Living With ADHD

Research suggests that people with ADHD tend to excel in certain situations versus others because the symptoms of ADHD are likely to change as a consequence of the nature of the situation they happen to be in.

One-to-one situations

Conversely, those with ADHD may manifest more of their symptoms in:

• Group settings

• When they must perform tedious work

• When they must work independently of supervision

• When their work must be done later in the day     

• For children, when they are with their mothers

  Sometimes, or in some cases, these situational factors may have little effect on the person’s level of ADHD symptoms, but they have been noted often enough in research to make such situational changes in their symptoms important to appreciate (Barkley).

ADHD Varies by Setting

Barkley Workshop

Better Here:                           Worse Here:

Fun……………………….……Boring                

Immediate……………….…….Delayed Consequences                     

Frequent………………….……Infrequent Feedback                         

High……………………….…...Low Salience                                             

Early………………………...…..Late                                                 

Supervised………………….….Unsupervised                                      

One-to-one………………..……Group Situations                                                  

Novelty…………………………...Familiarity                                          

Fathers……………………….…...Mothers                                               

Strangers………………………….Parents                                               

Clinic Exam Room……………Waiting Room

Having ADHD isn’t a bad thing; it just means that someone with ADHD’s needs is more specific than someone without ADHD. ADHD may work as a sort of “superpower” in situations that fit well with an ADHD person’s specialties.

For example, Own Beats Athlete tells us that people with ADHD who play sports have certain advantages sometimes.

• ADHD athletes can simultaneously take in the whole court or field – they see everything.

• ADHD athletes can hyper-focus amid competition chaos – that’s their reality.

• ADHD athletes have a lot of energy—they’re the ones with legs in the second half of the race.

• ADHD athletes are resourceful – if there’s a way, they’ll find it.

Everyone has to find a place in life where they excel. People with ADHD have to do the same, but instead of looking at ADHD as negative, it is more helpful to view it as a narrowing of options. Say someone has trouble with a skillset due to a symptom of ADHD—well, cross that activity off the list of possible things to do with their life! They should focus on what they are good at instead of what they aren’t.

Top Ten Facts for Understanding and Living with ADHD/ADD

1. People with ADHD have an interest-based nervous symptom – other importance-based service system (More accurately IDHD/IDD)

• Boredom is kryptonite for people with ADD/ADHD

• The brain and something not interesting = the south poles of two magnets.

• Perform as well in situations they are interested in and sometimes better because of hyperfocus.

   

  2.   ADHD/ADD are developmental delays in the ability in low-interest situations to sustain/focus attention, to inhibit (stop)  responding and to react emotionally appropriately to the situation because the attention and inhibition (braking) areas of the brain (frontal lobe inhibition areas) are smaller and less active (5 to 30%) resulting in a 30% delay in self-control and focusing attention in boring situations.

• Intervene/discipline at the self-control age-(a 10-year-old doing homework or cleaning the room needs to be treated like a six or seven-year-old).

• People with ADHD/ADD in low-interest situations are in a state of sensory deprivation, they need “constant” stimulation, are “always” bored, and if it gets too quiet, someone usually gets in “trouble”.

3. Emotional intensity (many times emotional dysregulation) is as much of a part of ADHD as inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity.   Research shows that the emotional intensity associated with the impulsivity-hyperactivity factor of ADHD in the long term is more impairing.  See our section below about RSD, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria.

• Excessive emotionality responds as well to medication as inattention, impulsivity, and overactivity.

• Emotionality is a significant factor in oppositional defiant disorder, which also responds equally to ADHD medication.

• Emotionality accounts for why children often fire their parents, wish they were never born, say their life is miserable, etcetera when made to stop something if they are hyper-focused or told no. A few minutes later, they may be generally over it and can’t understand why their parents are still upset.

   

4. ADHD/ADD are extremes of genetically based traits (like height and IQ). Hunter traits

• Increases situational awareness (i.e., air traffic controller/combat) (distractibility in a boring situation)

• Able to react instantaneously (i.e., air traffic controller-able to prevent aircraft from colliding; in combat, able to react without hesitation when attacked). These traits in a boring situation, such as in school, are seen as impulsiveness (blurting something out to be helpful, getting out of the seat to help another classmate, picking up trash, or getting a drink of water).

• Able to hyperfocus. (Interesting/exciting situations-ability to mission focus for an extended period of time); often appears to be defiant by refusing to stop what he/she is doing. 

