Dr G's ADHD Chat

The holidays- Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah- can destroy the routines that maintain at least a partial equilibrium and balance in ADHD homes. The changes in diet, guests or being the guests, the disrupted sleep schedules and the travel can all disrupt routines. It is most important to keep all the routines as close to normal as possible. Sleep is absolutely the most important routine to mai...

Humans learn through trial and error. ADHDers may make more mistakes than neurotypicals. What's important is that mistakes are not interpreted as failures or even worse, a reason to quit. It's vitally important for you to teach your child to interpret mistakes as a chance to analyze and learn to improve their performance.

Many parents fear starting their ADHD child on stimulant medication. They fear that it will be a “gateway drug” leading to abuse of stronger drugs. Although stimulant drugs can be abused, ADHDers who use the medications as prescribed are actually less likely to abuse drugs than ADHDers who are not being treated.

Opioids are a serious problem for ADHDers looking for relief from ADHD symptoms like emotional dysregulation and hyperactivity. There are serious interaction effects with opioids and medications used for treating ADHD. There are also serious problems with addiction and death. The recent development of Fentanyl has increased these concerns.

Marijuana, drug of choice for the hippy generation is not now the same drug as it was because research has increased the potency by increasing THC. For ADHDers there are likely problems because marijuana causes difficulties with attention, memory and executive functioning. These are cognitive functions with which already have difficulties. The most common claim I’ve heard for using marijuana by AD...

Those of us of a cerrain age remember Dr Timothy Leary urging us all to”tune in, turn on and drop out” by using hallucinogens like LSD. Like many substances of abuse, there is not a tremendous amount of research. It is widely believed that hallucinogens were dangerous to some people and that they would have a bad trip and never come back to reality. Dr Leary’s contention was that tripping with hal...

Inhalants, such as aerosols and spray paints became popular in the 1970s and 1980s with the “huffing” craze. The craze more or less died secondary to the negative cognitive effects of repeated huffing, but it’s still around.

There’s not a lot of research on ADHDer’s abuse of sedatives. Like for every one they become dangerous when combined with alcohol. Informal views suggest ADHDers don’t like sedatives because they don’t stimulate.

Of all the substances of abuse, alcohol causes the most difficulties for ADHDers. Because it’s easily available, people tend to think it’s not dangerous. Given the ADHDear’s predilection for impulsive, thrill-seeking behavior and poor impulse control, they are more likely to drink earlier in life, drink more per drinking occasion, and have more difficulties stopping.

ADHDers have a propensity for substance abuse, given their impulsivity and impatience. Additionally, they are generally looking for a way to feel better, especially if they haven’t been treated with stimulant medication. Despite many parents’ concerns about stimulant medication leading to substance abuse, it’s the ADHDers that aren’t receiving stimulant medication that are more prone to substance...

Many ADHD families have one spouse with and one spouse without ADHD. Frequently the spouse without ADHD—the responsible, reliable and consistent one—starts to feel like they’ve got an extra child because of the ADHD spouse’s executive function problems. The therapist or coach in this situation will frequently have to remind this spouse of the reasons the ADHD spouse was chosen—usually fun-loving,...

Most ADHD executives and entrepreneurs utilize a coach to help them compensate for the executive functioning problems they have that interfere with their productivity. Coaching - with its goal of maximizing human performance - is ideal for this task. Coaching is also ideal for students, particularly college students. Coaching is also helpful for executives who don’t have ADHD.

In a traditional family in the past, the Mother had the bulk of the responsibilities for parenting the children. Dad was there to teach batting, throwing and fielding, plus some domestic maintenance. Nowadays, the parenting responsibilities are more shared and Dad's role is more important for both boys and girls. Children learn appropriate behavior more from observing their parents than...

While punishment is generally ineffective with ADHD, there are those parents who take it to extremes and want to protect their ADHDer from any negative events in his/her life. This is long term disastrous. Your ADHDer is going to have to deal with a society and an educational system that is not designed for his/her brain. Therefore succeeding is going to require the kind of persistence and resilie...

ADHD looks like a behavior problem, but is a neurotransmitter problem that is genetic. Due to the lowered levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, punishment has no effect on ADHD, but praise is especially effective because it increases dopamine production. ADHDers will make great behavioral changes when praised, so praise is the most powerful tool for parenting ADHD children.

Science has gone from not knowing if ADHD is real, to defining what causes it as a genetic factor that causes chronic low levels of essential neurotransmitters, mainly dopamine. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that allow brain neurons to communicate.

With so many myths about ADHD still believed by many people, there are major consequences for ADHDers. ADHD children frequently develop anxiety and depression and low self-esteem. If the parenting style is too strict, there is the chance of developing an oppositional personality stance.

We had a previous episode about myths concerning ADHD. This episode goes into even more myths and briefly discusses how, though seemingly harmless, these myths cause a lot of difficulties for ADHD families.

ADHDers have a significant problem. They look normal. This causes people to think that their behavior is a result of a behavior disorder. This leads to trying punishment to change the behavior. ADHD is not a behavior problem, it is a neurologic disorder characterized by insufficient neurotransmitters, particularly dopamine. Punishment is not very effective even with neurotypical children, but it i...

ADHD parents should focus on building confidence in their ADHD children. This, combined with resilience, allows your ADHD child to make mistakes and recover.

While ADHD has only existed as a diagnosis since 1987, symptoms of ADHD have been described in medical literature since at least 1780. In spite of this rich and varied clinical history, a number of myths about ADHD persist. In this episode, we will discuss a number of the major myths that are still believed by many people to this day.