ADHD: learning from our children

Keith Carman – Chief Administrative Coordinator

​“D’oh!”
 
Anyone of a particular vintage hears that statement more than actually reads it. You probably even said it out loud, or your brain said/screamed it.
 
I can certainly think of one particular time—which became many—as I came to a string of realizations, epiphanies and acceptances when I was eventually diagnosed with both a Specific Learning Disability and Inattentive ADHD.
 
For context, I’m firmly planted in Generation X. You know, the group where everyone thought ADD (as it was known back then) only affected young boys. They would whip around the room in a hyperactive frenzy like the Tasmanian Devil and be relegated to a life of stigma as uncontrollable little monsters with few prospects in life.
 
Thankfully, we know better now. A LOT better.
 
Not only do we understand that ADHD affects anyone regardless of age, race, gender, political preference, whether we love or hate pineapple on pizza or any other criteria you can imagine, but we know it includes inattentiveness, distractibility, and impulsivity, not just hyperactivity. Moreover, it can present itself in any configuration of the above.
 
Anyway, back to the point: I shamefully admit that I was one of the aforementioned who had many opinions on ADHD without much knowledge. That is until I had my own child assessed.
 
For years, I refused to believe him when he said that listening to music while doing homework actually helped him focus, not hinder him. I told him and myself that his inability to “get things done” was a lack of trying, laziness, brattiness…you name it; I used it as an excuse instead of admitting my kid “had a problem.” Let’s not even get started on refusing to listen to the pleas of how he was “trying, but it’s just a mountain to me, Dad. I’m more upset with myself than you are with me.” What a load that sounded like.
 
Little did I know that I was the problem. Emotionally (unsupportive) and mentally (blocking instead of removing blocks), but PHYSICALLY (this is really genetic? Ugh…) as well. I love my kid and wasn’t a brute by any stretch. It’s just that with some things, I thought the “tough love” of “hunker down and put your nose to the grindstone” was the right track. Boy, was I derailed.
 
Fast-forward a few years to my “I’ll prove them wrong” moment. “I’ll step in there, do this test and show ‘em all I don’t have ADHD. Sure, when my child was going through the assessment, it all felt a bit too close to home, but I’m an adult. I know better.”
 
Ha!
 
Guess what? Go figure that I have ADHD. Oh yes, and I gave it to my kid. But wait! There’s more! I most certainly got it from…my mother!
 
Did my world end? Nope. In fact, it got a lot better. Attitudes and behaviours started making more sense. Mine AND my son’s. Some things didn’t feel like failures any longer. I just had to look at the issue from a new perspective.

It also helped to get more things done when I could bop along to my favourite tunes. All of these “that’s just me” idiosyncratic behaviours didn’t feel as troublesome when I could pin them down, address them, or realize what was ME versus what was ADHD.
 
Oh. Wait. That sounds really familiar.
 
Darn it. Someone in this house was right all along, and it wasn’t me.
 
“D’oh.”