Dr G's ADHD Chat

ADHDers are well known for having difficulties with emotional regulation. In spite of ADHD being a neurologic condition, there are still measures that can be taken to improve emotional control. In this sessions I’ll deal with some of these techniques.

It's probably the fault of our educational system that we all think that intelligence, as measured mainly by memory, is the most important skill for having a successful life. Success, especially for our ADHD kids has more to do with resilience, the ability to learn from mistakes and make improvements, than their grade point average or their standardized score on an intelligence test.

This is a continuation of an earlier episode detailing some specific procedures ADHD parents can follow to help their child succeed and have a happier home life.

To successfully parent your ADHD trial the most important player is you. That is, you have to be able to control yourself and change your behavior to get the behavior you want from your child. You are the only part of the Parent-child dyad that you control. You have to control yourself behavior to influence your child’s behavior.

Being the parent of an ADHD child is, at best, a stressful experience. Parenting is generally stressful, parenting an ADHD child is even more so. In an ADHD family most of the attention goes to the child and the parents needs are often ignored. I’m going to cover the basics of stress management for all you ADHD parents.

Family is always important when raising children. It is especially important when raising a child with ADHD. Family is where an ADHD child starts to develop self-acceptance and resilience. It is also where organization and structure are taught. ADHDers have trouble with executive functioning so it is important that they learn good executive habits in the home.

In this internet era, anyone with an opinion can broadcast it to the world. Those of us on the receiving end have to be able to determine if this opinion is true. In this recent political situation with its “tell the same lie until they believe it” mentality, it’s even more important that we are able to determine truth from opinion or outright lie. Fortunately, science has always been focused on d...

The House and Human Services department under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently issued a report on ADHD that appears poised to radically change treatment options and thoroughly confuse the whole area of ADHD. This is an amazingly sophomoric report put together by people who had a certain point of view they wanted to support - or they were so inept at interpreting and understanding research that they...

One of the big problems for the ADHD brain is boredom. Unfortunately, many, if not most tasks at certain levels of both education and employment are just plain boring. Neurotypicals just have an easier time with these tasks than ADHDers. There are some strategies that ADHDers have to learn, other than avoidance. I will cover some of the basics of coping with boredom-behaviorally and cognitively.

This is our second show about diagnoses that are frequently seen with ADHD. Some are associated with stress of having an ADHD brain in a society that is largely designed for neurotypical brains and some have more to do with genetics.

ADHDers have a unique cognitive style, but the society they live in is not designed to reward or reinforce this cognitive. This causes a lot of distress, doubt, sadness and frustration. These sometimes approach levels to the extent that they need to be diagnosed and treated. In this first of two parts I’ll cover part of this dilemma.

Many people think emotions are not under their control. I often comment that I could convince people that they can lose 50 pounds in 4 weeks than that they have control over their emotions and can change them. Emotions are mostly trained by home environment. But what has been trained can be changed using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I will cover the basics of this technique—how to use it yourself...

Most treatment recommendations for ADHD recommend Stimulant medication but they also recommend Behavioral and Cognitive behavioral therapy. I will discuss the main features of each of these therapies and how you can help implement them.

All parents of ADHDers know that there are a lot of exaggerated emotions with our children, but where do they come from? Why are they so strong and sometimes seem to be totally independent of anything going on in their lives. I’ll discuss some of the explanations for emotions and why ADHDers emotions are so strong.

In this episode, I’ll be covering 4 trending issues in ADHD- 1. Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, 2. Medications, 3. ADHD vs Autism, 4.ADHD-Disability or Difference. These are all emerging issues in ADHD and they are all more complicated than they appear on the surface. For instance, #4, the question of whether ADHD is a disability or just a difference is hugely complicated. Nobody wants their child...

People don’t pay much attention to what’s going on in their lives, they just react and then forget about what happened. With an ADHD child it’s important to be fully alert to the situations that occur and be able to compare one situation to other similar situations. One of the best ways to do this is to actually monitor the event, pay attention to it, write down observations and compare it to simi...

ADHDers have and emotional regulation problem called rejection sensitive dysphoria. This means they overreact to slights that are real or imagined. This difficulty is likely a result of the emotional regulation problems ADHDers have combined with the 70 or so critical comments they receive each and every day. The responses are typically very strong and frequently surprise family and friends

Psychotherapy and/or coaching and sometimes both are usually recommended for ADHDers. In this episode I’ll briefly review the advantages and disadvantages of both. Psychotherapy is generally recommended for psychopathology (anxiety, depression). Coaching gives the individual more control of the direction of the coaching and the general goal is performance enhancement.

This episode is for all us neurotypicals who married an ADHDer. What could possibly possessed us to marry someone who generates clutter and piles of paper almost instantly. And then they don’t really see it after they’re done with the room they were in. I call the piles “horizontal files” and you better not move anything or your ADHDer will be very upset. They also seem to know exactly what’s in e...

One of the ways to conceptualize the difficulties of being ADHD in a neurotypical world is the Farmer/Hunter dichotomy espoused by Thomas Hartman. He says ADHD minds can be thought of as hunter’s minds needing to be constantly,alert responding rapidly and needing to forget old information to increase readiness for the next situation. The hunter is also constantly on the move. The problem comes whe...

When it comes to finding an ideal job,ADHDers are, in a way, kind of lucky because they literally can’ stand, won’t tolerate and won’t do a very good job doing stuff that bores them. They need work that is fast paced, requires quick responses and decisions, ideally needs some creativity and has an element of risk. That’s probably why so many ADHDers are entrepreneurs, artists and entertainers. I w...

Sports can be very important for ADHD3ers. Exercise offers a natural wat to increase dopamine in the brain which improves he ability to focus and. Sustain attention and also improves self-control and impulse control. Best of al,l sports present an area of life in which the ADHDer is not at a disadvantage. Of course, not all sports are a good fit nor all the different positions in team sports good...

Your ADHDer’s physical development is consistent with that of his peers. However mentally and physically his/her development is 3-5 years behind the peer group. This is a particular problem for parents because your child still wants all the badges of adulthood that his peers are getting. This includes getting a driver’s license, dating, wanting to make their own decisions, experimenting with new l...

Sometimes it seems like life is going to be difficult for ADHDers, no matter Wharton we, as parents do. But ADHDers are not brain damaged or stupid or crazy. They are however,different and have different brains from their eurotypical friends. It’s importrent to recognize that ADHDers have a lot of talents and abilities and they tend to be more successful if they are in situations in which they can...

One of the biggest areas of conflict in the treatment of ADHD is the use of medications. Research indicates that the fastest, most efficient mode of treatment is medication. Parents are somewhat reluctant to pursue this course of treatment fearing that medication is a gateway drug. Again, the research suggests that ADHDers who are not in medication treatment are more likely to abuse drugs than tho...