ADHD Answers

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Survey for Teenagers

Dr. Esta M. Rapoport
Email: estamrapoport@gmail.com
Blog: adhdanswers.blogspot.com
Twitter: adhdanswers

Survey on Teenagers with ADHD

ALL ANSWERS TO THIS SURVEY WILL BE CONFIDENTIAL. NO NAMES WILL BE USED.

Instructions: Please type answers and send them to me on a separate piece of paper than the one that includes the questions. Please answer the questions in as much depth as possible, and email your answers to me at estamrapoport@gmail.com. Feel free to write as much as you like in addition, especially whatever pertains to your emotions and/or feelings. You will be helping the many teenagers with ADHD who have academic and/or social difficulties who struggle to get through each and every day. I am very grateful for your input.

Dr. Esta M. Rapoport

Part 1

1. When and in what circumstance did your parents tell you that you had ADHD?

2. How did your parents describe ADHD to you?

3. How were you sure that you understood what having ADHD meant?

4. How did you feel about having ADHD?

5. How did your parents respond to the fact that you had ADHD?

Part 2

6. What symptoms did you exhibit as a young child?

7. What symptoms do you exhibit or have you exhibited as a teenager?

8. What symptoms did you exhibit as a child that have diminished when you became a teenager?

9. If those symptoms diminished, why do you think that happened?

10. What added symptoms do you exhibit or have you exhibited as a teenager that you did not exhibit as a young child?

11. How have the symptoms or did the symptoms of your ADHD affect your school work and your grades as a teenager?

Part 3

12. How is having ADHD or how has having ADHD been difficult during adolescence?

13. How does having ADHD affect your self-confidence and self-esteem as a teenager, or how has having ADHD affected your self-confidence and self-esteem as a teenager?

14. How do or did your parents respond to you when you experienced difficulties in your teenage years?

15. How do your siblings respond to you or did your siblings respond to you when you had difficulties as a teenager?

Part 4

           16. As a teenager, what have you told your friends or what did you tell your friends
                 about having ADHD? If you told your friends that you had ADHD, how did they
                 respond?

17. As a teenager, what have you told or what did you tell your extended family about having ADHD? If you told your extended family that you had ADHD, how did they respond?

18. How does having ADHD affect your social life, or how has having ADHD affected your social life, specifically being able to make and keep friends?

Part 5

19. Have you been bullied or were you bullied as a teenager? (If you were not bullied,
were you teased?) If you were bullied or teased, what was done to you?

20. What do you think was the cause of being bullied? (or teased-please clarify)

21. How was being bullied (or teased-please clarify) related to your having ADHD?

22. What did you do to stop being bullied? (or teased-please clarify) How did the techniques work that you used to stop being bullied? (or teased-please clarify)

Survey for Pre-Teenagers

After a house fire, I am finally returning to writing my book on pre-teens and teenagers with ADHD. I am copy and pasting here a survey for pre-teenagers with ADHD. If you have a pre-teen with ADHD, I would so appreciate if you would permit your child to complete my survey and email it to me.

Here is the survey:

Dr. Esta M. Rapoport
Email: estamrapoport@gmail.com
Blog: adhdanswers.blogspot.com
Twitter: adhdanswers

Survey on Pre-Teenagers with ADHD

ALL ANSWERS TO THIS SURVEY WILL BE CONFIDENTIAL. NO NAMES WILL BE USED.

Instructions:

Please type answers and send them to me on a separate piece of paper than this one that includes the questions.

Please answer the questions in as much depth as possible, and email your answers to me as soon as possible at estamrapoport@gmail.com.

Feel free to write as much as you like in addition, especially whatever pertains to your emotions and/or feelings. You will be helping the many pre-teenagers with ADHD who have academic and/or social difficulties who struggle to get through each and every day. I am very grateful for your input, and pre-teenagers with ADHD will be grateful as well.

