when you were relaxed, not afraid, praised, encouraged and given that proverbial pat on the back for what you had done.
With your childhood experiences firmly in mind, let’s take

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ADHD Teens and Impulsive Sex over the Holidays

December 13, 2011   admin

Teenagers with ADHD are more likely to have unprotected sex during the holidays because of heightened impulsivity.
Unprotected spur of the moment sex is just one of several reckless behaviors that may end up causing legal problems for your ADHD teen and your family over the holiday season.
This is particularly true for ADHD teens who don’t take their medication regularly or for those whose parents thought they needed a drug holiday from their ADHD drugs and behavioral therapy.  Very rarely do I recommend taking a teen with ADHD off of his or her ADHD medications over the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year’s holidays. Why?
The holiday seasons are now more than ever:

Hyper-stimulating-too much spontaneous excitement makes impulsivity much worse  
Move too fast… Read the rest even for non-ADHD children and teens, often causing more impulsivity than normal
Full of activities such as parties and concerts that are poorly supervised and provide ample opportunity for mischief
Cause teens and adults to let their guard down as all of that good cheer and those renewed and new friendships lead to promiscuitive ADHD teen behavior and risk taking  
Because ADHD teenagers tend to believe and trust in other teens and young adults who should often

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ADHD Treatment: Can Chewing Gum Cure ADHD?

October 18, 2011   admin

When it comes to ADHD treatment even chewing gum can be used to treat ADHD.
Of course chewing gum can’t cure ADHD, but it can be used to treat the symptoms of ADHD. Surprised?
During a radio talk show with Roger and Virginia of The Learning Curve Radio Show in New York last week, this question popped up:
How do you think a child’s learning style affects his or her ability to learn in the classroom or at home?
My answer…
Learning styles, just like learning skills, definitely affects a child’s classroom and homework experience!
Every child has his or her own unique learning style.  Some kids learn best by reading, while others must hear what they need to learn… and some of us need to see, hear and touch… Read the rest what we wish to learn and remember. Many children and teens develop or evolve into their own unique style of learning which may include a wide variety of skills and coping habits.
By the time I was in the eighth grade, I had discovered I studied best by recitation, flash cards, and repetitive writing and by the time of college, was also using multicolored highlighting, underlining and

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Faux ADHD-the New Term for ADHD Misdiagnosis?

October 13, 2011   admin

Is Faux ADHD the New Term for ADHD Misdiagnosis in America?
News articles have recently been referring to things that were originally thought to be ADHD, diagnosed as ADHD, but later discovered to be something else, as “Faux ADHD”. Technically, the term means “false ADHD” or a condition that has been mistaken for ADHD or misdiagnosed as ADHD.
The most notable of these articles are the ones that discuss how sleep problems can cause a child to be inattentive, have poor concentration, and develop impulsivity-all symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder-ADHD.
Medical research has determined children who sleep in the bed with others are at increased risk of showing ADHD-like behavior-learning problems… Read the rest. Why? When children sleep with other children, their parents, their siblings, or other adults, sometimes they do not rest well. Even the slightest movement by the other person in the bed or snoring, talking in sleep, or coughing-clearing one’s throat can cause a child to experience partial arousals or near-awakening episodes.
When we have partial arousal during sleep, it interferes with our normal rapid eye movement-dream sleep and the later stages of deep sleep so much that upon awakening we often feel as if

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ADHD Misdiagnosis-ADHD Treatment: Guilt by association

October 11, 2011   admin

Many a kid or teen has been misdiagnosed as a child with ADHD based on guilt by association.
I’ve often warned parent, educators and other doctors how it’s too easy to slap the diagnosis of ADHD on a child with behavior problems…and how very difficult it is to remove that label once it has been put on anyone.
A child or an adult might be wrongfully labeled as ADHD because:

A learning disability and inattentiveness caused by problems hearing, a vision disorder, a mismatch between learning styles
He or she has a brother or a sister with ADHD…or a father or a mother who was ADHD
He acts like he has ADHD-is impulsive, can’t focus, can’t organize, and gets hyper at times
There is nothing else that seems to explain his or her behavior
He or she is friends with a person who is ADHD.

There is great danger in assuming a child is ADHD just because he or she has one of the above…just labeling a child, teen or adult with ADHD can damage their potential for success in life. Mislabeling a child as ADHD… Read the rest can lead to self-esteem issues, classroom bias and discrimination, perception

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