My son is starting kindergarten next year.  I am terrified.  I don’t know if he has ADHD or not.  I do know that he is a wonderful, loving, intelligent, amazing kid who still views the world with a sense of wonder I envy.  I’m pretty sure that school will beat that out of him.  So many really, really smart kids end up in my office having been destroyed in one way or another by the traditional educational system in this country.  If you think I’m overreacting, find a way to see the movie “Race to Nowhere.”   I firmly believe that there is a strong bias in many corners of our society against the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of ADHD.  This is terrible and I fight against it everyday.  I could not be further from one of the people who deny ADHD and it’s impact.  However, over the past year or so, I have taken note of several things that are going on in our schools that I find tremendously alarming.  Kids are simply asked to do things that they are not developmentally ready for.  A child who is not ready to learn a given thing or has developed to the point where there brain is ready to manage complex tasks will look like they have a disability.   When I was in elementary school a mere 25 years ago, at the beginning of our societal awareness of ADHD, kids were often diagnosed with ADHD around age 10 or 12 when the demands of school increased.  Now I find many many more kids diagnosed between five and eight.  In many cases, this should be lauded.  We are identifying things earlier and treating them better.  However, I think it is incredibly important to be open to the idea that it is…

People often ask me how I know my medication is working and how I know I will need it forever.  They are especially interested because I haven’t taken a medication “holiday” since the summer after my sophomore year in high school.  The answer is simple.  Every once in a while, a pill gets stuck in the pill container or I get distracted and don’t take a dose when I mean to.  The latter happened today. I will post again shortly on how I manage my meds on a daily basis, but for the purpose of this post all you need to know is that my alarm went off at 11am today.  I was upstairs putting something away and when I came down to take my pills, I must have gotten distracted.  1:42 minutes later, I was Generally lethargic, bored, and tired. I was totally unmotivated to work out (even though it was on my calendar.) I had also struggled to stay focused during a consultation at 11:30 and to use my working memory to schedule a session for next month.  Today was the day that I planned to file my “To File” stack.  I got through my personal stack with great difficulty and quit before I got to the work stack.  And, I avoided making any new folders that needed to be made because It seemed like “a lot of effort.” I ate lunch 3 times, because my brain was seeking stimulation in the form of salty yummy cheesy goodness. I ultimately settled on watching The Following on the DVR, but even that wasn’t stimulating enough so I was playing Angry Birds Star Wars II while watching. At 12:42 I realized I wasn’t medicated and took my pills.  38 minutes later, I mysteriously got off the couch and came in here to…

With a baby due in a matter of weeks and a very very busy couple of weeks for my business.  There are a few things that are helping me keep myself together. Exercise.  I’ve actually been pushing myself harder and going longer.  It has helped me center myself and let go of stress and anger. Communication.  Game-planning with my wife and sharing responsibilities has been key. Making time for social interaction has helped me ‘reset’ myself and not spiral down. Really relying on my list of things to do.  I added a third list for baby-related stuff.  I check them regularly and have managed to be productive through the stress instead of succumbing to it. Not tooting my horn, just hope to share some wisdom.  Hope it is helpful

This will be the shortest post ever.  I have been super busy with new clients, excellent speaking engagements, and getting ready for our second child’s arrival.  As a matter of momentum I feel it is important to continue to post something regularly.  So,here it is… Since we know that exercise produces dopamine and we need dopamine to concentrate, I wonder if our (sometimes) hyperactivity is an evolutionary response to our ADHD.

