Dr. Forgan’s advice on ADD/ ADHD

7 Steps to Help Reach His Potential

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As a parent, it’s frustrating to know (and most parents assume they know) that your child is intelligent but yet, in school, does not work up to what you perceive to be his or her potential. Parents become discouraged and call their child lazy, unmotivated, slacking, and other similar words.  When describing her son’s lower than expected grades a parent recently told me the old adage, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”   I agreed but responded with, “You can salt the hay.”  This means we can entice our children to perform better academically but ultimately the best drive to perform must come from within.  So, how do you help your child reach his academic potential?  It’s an ongoing process since your child did not spontaneously arrive at their current state overnight.  Of course, you must believe in your child, encourage and affirm their efforts, provide homework help, and be her advocate.

But how do you really help your child reach his or her academic potential?  Here are 7 steps to help you help your child reach his or her potential. 

Step 1.  Determine his or her potential through a comprehensive evaluation.  You can’t really know how hard to push your child without knowing where your child is at cognitively.  It could be like your car not performing the way you want it to and instead of looking under the hood, you just yell at it.  Open the hood, check out what’s really going on.

Step 2. Based on the evaluation, set up a realistic plan.

Step 3. Specify short and long term rewards as well as consequences.

Step 4. Explain the plan to other key players and obtain their support.

Step 5. Implement the plan.

Step 6. Evaluate the plan weekly.

Step 7. Adjust the plan based on the weekly feedback.

Repeat as needed. Often it’s helpful to have a counselor, therapist, etc. available as a
mentor to help you work through these steps. If you need ongoing help then one of my associates can help you with the process.  I can help you with the assessment to determine your child’s true potential.  It’s not as expensive as you think so call me to discuss your child.

If you like to read books to help you gain new insight, read Rick Lavoie’s book called “The Motivation Breakthrough.”  I especially like his advice on competition in schools.  You might enjoy it too.  He explains that many teachers say it’s good for school to be competitive because that’s how things are in the real world.  Rick argues that is not always the case because in the real world we only compete when we want to.  In schools a child can’t tell his or her teacher, “I’m not doing the class spelling bee.”  They are forced to compete.  He suggests parents and teachers have students compete to do their personal best rather than being the best. He has some other good points too.

 

You Can’t Motivate Teenagers

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…Unless they want for them self.  Face it– adults have motivation problems just like teenagers. A few years back I used to regularly work out but now I don’t. Why? I’m not motivated. I know I should work out. I have incentive to work out. I get punished if I don’t work out (weight gain). It’s not that I physically can’t work out. It comes down to this: I don’t want to work out. It’s my choice.

To be effective, motivation must come from within. In order to motivate your teenager from within they must learn to want it (whatever that ‘it’ may be: good grades, entrance into the college of their choice, achieving a goal, money, etc.). They should have the above components and most of all they have to want it. It is difficult to motivate a person if they don’t want it for themselves. Parents can’t always do it for their teens and if your teen does not want, for example, good grades then sometimes they must hit bottom before they learn to want it. Hitting bottom may be contrary to what you were thinking.

Do you want your teen to hit bottom now within the support of your family or hit bottom when they are in college or out living on their own? I vote for having my teen hit bottom while living at home and I’m around to help prop him or her up. I don’t want to rescue my teen and make it all disappear but I do want her to experience the consequences of real life. Let’s assume my teenager failed a course and had to retake it during summer school. I’m not going to gripe that it was the teacher’s fault and demand a grade change. Nope, she can retake the course and work harder.

In order to motivate my teenage daughter I encourage her and speak positive words to her. I reward the effort and not the grade. I offer tangible rewards. I impose consequences for lack of effort. We keep up with her grades on Edline.

All these components take a lot of work from my wife and me. Our daughter is a high school junior and is an excellent student. We support her but she understands that if she fails, she faces the consequences and we’ll hold out a hand and help her up.

Dr. Forgan is a licensed school psychologist in the Jupiter, Florida and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida area. I can evaluate your child for ADD/ADHD, testing for Palm Beach gifted programs, or a learning difficulty such as dyslexia.

