You know its import, don’t you? Or, so you thought. Either way, whether you are a parent, or an educator, you are right. It’s all about a new, or old, phenomenon that is gaining ground everywhere. A case of an entire subculture, without boundaries. What’s more, science, with all its good intentions, continues to feed this myth to an increasingly gullible, or well-informed, public. It has a catchy name, too: Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder [ADHD].
A number of studies suggest that ADHD is a medical malady having a genetic basis. You’d, possibly, believe it. However, if you look at the whole spectrum of its identity, you will think it is all hogwash — a part of a rich techno-mythology. But, wait a minute, and convince yourself — or, you’d be carried away by newspaper headlines that screamed, years ago, that ADHD was linked to a thrill-seeking gene — a gene that is related to the neurotransmitter, dopamine, a brain chemical that, among other things, regulates the need for rewards.
Picture this. The last 35 years has witnessed a kind of ‘controlled’ take-over by the medical establishment of certain domains. Children who were once seen as bundles of energy, daydreamers and/or fireballs, are now considered hyperactive, distractible, and impulsive — the three classical signs of ADHD.
Kids, in the US, for example, who, in times past, might have needed to blow off a little steam, or kick up a little dust, now have their medication dosages carefully measured, and monitored, to control dysfunctional behaviour. Such influences are slowly gaining ground wherever you look, or turn. More so, in several affluent families and/or when both the parents are working, and just don’t have time for their kids.
According to Thomas Armstrong, PhD, a noted psychologist, too much is being made out of the ADHD myth. Armstrong not only challenges the misdiagnosing of millions of children with ADHD, but he also earnestly questions the overuse of psychoactive drugs, like Ritalin, in treating hyperactivity.
To confront ADHD, at the present time, is akin to swimming against the tide, all right. To drive home the point, let’s highlight a palpable example, by courtesy of “Forbes” magazine: many parents now seek to get their children classified as having ADHD, especially in the West, to help them maintain a competitive edge in school, and life. It is a diagnosis, reports the respected magazine, that helps students qualify for more time to take SAT, and other examinations. It also enables individuals, as “Forbes” highlights, to receive special protection at school and work under the Disabilities Act. The trend is catching up with a host of societies elsewhere.
Armstrong strongly believes that many behaviours labelled as ADHD are, in reality, a child’s active response to complex social, emotional, and educational influences. In the process, he offers us a sound prescription: by tackling the root cause of these problems, instead of masking the symptoms of potentially harmful medication and behaviour-modification programmes, parents can help their children experience positive changes in life.
Medication, according to Armstrong, who’s also the author of a fine book, The Myth of the ADHD Child, is not a bad thing for some kids. He says, “Medication is a tool, only one of the many, that can be helpful to some when used with non-medical approaches like counselling, spiritual guidance etc.” His is a clarion call, a quest for putting a wide range of practical non-medical strategies into the hands of more and more parents and professionals, so that every child with behavioural, or attention, difficulties may have an opportunity to reach their fullest potential.
Armstrong’s theme song is based on the wellness model of children. More than that, the psychologist in him is emphatic that ADHD does not exist. ADHD children, he argues, are not disordered. All they have, he avers, is a different style of thinking, attending, and behaving. Armstrong suggests that children who experience attention, or behaviour, problems are themselves at core fully intact, whole, and healthy human beings — not kids suffering from a medical disorder. The best way of helping these kids, he outlines, is not by saddling them with a medical label, and applying a cautiously selected group of specialised treatments, but by providing them with the kind of nurturing, stimulating, and encouraging interventions that are good for all kids.
Armstrong admits that there might be links between the amount of time children spend watching TV, now the ‘index’ of learning disabilities, and ADHD. Add to that computer, video, mobile phone games etc., and you have a good case in hand. More so, when our media-driven short-attention span society has formed a kind of cultural backdrop to the incidence of kids who have trouble paying attention to parental and/or teachers’ instructions.
You need not search the horizon to substantiate Armstrong’s viewpoint. As Matthew Dumont, PhD, a noted psychiatrist, observes, “I would like to suggest that the constant shifting of visual frames in television shows is related to hyperkinetic syndrome. There are incessant changes of camera and focus, so that the viewer’s reference point shifts every few seconds. This technique literally programmes a short-attention span. I suggest that the hyperactive child is attempting to recapture the dynamic quality of the television screen by rapidly changing their perceptual orientation.”
Here goes another example. Jane Healy, PhD, a leading educator and author of Endangered Minds: Why Our Children Don’t Think, points out how our TV advertisers have recognised one of the best ways to capture a viewer’s attention by capitalising on the brain’s instinctive responses to danger. Through the use of sudden close-ups, pan zooms, bright colours, sudden noises, and other attention-getting mechanisms, as Healy elaborates, TV producers and video game designers may be reducing the child’s natural vigilance, or ability, to remain actively focused on events taking place in the real world. Furthermore, since children who are having their thrill and danger centres constantly provoked by TV, video and mobile games are given no immediate context of responding.