Dr. Esta M. Rapoport

Part 1

1. When and in what circumstance did your parents tell you that you had ADHD?

2. How did your parents describe ADHD to you?

3. How were you sure that you understood what having ADHD meant?

4. How did you feel about having ADHD?

5. How did your parents respond to the fact that you had ADHD?

Part 2

6. What symptoms did you exhibit as a young child?

7. What symptoms are you exhibiting as a pre-teenager?

8. What symptoms did you exhibit as a child that diminished when you became a pre-teenager?

9. If those symptoms diminished, why do you think that happened?

10. What added symptoms do you exhibit as a pre-teenager that you did not exhibit as a young child?

11. How are the symptoms of your ADHD affecting your school work and your grades as a pre-teenager?

Part 3

12. How has having ADHD been difficult during pre-adolescence?

13. How has having ADHD affected your self-confidence and self-esteem as a pre-teenager?

14. How do your parents respond to you when you experience difficulties in your teenage years?

15. How have your siblings responded to you when you had difficulties as a pre-teenager? (No siblings? Do not answer)

Part 4

         16. As a pre-teenager, what have you told your friends about having ADHD? If you told
              your friends that you had ADHD, how did they respond?

          17. As a pre-teenager, what did you tell your extended family about having ADHD? If
                you told your extended family that you had ADHD, how did they respond?

          18. How has having ADHD affected your social life, specifically making and keeping
             friends?

Part 5

19. Have you been bullied as a pre-teenager? (If you were not bullied, were you teased?) If you were bullied or teased, what was done to you?

20. What do you think was the cause of being bullied? (or teased-please clarify)

21. How was being bullied (or teased-please clarify) related to your having ADHD?

22. What did you do to stop being bullied? (or teased-please clarify) How did the techniques work that you used to stop being bullied? (or teased-please clarify)

Saturday, May 12, 2012

ADHD and Anxiety

Do you have a child/adolescent with ADHD and anxiety? Do you teach a child with ADHD who experiences anxiety as well?

Many children with ADHD have accompanying anxiety. You probably are asking, “Which comes first? Does one cause the other? If your child has ADHD and anxiety, or if you teach a child who has ADHD and anxiety, which do you treat first?”

It is difficult to say as to whether or not a child’s symptoms of ADHD caused him to become anxious. Children with ADHD typically do not have an accurate worldview. Therefore, they oftentimes do not realize that the symptoms of ADHD that they exhibit annoy other children. For those children with ADHD who do notice that other children rebuff them due to their symptoms such as excessive talking, for example, they may become anxious every time they need to speak.

In all reality, it does not matter whether ADHD precedes anxiety or if anxiety precedes ADHD. What does matter is which disorder to treat first. I always treat the most acute disorder first, which in most cases, is anxiety.

As a parent or as a teacher, how do you know what brings about anxiety in a child or adolescent with ADHD? The only way to successfully find out what triggers anxiety in a child with ADHD is to observe the child’s behavior and then to anecdote their reactions to events.

The largest yield for success, however, is for the parent and the teacher to observe and anecdote the child’s behavior and then to compare and contrast their observations. In that way, the most salient of the triggers that causes these children with ADHD to become anxious will not only be revealed, but additionally, will be validated.

After the triggers of the child’s anxiety are confirmed, what helps to diminish it? What are some steps to helping the child/adolescent to diminish his anxiety?

1. Help him to become aware of the symptoms of his anxiety, i.e., perspiring, shortness of breath, a desire to run out of a room, trembling, a stomach ache, among many others.

2. Help him to become aware of when he is experiencing the symptoms of his anxiety.

3. If he is unaware of when he is exhibiting the symptoms of anxiety, secure permission from his parents to videotape him interacting with others in his home, or in another setting where he has previously experienced anxiety, so that he will be able to observe his own behavior as he watches the videotape.

4. View the videotape with the child and go over it as many times as needed so that he will ascertain the triggers of his anxiety.

5. Write down a list of the triggers to his anxiety and the responses that he will learn to make as a way of diminishing the triggers that cause his anxiety.

6. Design task cards with the child that will cue him to respond in a way that diminishes his anxious responses to specific events.

7. Teach the child to self-talk his way through the steps that are written on the task cards as a way to diminish his symptoms.

8. Teach him to self-monitor his own symptoms of anxiety and his responses to those symptoms on a chart each time he experiences them. (or as close to every time as possible)

9. Encourage an ongoing conversation concerning the level of anxiety that he feels and most importantly, how successful he is at diminishing his symptoms.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

How can we Help our Daughters with ADHD to Develop Positive Self-Esteem?

I have talked before about the role of self-regulation in terms of helping children/teenagers with ADHD to manage their own lives, so that they can build pride in what they have accomplished and eventually, feel positive self-esteem.

That being said, what are some additional ways that your daughters with ADHD can build upon their positive self-esteem?

As I tell the children with whom I work, each person has specific strengths and “intelligences,” as Howard Gardner has proposed in his theory of multiple intelligences. Due to the symptoms that girls with ADHD experience, they often find it difficult in terms of believing that they have any special talents.

