Attention Deficit Disorder in kids and adults

Helle -

"anita" has left the country :(

However, I am working to reestablish a support group for parents who have "special needs" of any type (especially autism, but all special needs). Send me an email through the Doha Mums website and we'll chat http://www.dohamums.com select the option for "other".

Hi Anita,

I'm new in Qatar and is facing the problem finding professionals to help my two children who's both been diagnosed with dyslexia, auditory prossesing problems, and low working memory problems. I'm very interested in joining a support group here in Qatar, and would appreciate any feedback.

Helle

Hi MediaFan,

Was the article published in Qatar? If yes, can you let me know where....

Thanks

A

I just read an article about the loss of recess time for children and how it equals poor classroom behavior. I know ADD/ADHD are issues, I just found this interesting.

Thank you all contributors in this forum.

You opinions are very helpful indeed.

I recently came across neurofeedback therapy for ADD and intend to train as therapist myself to be able to provide my son with the much needed ongoing support.

There is no provider of this therapy here in Doha as yet.

We will be taking an ADD holiday this summer, organized by learning recovery institute from the UK, where my son will receive 20 sessions and I will receive training and certification to practise. There are testimonials that this therapy has helped kids with learning difficulties tremendously.

If anybody is interested in this - please contact me and I will be happy to provide more information.

Wish me luck!

A

I will tell you about my experience with my daughter who was diagnosed with ADHD 18/19 years ago. We were living here in Qatar and ADHD was little known. Also those days internet was non existing or limited. I don't remember exactly what but the only material in those days about ADHD was the printed matter and hard to get to in those days.

Anyway I realized that my daughter was very noisy, nervous, jumpy. Also I realized that when I compared her reading with a classmate was virtual non existing.Fortunately I saw a ad in the GT about a doctor from Dubai doing clinics for ADHD here in Doha. The doctor did not practice very long, but fortunately I was able to have my daughter tested. The more articles I read about ADHD the more I realized that this was something I was afflicted with as well. And this made me more anxious and determined to get help for my daughter as I did not want her to have to go thru the hassles of dealing with this like I had. So I read every available study, article, book etc. The doctor ofcourse offered to put her on Retalin. A friend of mine had son who was at the same doctor and he was taking Retalin. Well, I did not like the negative side effects Retalin was having on him and I tried to find ways to work with my daughter thus avoiding the medication. It was a long road and not always easy. But basically what I did was to have a very strict and regimented life style.

Sleep, this is very important and a lot of undisturbed sleep is required.Specially regular hours

Food, a healthy diet. No junk food what so ever. No sweets. She was allowed a chocolate every so now and then only the Kinder egg (no sugar) No additives in food. No sodas. Fresh juice only & water.

Make sure she went to the bathroom for number 2. If there was a problem there I would prepare a light laxative tea.

Study time, this would be in a noise free room. Even the ticking of a clock could set her off.

TV, 1 hour before going to bed only.

At school. I would discuss the problem with the teachers. Ask them to be considerate and understanding of her problem. If she had trouble understanding something, they should calmly explain it again. Showing impatience would only block my daughter.

Also I explained to my daughter her problem. I explained that I had the same thing, that I could identify with it, and that I did not want her to have the same trouble in school & life. I also explained what we were doing and why.

As I said, the road was not easy but worth it. She is 21 now, at University and the best student in her year. So it all paid off and all the heartaches and trouble were worth it.

So, my recommendation obviously is, take care of your child. Try the methods I mentioned here above. They worked for us. Good luck.

Aisha-Taweela

I have tried to give some honest, truthful, helpful and constructive advice, Veuve Clicquot. I have not tried to insult anyone or to criticize AGibson in any way. (As I have never even met her, this would be a most unfair and unkind thing to do.) However, you have deliberately twisted and distorted the meaning of what I have written, Veuve Clicquot, and this is a most uncharitable and unhelpful thing to do. You have also been rude and insulting to me.

