Having a child with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can be like living with a hummingbird—an energetic, continually moving target. For the parents and siblings of the child who so constantly buzzes around, one needs a healthy dose of humor and patience. Family dynamics became so strained in the love, gratitude, and exasperation cycle that it compelled one Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, Katherine Ellison, to document what took place in her family in her highly praised Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention.
Children with ADHD are provocative risk-takers. Virginia Douglas, the Canadian researcher credited with first spotting the "attention" component of ADHD, tells the story of a young child she studied who responded to her spontaneous hug by giving her a slap on the behind. Douglas, whose own children didn't have the disorder, appreciated the unpredictability of the kids she studied, and their lack of "filters" which made them so often so joyfully expressive.
Challenge and conflict
An avid researcher, Ellison has noted: "In many cases having someone in your family with ADHD means that there are going to be more conflicts. One reason for this is that people with this condition often feel the need to "wake up" their brains; they crave stimulation. One very compelling theory I've heard suggests that in addition to craving novelty, different foods, and adventures, people with ADHD also tend to manufacture conflicts within the family, for instance, by provoking their siblings."
Ellison took on the challenge of finding a solution for her son, whom she calls Buzz, because as her family's conflicts grew more and more intense, she came to the point of feeling she had only three choices: He would go to boarding school. She would go AWOL. Or they would collaborate to find new ways to live more peacefully together.
Ellison, a former foreign correspondent, who has been taken hostage by Mexican peasants, arrested by Cuban police, tear-gassed in Panama, and chased by killer bees, came to believe that the challenge of arriving at a reasonably normal family life was one of her toughest assignments. But in the midst of it all she found coping mechanisms:
5 ways to cope within ADHD families, according to Ellison
- Be forgiving—and find a partner who is even more so. "I had the wonderful luck to find a man who is forgiving and patient and who rarely scolds me for failing to live up to my commitments," Ellison says.
- Be grateful that you have in your life a child who is a true charmer—at least some of the time.
- Accept the fact that you must become a super-parent, as Dr. Ned Hallowell, a renowned ADHD expert has explained. There's no way around the fact that parenting children with ADHD means more work, including more teacher meetings, more supervision, and more education. (www.DrHallowell.com)
- Learn to focus on the positive qualities of an ADHD child, especially since they receive so much negative input from the rest of the world.
- Pay close attention to how much stress you are under, and find ways of relieving it, be it through exercise, hanging out with women friends, or HBO.
Broken promises
Much of the research on ADHD family dynamics is not encouraging. At least two studies have found that the divorce rate is 2 to 3 times greater when one spouse or child has ADHD. Research shows that if a child has ADHD it is likely that one or both of the parents will also have the condition.
Ellison believes, "One frequent problem in relationships involving ADHD is that one partner over-promises, and the other feels betrayed. When you over-promise and then do not deliver, your spouse thinks you are unreliable because you'll promise to do something that seemed perfectly doable at the time, but you simply cannot do it all."
A Spiritual Journey
Ellison says the best way she learned to adjust to her particular family's dynamics was to think of it as a challenge to evolve—to become more patient and forgiving, to take things less personally, and to focus on the positive. She is grateful to her son for giving her these gifts.
Resources
Ellison is also the author of "The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes You Smarter." A new e-book for "Buzz" has just been released, with the title, "Buzz: An ADHD Mom's Search for Understanding, Patience, and Comic Relief." In addition, Ellison recently delivered the manuscript for a new book in collaboration with Harvard lecturer and researcher Todd Rose, which tells the story of Rose's life and work on reforming education to make school more engaging and endurable for kids with all kinds of approaches to learning. Find out more on the Facebook page for "Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention," and at www.KatherineEllison.com.
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