Last week was my off week from coaching, usually a week to dig in at the computer and do some of the running my business stuff I need to do.  This month, however, I took the week off from “work” to get the house squared away for our second child, who is due in early April. I was building a nursery, reorganizing our oldest’s play area, moving rooms around, buying stuff at Ikea, putting that Ikea stuff together, getting some local kids to move furniture for (with) me, coordinating my mom to come in and paint, etc. etc. etc…  All while not killing anyone, or throwing any power tools out the window.   I didn’t think much of this process in terms of my ADHD until I was discussing it with one of my clients yesterday.  Turns out it was an executive function masterpiece!  I point this out not to “pump my own tires” but to illustrate that it is possible for any of us with ADHD to learn the EF skills to make a huge project like this manageable.  It was not easy or fun, but more or less went according to plan.   I guess the key point here is that THERE WAS A PLAN for it to go according to.  Any minute I spent planning, either by myself or with my wife was saved three fold in the doing of all this. Here are a few highlights that can be good templates for all of us.  In no particular order… I know that transitioning my attention to write stuff down when I’m doing really intensive planning is hard for me.  So, during the planning process I walked around the rooms in our house with a tape measure and my wife had a pen and paper.  Also, at Ikea, I did the…

So… I’ve noticed that many people with organizational issues (with or without ADHD) struggle with the daily or weekly grind of buying the right food, planning meals, and executing them.  I have a bunch of strategies around this topic and though I’d share them with y’all.  Many of them were born of my experience running professional kitchens, but are all super-helpful and super-relevant at home too. Food Shopping: The first point is that you need to have some sort of regularly scheduled time that you do the weekly shopping.  It needs to be a time that everyone in the household knows about.  (Read: deadline to get what you want!) Keep a magnetized list on the fridge that is big enough to hold your whole weeks shopping list on one page. Keep a pen (that writes on vertical surfaces) in top of the fridge or right next to the list. Write things on the list when you realize you aren’t going to have enough to get through the current week and the next week.  (NOT WHEN THE BOX IS EMPTY!) If you go to two different stores like we do, use two pages of the list. Make the list in sections.  For example, produce at the top, frozen food at the bottom.   Even try making it in the order of the isles if you know the store well.  (This really helps with our not-so-great working memory.  It’s nice to go down the list in order.) Have a powwow before the night before or morning of going to the store.  Move round the kitchen or house in a a specific order looking for visual clues of things that might have been forgotten. While making the list decide on lunches and dinners for the week, and buy the right food. Don’t go shopping when you…

I work very hard to keep the distraction monster at bay most of the time.  But, once in a while I let him in to play.  I have had a very very busy three weeks with my business.  I have plenty of work to do today, but none is urgent, and I have no clients.  So when I woke up I spent a few lazy minutes with my son before mom took him to school.  Then I watched a few minutes of Sweden v. Switzerland.  (Olympic hockey.)  Then I chose not to shave and that time… and then some in the warm shower to think about how I should prepare for the zombie apocalypse.  (I know.  I watch and read too much SciFi.)   The point is that this morning was a rare low stress, low pressure, no deadline time.  I managed to find a middle-ground between staying in my PJs and watching hockey all day and diving right in to the office, which would probably lead to me staring at the computer unproductively for quite a while or burning out and being done for the day at noon.   I guess, what I hope you take away from this is that there is voice in your head that will tell you to stay on the couch all day.  There may also be a voice that says, “GO, GO, GO!”  Seems pretty black and white, right?  It doesn’t have to be either extreme.  If the real you is telling yourself that you need a little break, take it.  Come back refreshed and ready to kick ass!

Last weeks Special Ed Post included a link (click here) to the stupidest story I have ever seen.  Apparently it takes local TV news from Jacksonville to top the ignorance of The New York Times editorial page.  And that’s saying something.  I had to write another letter to the editor on this one.  As professionals who deal with ADHD, we have to say something when this kind of garbage is put out there.  Without our objections, this junk is passes off as truth.  