So, what do these girls believe about themselves?

They arguably think about how differently they feel than girls who do not have ADHD. Additionally, and even more upsetting, these girls arguably believe that other girls perceive them as being different.

That being said, it is imperative for parents to talk candidly to their daughters about how they feel about having ADHD, in terms of understanding the impact that ADHD has on their ability to achieve academically, as well as the way that the symptoms of their ADHD affect them socially.

The most important point for girls with ADHD to realize and to believe is that even though they may not excel in math or science, for example, they each have areas in which they do excel. For example, one child may be gifted in music, while another child may be talented in art. Parents should talk to their daughters about how they can become better and better at their unique talents.

Why is it so important that girls with ADHD become aware of their specific strengths and work hard to improve upon those gifts? The talents and gifts that girls with ADHD possess can be used as a vehicle to making friends, especially in high school. If our daughters with ADHD have a niche as they approach high school, they will feel comfortable in knowing that they have a group in which to belong.

Oftentimes, making friends is very difficult for children with ADHD, and may be especially difficult for girls with ADHD. Why is this so? Even though they try very hard to fit in, their symptoms of distractibility and excessive verbiage may cause other girls to rebuff them. As we all know, some girls may exclude other girls whom they see as different, and girls with ADHD may arguably fall into that category.

However, if girls have certain talents or abilities, they may automatically gain acceptance into a group of girls who have similar skills. So, as the summer approaches, talk to your daughters candidly about their distinctive talents. Find a way that these girls can use the time off from the pressures of school to build upon their talents, which will enable them to find a group of friends much more easily when school begins again in the Fall, and as a result, increase their positive self-esteem.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The Buddy System: A single close friendship can ease a boy’s passage through middle school. But what if your son can’t find a pal? (Courtesy of Slate http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2012/03/friendship_tips_for_middle_school_boys_.single.html)

The Buddy System

A single close friendship can ease a boy’s passage through middle school. But what if your son can’t find a pal?

By Joshua Glenn and Elizabeth Foy Larsen |Posted Thursday, March 15, 2012, at 12:45 PM ET

Research has shown that kids with close friendships are healthier, do better in school, and get don’t get bullied as often

Photograph by Digital Vision.

Recently both of our oldest sons switched schools for junior high. While in many ways each of their transitions were smooth, both of us were surprised that these two terrific, well-adjusted, handsome (natch) boys seemed at first—at least to their parents—to have no friends.

We reacted to this information in manners befitting our personalities. Josh gently encouraged his son to pick up the phone and call his elementary-school pals; his son resisted, saying he wanted to move on. Elizabeth, on the other hand, went full-on helicopter. After a call to her son’s adviser revealed the not-encouraging fact that he’d been eating lunch with that same adviser, she phoned the school counselor, who assured her that her son wasn’t roaming the halls by himself and that this temporary friendlessness was in the range of normal, especially for introverted boys like her son. “He’s still most likely putting all his energy into getting to the right classroom for each class, not to mention finding the bathroom,” she said. Needless to say, soon Elizabeth was asking her son for the names of everyone he ate lunch with, much to her son’s disgust.

We remember from our own treacherous passages through junior high how strong friendships can ease the pain of those change-filled years. Josh and his best friend from childhood, Dooley, lived on the same street and attended the same middle school. Though they both made other friends, the two were joined at the shoulder most days from breakfast, which Josh often ate at Dooley's house (where Carnation Breakfast Drinks were an accepted alternative to oatmeal), through dinner, which Dooley often ate at Josh's father's house (where reading a Tintin book at the table was by no means considered rude).

In fact, decades of research have shown that kids with close friendships are healthier, do better in school, and don’t get bullied as often. Friendships also can minimize the negative impacts of family problems and, according to Dr. William M. Bukowski, a psychologist who researches friendships at Concordia University in Montreal, make kids less anxious about trying new things. In one University of Virginia study, researchers placed students wearing heavy backpacks at the base of a hill and asked them to estimate its steepness. The participants who stood next to a friend gave lower estimates than those who were alone.

Perhaps most important, friendships can validate kids in a way that sticks more than their parents’ You rock! praise. “Kids know that parents are supposed to love their children,” says Bukowski. “But when someone shows you affection who doesn’t have to, it has a stronger effect.”