I have not been the first person (and I certainly doubt whether I will be the last) to question whether the behaviour that is usually labelled as "ADD" or "ADHD" really is neurological in its origins. If you read Doctor David Stein's book, "Unravelling the ADD/ADHD Fiasco" or Doctor Thomas Armstrong's book, "The Myth of the ADD Child", you will find that they too have some very serious doubts about whether the kind of behaviour associated with ADD/ADHD is in fact due to there being something physically wrong with the brain and instead they believe that it is much more likely to be due to other factors.

Brain scans for children who have already been treated with Ritalin and other powerful drugs are valueless, as Doctor Baughman makes absolutely clear in his long and detailed article. (Of course Veuve Clicquot makes no mention at all of Baughman's article - or any other scientific research, for that matter.)

As you may have guessed, I have spent many hours reading and trying to find out the truth about ADD/ADHD and it seems to me that the overwhelming scientific evidence leads one to believe that many children who in the past have been given this label may not really be suffering from some kind of neurological inbalance at all. Yes, their behaviour and academic progress are unsatisfactory, but probably we need to look for other causes, rather than the "condition" of ADD/ADHD.

I am a primary teacher, not a doctor or a child psychologist. However, my research on this subject has led me to believe that many eminent doctors and child psychologists would indeed share this view of ADD/ADHD. Well, those are my views on ADD/ADHD and if you bother to do some research, you will most probably come to much the same conclusions.

La Grande Dame

Dear Teacher

You remind me so much of some teachers I have had the misfortune to come across whilst I was desperately trying to find some help for my son. He is not ADHD but has special needs. However, at a certain stage a brain scan was done which proved that his condition is related to a part of his brain being underdeveloped.

I was relieved that I stuck to my gun and did not fall into the trap of patronizing teachers like yourself who somehow feel that because they deal with children, they are the best to know everything there is to know about children. Suggesting that she tries to do research on the internet? I am sure she already does that, but would you have an idea of the kind of energy one needs to deal with a child with difficulties and still try to be the doctor oneself? What makes you think AGibson who is trying to assist her son simply allows him to watch too much TV almost insinuating that she is failing as a mother and is trying to justify it.

AGibson, good luck in what you are trying to do but it will be a long and winding road. I was also fortunate to meet some good teachers along the way but they were few and far in between and those who critisiced the most, would you believe, were those who had never experienced parenthood in the first place. Good luck!

Dear Teacher,

Your theories are based on if's and but's and maybies...

I have been observing my child for over two years now and it was the primary teachers unnequipped to identify problems nor ready to offer help, were very quick to write in his reports the problems with concentration obstructing my son from learning and keeping up with the rest. Thus preventing him from being enrolled in a "good school.

I am not a beleiver in drugs, nor have I ever informed my son or labeled him with any such conditions.

In your post you tend to assume that parents are so unneducated and you are patronizing with your assumtions.

The forum is geared toward likeminded parents who feel as I do, who need support, help and exchange of information and experiences. I had spent long enough time in denial and was recently time to wake up and seek help...

Agibson, perhaps your best course of action, as you try to help your son achieve his full potential, is to do some more research on the Internet. You could start by reading Fred Baughman M.D.'s article "The ADHD Fraud" or read the article by Jenny Hope that was published not so long in the Daily Mail, "The Great ADHD Myth".

More and more doctors are coming to the conclusion that the "conditions" that have been labelled as ADD and ADHD simply have no scientific basis. There were claims that there were neurological differences between those who had ADD and ADHD, but these claims have been proved to be false. Furthermore, quite a lot of "research" into ADD and ADHD has in fact been funded by drug companies that have been making a lot of money out of the sale of Ritalin. It's a bit like asking the fox to look after your chickens.

I am not a doctor and have no medical training. However, I do not think that you have to be a brain surgeon to understand that Ritalin changes the chemistry of the brain. It is a powerful drug and therefore it must be very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the effects of the drug and the effects of the ADD or ADHD (if we were to assume that these "conditions" really do exist). Some of the so-called research into ADD and ADHD is in fact based on studies of children and young people who have already been taking Ritalin for some considerable length of time.