ADHD Children in Palm Beach

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Look around you and you see them. You may not always recognize kids with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD) but are everywhere throughout society. Most of these kids look so normal on the outside that you often walk right by them without even knowing they have ADHD. Research by the National Institute of Mental Health conservatively estimates that over 2 million kids in the United States are diagnosed with ADHD. They indicate this is between 3 to 5 percent of the population. That’s a lot of kids! This is almost the entire population of some major cities such as Miami or Dallas.

Assuming these numbers are accurate, then in a class of 20 students, the teacher can expect at least 2 kids will have ADHD. On a sports team of 12 students there will be at least one child with ADHD. In a church with a youth population of 100 kids, at least 12 students will have ADHD. How many kids live in your neighborhood? There are some kids with ADHD living around you. Boys and girls with ADHD are everywhere.

It is important for you to remember that your parenting skills are usually not your child’s main issue. Being a more skilled parent will not make ADHD go away. Can we, as parents, improve the skills we use when dealing with our kids with ADHD? Absolutely. But being a parent that is too permissive or strict did not directly result in your child’s ADHD.

I often advise parents to not worry so much about the label but to focus on proactive things they can do to help your child. To raise a successful child with ADHD you must start doing things differently from the day you find out your child has ADHD. First, recognized that ADHD is a disability and that even though your child may look fine on the outside, his/her mind is wired differently on the inside. If you take a ‘disability’ perspective it provides understanding.

You are taking a great step by reading this and teaching yourself more about ADHD because it is a key to raising a successful child. Let me know if I can help.

ADHD Girls

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The majority of children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD) are boys.  Boys are generally identified more frequently than girls are because they are more active, always on the go, and demonstrate acting-out behavior more noticeable than girls.  Girls are often overlooked because they are quieter, are taught to conform, and are less likely to demonstrate acting out behavior.  Signals that your daughter may have ADHD or underlying problems include school phobia, low self-esteem, poor organizational skills, messiness, sleep problems, high intelligence and creativity with low academic performance, and messy appearance. 

If your daughter is struggling and you are unsure if there are underlying problems, consider these important questions: (1) Are these behaviors excessive, long-term, and pervasive? That is, do they occur more often than in other children the same age? (2) Are the behaviors a continuous problem, not just a response to a temporary situation? (3) Do the behaviors occur in several settings or only in one specific place like the playground, home, or in school?  If you answered ‘yes’ to most of these questions, consider an evaluation to help you and your daughter.  You should get information and strategies to use at home and in school that can help your daughter.

Some general strategies parents can try with their daughter include establishing a regular daily schedule, organizing everything, and using homework and notebook organizers.  A useful book for parents is Understanding Girls With ADHD.  Your daughter may be eligible for an IEP in the category “Other Health Impairment” if her ADHD is interfering with her school work and her grades are low.  This would help her and you.

Tools for Teens With ADHD

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If your teenager has Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD) then you know your child needs to learn tools for independently living so you stop calling him or her disorganized, unmotivated, lazy, only interested in select interests, or a procrastinator.  I’m a big believer that books can help parents and teens learn new tools for improving their circumstances.

I came across a recently published book called The ADHD Workbook for Teens: Activities to Help You Gain Motivation and Confidence. Consider using this book to empower your adolescent with ADHD.  There are 40 applied activities you and your teen can complete.  A couple of activities are corny but most are pretty helpful and spot-on.  One of my favorites was “Pushing Back Against Your Cant’s” and I believe in this activity because so many teens with ADHD have a pessimistic and negative outlook.  These teens often experience ANTS or automatic negative thoughts that spring up and push down.  The book’s activity helps teens learn to combat and replace the ‘can’t’ mindset with a ‘can’ mindset.  Being able to have and keep a positive mindset is an important skill for success in life.

Using books to help your teen is a natural way to change his or her mindset or outlook.  If your adolescent has a negative perspective they are not alone and this perspective does not go away without help.  The help can come from counseling or books.  Decide which one works best for your teen and start him or her on a new path to reach his or her full potential.