This pent-up energy for physical response, as Healy adds, can manifest as overactivity, frustration, or irritability. The inference is obvious: TV viewing is a passive activity. So is computer/video game response — they are limited to ‘sleight-of-hand’ movements on a joystick, or any other manual/electronic device.
There is substantial evidence to support the view that TV viewing can promote aggressiveness in children. Yet, by way of a paradox, TV viewing may also be beneficial. TV and computer/video games connect children to society, and to deprive your child of access to what other children are engaged in, puts them at a disadvantage when they go to school, or play with friends, and hear them discussing TV shows, or video games they have never seen.
So, what is the remedy? Psychologists suggest that you limit rather than eliminate your children’s TV watching and video game play. One hour a day during the school week, and not more than two hours on weekends, would be a reasonable goal for TV watching. Besides, you should, they suggest, eliminate violent programmes from your child’s TV and computer/video/mobile game schedule as much as possible. If you want to watch it, or your child wants to do likewise, sit with them and watch it together, and explain your feelings, while listening to your child’s reasons for preferring this type of programme.
You could, as a parent, do much better too than taking stands. Just allow your child to indulge in ‘self-talk.’ Example: ‘Easy does it, ‘ ‘Keep Cool.’ ‘Behave well,’ ‘Relax’ etc. You wouldn’t believe it. Self-talk represents a process where an individual develops key phrases that can guide them through a complex task, or difficult situation. It is also a problem-solving strategy — one that can be used to help a child form a more positive image of oneself as a learner. Ultimately, self-talk could make quite a difference in how your child thinks about oneself.
Alternatively, you’d also find out what interests your child, and promote a strong physical programme. You need not be a psychologist to discover your child’s personal learning style. The best way to doing it is by providing your child with the opportunity to learn what they like, or do, best. You could, with effect, use good background music to focus and calm your ‘hypersensitive’ child. But, remember that the music you use is soft and soothing — not something that is noisy, or loud.
Specialists suggest some of the great Western classical pieces for children: Mozart, for example. Maybe, you could use Indian classical, or light music to the list. Yet another time-tested idea is: ask your child to visualise by focusing on a special place in nature, favourite colour, toy, sport, or movie hero, or a film. It will have a calming effect. Also, don’t you forget to remove allergens from your child’s diet. Simple reason. What may be ‘eating’ your child could be what your child is eating. Think about it. Have patience. Give time to your child’s difficult behaviour.
You’d also include the following pointers for better results.
- Enhance your child’s self-esteem
- Find your child’s best times of alertness
- Provide a variety of stimulating learning activities, like reading, drawing, painting etc
- Teach your child positive aspirations
- Provide positive role models
- Provide hands-on activities
- Help your child with organisational skills
- Help your child to appreciate the value of personal effort
- Teach your child focusing techniques: for example, simple breathing exercises and meditation
- Give your child choices
- Establish consistent rules, routines, and transitions
- Don’t compare your child with another
- Hold family meetings
- Hold a positive image of your child
- Most importantly, always give rewards after your child has finished doing a good job — never before.
| Instead of thinking of your child as… | Think of them as… |
| Hyperactive | Energetic |
| Impulsive | Spontaneous |
| Distractible | Creative |
| Daydreamer | Imaginative |
| Inattentive | Global thinker with a wide focus |
| Unpredictable | Flexible |
| Argumentative | Independent |
| Stubborn | Committed |
| Irritable | Sensitive |
| Aggressive | Assertive |
| ADHD disordered | Unique |
If you could only achieve this ‘equation,’ or ‘balance,’ half of the battle could be won. For your good, and your child’s good. And, you’ll be more than happy with yourself, and your kid. But, it isn’t easy, though. Because, the ‘linkage’ is not just a ‘balance-wheel’ of convenience related to control, or environment. It has got to it something more than conventional wisdom — a channel for promoting skills rather than pills.
As Armstrong puts it succinctly, “Remember that a hyperactive child is an alive child. The energies that many kids labelled ADHD possess, represent a valuable natural resource that, when properly channelled, can really make a difference in the world.” Maybe, you’d recall an old paradigm, a simile: an allegory, that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a great mind, had visualised, long before one could have conjured a whole, new field entirely devoted to the study of the human mind. “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you will help them to become what they are capable of being.” It’s ditto, for ADHD kids.
The big question is — are parents, teachers, and others, listening, and willing, as it were, to taking the ADHD ‘bull’ by its horns?
— First published in India First