I am sure that you would agree that it's not your child's fault if he or she has chicken pox or measles. However, it is a very dangerous thing thing to say to a child, "You have ADD or ADHD" because this may give a child completely the wrong idea, namely that it is okay not even to bother to try to concentrate in his or her lessons because it is really not their fault that they find Maths difficult or that they find learning their spellings rather tedious. They have ADD or ADHD and so we should not be so mean or so unfair as to expect them to work hard, try their best and do their homework properly. Can you not see that sticking on the "ADD/ADHD" label could in fact be very harmful to your son? (Any child psychologist will tell you that a child's self-image is a vital factor in their social and academic development and this is even more the case with teenagers.) And don't you want your son to become MORE responsible, not less? And how can you possibly expect him to behave in a more responsible manner, whether in the classroom or out of it, if you tell him that he has ADD/ADHD?

It is quite natural for children to take some time adjusting to a new school and a new country. A lot of expat children in Qatar miss their pets, their old friends and maybe even their old teacher. It is also true that a lot of children in Qatar, both Qataris and expats, do not get enough exercise and do not eat a healthy diet. But please, Agibson, let us not be in a hurry to label our children with the "ADD" or "ADHD" label, especially when so many leading doctors now believe that these "conditions" do not exist.

I am a primary teacher, not a neurosurgeon, but seems to me that concentration is a kind of mental muscle. If we love reading, chess, playing a musical instrument or even doing crossword puzzles, our powers of concentration are developed. On the other hand, if we gawp at trash on the TV and have no serious hobbies at all, we should not be surprised when we find it difficult to maintain our concentration when we are given a mentally challenging task. In short, we will indeed have an attention deficit disorder, but it may well be of our own making. But if it is of our own making, might it not also be of our own un-making?

Thanks for that.

The points that you stipulate here are all valid, only when we as parents get passed all those "other reasons" for why our kids are not responding to the "normal,expected levels of concentration over a prolonged time - then we seek help.

I am most definitely against drugs and hence the reason for trying to find alternative ways to helping my son.

In all of this I find it hard to cope on my own, as my husband is also from the old school and is trying to put the condition down to all but the condition itself.

A support group would help all in the same shoes share experiences and help self and others cope better and find alternative ways to treating ADD and ADHD. Thanks

Having been a teacher for more than twenty years, I have to say that I have always been sceptical about the wild and exaggerated claims that have been made about ADD and ADHD. Therefore I was particularly interested to read a number of articles that are freely available on the Internet, all of which say the same thing. Many eminent doctors now believe that behaviour that is usually seen as a sign of ADD or ADHD may really not be due to some neurological inbalance. It is much more likely to have another cause.

Yes, there are children who do not always concentrate in class. This may be due to a wide range of causes, such as not getting enough sleep, an inadequate or unbalanced diet, not enough exercise, constipation and maybe other causes as well. Of course, let's not forget that some children find it difficult to stay focused in class because of problems at home, such as a divorce. For some children, moving to a new country (espcially one where many people do not speak you language) can be a disturbing and even a traumatic event. It also goes without saying that teachers are not entirely innocent in this area. If you give children some work to do that is just too hard or too easy or else they have done it before, it will be no surprise when they strart showing "symptoms of ADD and ADHD".

The standard treatment for ADD and ADHD has been Ritalin. However, Ritalin is a Class 2 drug. It is in the same group as morphine and heroin. There is growing evidence that taking Ritalin over a long period can actually lead to brain shrinkage. This is not at all surprising, given that Ritalin is such a powerful narcotic.

For girls, an excellent cure for so-called "ADD" or ADHD" might be the promise of a pony for her next birthday. For boys, a game of rugby or joining a judo club might be a much better "treatment" than Ritalin.

Yes, let's...I can't wait...I am not so clued in on autism, and want to put accent on attention deficit and hyperactivity conditions, dislexia etc. We shall discuss...Anita

There is a support group for autistic kids - send me an email for more info.

Let's meet up for that coffee soon!

xoxo

I intend to do, and all the more reason to start a support group in Qatar.

Please spread the word.

Thanks

A

Unfortunately we don’t have many special educators or support groups for kids with such difficulties. Did you try posting this in http://www.expatwoman.com/qatar/

I remember seeing some post about Autistic kids.