5. ADHD/ADD Performance Varies by Setting (Barkley Workshop)

• High interest

• Fun                                             

• Immediate frequent feedback and consequences

• One-to-one

• New   

                                                                     

6. Find ways to think about ADHD and ADD that help make sense of their difficulties and point towards things to do to make things better. (Metaphors, similes, etc.)

• ADD/ADHD mental focus difficulties are as crippling as poor visual focus in school and jobs. Medication and other practices that increase dopamine are to mental focus as glasses are too visual focus.       

• ADHD is a breaking problem. Stopping and thinking before acting ready, fire, aim, “whoops.”

• A helpful metaphor for kids with ADHD and their parents. “You have a sports car brain but bicycle (tricycle) brakes, and It is hard to win races when you can't stop at stop signs.

• ADD steering wheel problem or a radio stuck on the wrong channel.   

7. ADHD Reframe “Metaphor” of the Hunter in the Farmer's World- "Traits"

• Constantly monitoring their environment (ready to respond to changes in the environment quickly). 

• Able to respond immediately to emergencies such as an emergency landing or rescuing someone in an accident.

• When it becomes hyper-focused (opposing poles of magnets), it is capable of sustained and relentless persistence, such as in a high-speed car chase or in a military mission.

• Enjoys new ideas and excitement about “The Hunt” and is hot on the trail.

• Is willing and able to take risks and face dangers.

• Takes decisive action in many situations.

• The characteristic of paying attention to many things at once in school and other boring situations is seen as distractibility, and hyperfocus is often seen as oppositional defiance or uncooperativeness.

8. ADHD-friendly jobs. Top 10 list. See below.

• “In Career Counseling for People with Attention Deficit Disorder” By Sharon Levine In ADD Success Stories by Thom Hartmann, Underwood Books, 1995 Hundreds of ADD/ADHD friendly jobs are listed.

9. Medication risks and risks of choosing not to use medication.

• Driving- without meds, 3x’s the accident and fatality rate as those taking meds

• Work- Norway- people who take meds as kids have a higher employment rate as adults

• ADHD and Crime.15 studies, 21% To 45% of Prisoners have ADHD, mostly have not been treated

• Substance abuse: Teens who take medications reduce their use of illegal drugs. Children with ADD/ADHD who take meds: half the studies show decreased substance abuse as adults. Lifetime 50% reduction in substance abuse

• Kids who take medication show greater normalization of prefrontal inhibition.

10. Parenting considerations:

Raising a child with ADD/ADHD presents difficult challenges and requires much more energy. Parents of ADHD children have to constantly keep younger children safe and focused, fight homework battles, and often have to spend countless hours dealing with their problem behavior at home and school.  Parents of ADD kids often spend hours with homework and chores battles, as well as dealing with school performance problems. 

A typical 10-year-old with ADHD is able to function more like a typical 7-year-old. This can be conceptualized as the person’s self-control or executive functioning age, and it has implications for reducing stress and frustration for both the child and the parent.  For example, if a 10-year-old child blurts something inappropriate, the guidelines for a timeout would be to spend approximately 10 minutes in the timeout.  If they are a child with average difficulties and with ADHD, the timeout should be adjusted to their self-control age of 7 or, in the more severe cases, should be reduced even more.  In other situations, such as sending your 10-year-old to clean their room, they may require supervision or assistance, as they have difficulty focusing in boring situations and may be comparable to a 7-year-old or younger child.  If they are expected to perform as most 10-year-olds do, the room will most likely not be cleaned, and you and your child will be frustrated and upset. 

Children with ADHD are typically emotionally overreactive as one of the braking (inhibition) areas in the brain is emotional control and regulation.  Almost all of these children react intensely, particularly to frustration and anger, and, because of their impulsivity at these times, they often say what other children think.  This results in them getting themselves in a lot of “hot water,” and parents often have to deal with their own frustration and anger towards these kids as well as intervening with teachers, neighbors, etc., because of their overreactivity.  A helpful way to think about their emotions is that every molehill is treated as if it were a mountain.

ADHD Children will need more one-on-one “quality” time to balance out the negativity associated with dealing with their behavioral issues. Otherwise, the ratio of positive to negative interactions fails to meet the minimum requirement for a healthy relationship (at least three positives to every negative). Sometimes it is hard to “Catch them being good.”