If you’ve followed my blog, I’m pretty sure I’ve posted about how disenchanted I am with the ICF (International Coach Federation) and the accreditation process. In short, it is archaic, nonsensical, exclusionary, narrow minded, insulting, borderline extortionist, counterproductive, and inching toward evil. (At the risk of being dramatic…) Everything about the accreditation process got in my head and made me doubt what I was doing and how. The more I focused on being the coach ICF wanted, the worse a coach I was. I just got a letter of recommendation from a the Mom of a client I recently “graduated.” Well, really I worked with the whole family. They came all the way down from NH to meet me in person a few times and then we transitioned to skype meetings. I’m posting a copy of the letter for two reasons. First, it makes me feel good to be able to show the world what I can do. But more importantly, the lesson I learned was to stick to my guns. When you know deep down you’re right and that you’re doing good work, don’t let the man tell you how to be. As a mother of an adolescent with ADHD, there have been many times in which I have thought “if only” whatever….If only I had realized earlier that something was not quite right with my son’s lack of focus. If only he were diagnosed earlier. If only I had pushed harder when we did realize that there was more to it than his just being “a boy”. The only thing that I feel that we have done right thus far has been to find Matt as an ADHD coach. Previous providers have worked with us, but they did not suit our needs. All too often middle aged women…

One of my biggest pet peeves about anything in life is the ADHD “debate.” The whole idea that there is a debate infuriates me to the core of my being. I’ve never written a post on this because I get so riled up that I often can’t put my feeling in to words. The “debate” really boils down to science vs. not-science. And, on a larger level, I find the portion of our society that is turning its back on science disturbing. Whether it is ADHD, global warming, evolution I struggle to understand why so many people refuse to believe what can be proven by science. Well, there I go getting fired up. Here is a link to a great article that clearly, rationally, and very intelligently says what I would like to have the patience to say myself. (Sorry that’s not a link and you’ll have to cut and paste… tech issues.) Also, take a look at the comments. Some of our leading ADHD minds have very intelligent things to say. But of course there is the predictable ignorance sprinkled in. I have to ask myself what is in it for these people to so staunchly be against helping people who are in pain and can clearly be helped. Maybe more on this later… if I can calm down…

To switch gears and address weed specifically, I’ve had many clients who use it as a crutch for insomnia, anxiety, and appetite (while on meds.) Here’s the problem: It is an inefficient and potentially harmful bandaid for those issues, and it often makes them worse in the long run, while diminishing overall functioning in the short run. Using weed to relax doesn’t take in to account the negative emotional effects of not smoking first thing the next morning. (And, if you wake & bake, you’re in even more trouble.) Plus weed is a depressant. It acts much like alcohol in this respect. It makes you feel good in the short term, but leaves you with some serious neurochemical baggage later. Using it as a sleep aid usually screws up you sleep pattern even more and lessens your functioning for the following day. I have also heard of a recent study that demonstrates that chronic chronic smokers show a 10 point lessening of IQ by decade. I figure that those of us with ADHD need all the functioning we can get. The strange thing is that there are plenty of safe, effective, approved pharmaseutical remedies for these symptoms. Ativan doesn’t make you stupider, but can help you relax. Ambien shouldn’t mess up your whole sleep schedule if taken properly. And appropriate management of you ADHD can help both problems! When confronted with the facts, I’ve had some people say, “well weed is natural. I guess I can’t argue with that. But, snake venom is natural too. I wouldn’t put that in my body. I’ll stick with the Ativan.

I didn’t drink at all until I was about 20. I managed to get through 3 semesters at UMass Amherst having a total of about 4 drinks. I knew I had addiction in the family. Plus, I take an amount of stimulants every day that would kill a donkey. I spent most of my life trying to get myself under control. Then I started cooking full time… I will be the first to admit that I drank too much in my early/mid twenties. To be honest, I had so much going on then, I’m not totally sure how it affected me. I know my body could handle a lot then, but I never considered how it affected my brain. Here’s what I’ve noticed in my mid-thirties. I fell like $#!* the day after I have about 3 drinks now. I don’t drink much anymore anyway. But, I will enjoy some drinks at a party or poker night or when we go out to dinner. I seem to be fine with one or two. But, if I have much more than that, I’ve noticed that the following day my attention and mood are less than stellar. The reason I bring this up is that alcohol and weed, (though I have zero personal experience with weed,) are often false prophets. They can do one thing for us in the short term, but can wreak havoc in the long term. Check out the next post for a bit on weed…