God forbid anything be simple. I'm going to be sprinkling my posts with my latest mission. Once again, it's all about the honeybun. I am, oddly enough, "lucky" enough to be unemployed so I have time to do this. Our beautiful, brilliant girl has been officially declared an ADHD kid. What does that mean? I don't know either, but I aims to find out, pardner. Hence, the new mission of research will begin.
I will be hanging out with my new best pal, Google. I may also have to treat my local librarian to a few drinks before this is over, too. So far, I have identified my quarry. I plan to begin with what our specialist called "executive functioning". What this refers to is one's ability to initiate, plan, and follow through on a task. Think the execution of a game plan, not a white guy in a suit driving a bmw.
I have discovered there are differing opinions on what exactly Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is in the first place. Some are claiming there is no such thing. Personally, I take issue with the word Disorder. It implies there is something "wrong" with my child's brain. I have explained to our daughter, it's a label grownups slap on people when they don't understand your brain. First and foremost I don't want my girl thinking there is something "wrong" with her. This is very important to me. Her brain is just different, that's all.
The specialist explained it this way. She occasionally gets "gunk" on neurological pathways in her brain. Medication can help clear these up. Notice I said "can". A wonderful side effect of us all being unique like snowflakes, not all medications work. It turns out, for those who believe, there are 6 different types of ADHD and each one responds differently to medicine. Now I get to research which kind I'm dealing with.
Mercifully, I was pointed to an author named "Amen" who has done a lot of research on this topic. I will keep you, dear reader, posted on what I find out. There is also some good to come out of this for someone's electronic addiction. When I asked our girl what she knew about ADHD, besides her favorite author having it, she said "My brain goes crazy". I used this chance to explain why too much screen time was bad for her brain. I told her that when you want an overcaffeinated squirrel to calm down, you don't put him with another excited squirrel! She needs to be reminded a lot of how the video games affect her. Whether she really understood that remains to be seen but she has tried to abide by some therapeutic rules we've set up, so far, anyway.
We gave her a list of what needs to get done first before screen time. Stay tuned.......
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