Given these benefits, it makes sense that we parents of boys should see the middle school years as an opportunity to encourage a life-long appreciation for friendship. Unfortunately, for boys growing up today, maturity is mostly defined as being cool and independent. You’re not supposed to need a relationship with anyone. In fact, the very idea of having a “relationship” with a guy friend, much less talking about it, seems icky to many boys.

“You have to shift the whole game and say that maturity should be defined as having quality, mutually supportive healthy relationships,” says Niobe Way, an NYU psychology professor. Way’s recent book, Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection, shreds the assumption many parents make that boys can take or leave their pals. Instead, her research shows that boys actually love their guy friends, and have the instinctive intelligence to be able to talk about those attachments. “We think boys are emotional clods who don’t know how to express their feelings,” says Way. “What I hear from listening to boys for almost 20 years is that they have an incredible astuteness about the emotional world. It’s not just that they can say they love a friend, but they can say things with more nuance, like ‘I can act like I’m mad but I’m really hurt.’ ”

Unfortunately, according to Way and other researchers, intimacy between boys vanishes as they progress through high school, in part because many boys this age are afraid of acting in a way that makes them seem girlish or gay. (Jocks, on the other hand, can openly show affection with their guy friends—especially on the playing field—because their popularity and status as manly men insulates them from being harassed.) It’s a loss that the boys Way interviewed mourn intensely and still grieve as adults. Since publishing her book, Way says she’s been surprised by all the letters she’s received from grown men telling her how much they missed their own boyhood chums.

The loss of close-knit guy friendships in middle school may lead to more than loneliness. “If you live in a culture in which the definition of manhood is independence and autonomy and where we aren’t valuing our social and emotional sides,” asks Way, “is it so surprising that we have this culture of bullying and cyberbullying and people being so brutal to each other?”

We agree. But encouraging authentic relationships at a time of life when kids just want to fit in is no small challenge. Here are a few friendship-encouraging strategies recommended by experts—and that would possibly be recommended by our sons, if they were ever willing to talk about this.

Don’t confuse popularity with friendship. If your son has one friend in whom he can confide, and who he trusts won’t talk behind his back, that’s all he needs. Research shows that to get all the benefits of friendship, one is the magic number. Don’t crusade for him to acquire friends the way he used to collect Pokémon cards.

Don’t freak out if your son doesn’t have friends from time to time. In his study of 350 kids, Bukowksi found that every single one went through a period when he had no friends. “There is going to be turnover in friendships,” says Bukowski. “These downtimes are a chance for parents to encourage the importance of relationships and take stock.” And so …

Talk about friendship. Even though most boys don’t want to have a heavy sit-down about their buddies, you can still talk about the importance of friendship in a way that will get your point across. Bukowski and Way both suggest talking about your own friendships: how much they mean to you; what disappoints you. Just don’t overshare! A simple, “I really care about my friendship with Mike and it bums me out when he doesn’t return my emails” will do. Elizabeth had great success recently when she told her sons that a friend is someone who can keep your secrets and doesn’t treat you well one day and then turn on you the next. Both of her sons told her which boys they knew who fit this description. And then they also were able to say which kids didn’t and how it makes them feel when that happens.

Give him a chance to bond over things he loves. You can’t stage-manage a middle schooler’s friendships they way you could when he was in elementary school. But you can provide boys with opportunities to do things with kids who share their interests—filmmaking classes, batting practice, hip-hop. But don’t think that just because your kid has met another LEGO robotics nut that your work is done. “One of the challenges for middle school boys is to change their friendship relationships from being activity based into experiences that are more relational,” says Bukowski. “If a 7^th grade boy is playing basketball together with his friends, he should be aware that he shouldn’t gloat about it if he’s better than his friend. Boys who are friends compete with each other, but they can manage that competition.” If your son has a hard time not lording his greatness over others, Bukowski recommends watching the ESPN TV show Pardon the Interruption, which pits two sports reporters against each other to hash out the issues of the day. “They fight about everything,” he says. “But it never becomes personal. You always have the sense that they love each other.”

And how, over a year later, have our boys fared? Elizabeth’s son did make friends at his new school while also staying close to a few guys he’s known since he was little. He’s bugging her about seeing The Hunger Games with his pals on the day it’s released, is excited about being on the middle school tennis team, and is going to camp with four classmates this summer. Josh’s son took up the electric bass and made friends through his school’s jazz band. He and his friends have co-ed parties, go ice skating together, and never stop IMing. Proving, as is always the case with parenting, that solving one concern just begets another.

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