Question:
How do you handle the mood swings of ADD kids? Is there a trick to it? Giggles
Response:
> How do you handle the mood swings of ADD kids? Is there a trick to it? > GigglesHere’s info from CHADD, titled Parenting a Child with ADD:
http://www.chadd.org/fact2.htm I find my son’s moods swing less as long as the daily routine/structure is not too disturbed – he really likes to know what to expect. Off schedule – he’s a wild man.
Response:
: Attention Deficit and Spanking Children [deleted] Roy Lessin, the author of "Spanking: Why, When, How" describes his son as "a very active child, on the go constantly." Lessin’s only solution to this was to "spank" with a flexible, wooden rod until he had "broken the child’s Will." This man even whipped his child at age two for not sitting still in church! (What kind of parent would expect a two-year-old to sit still through a long, incomprehensible sermon?! What kind of church would fail to have some sort of age-appropriate childcare available in the basement for its very youngest parishioners?!) I can’t prove it but I have a hunch that Lessin’s boy may have been ADHD. What a completely awful, and completely avoidable, human tragedy! As long as spanking is acceptable parental behavior, there will be parents attempting to spank ADHD out of their child, parents attempting to spank dietary magnesium deficiencies out of their child, and parents trying to spank food allergies out of their child. This is deplorable and it has GOT to stop! Chris
Response:
Attention Deficit and Spanking Children Leo Christie, Ph.D. (clinician, specializing in assessing and treating individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) says that estimates of the childhood *prevalence* of ADHD vary from 1% to 20%. The variation in estimates is according to (1) Definition of ADHD, (2) the population studied, (3) the geographic location and (4) the degree of agreement among parents, teachers, and professionals. So, the *consensus estimate* is that 3-5% of children in the U.S. have ADHD. Prevalence among females is 1-3%, males: 5-7%, and adopted children: 17-27%. Of the estimate of overall prevalence (3% being the more conservative), only 50% are accurately diagnosed We don’t know nearly enough about how many of our children are actually effected by this phenomenon and we have no certain way of identifying all of them. There is no certain way to diagnose ADHD before it has dramatically declared itself via the very dysfunctional behaviors that call attention to it. If most parents spank their preschool children and only half of the kids with ADHD are ever identified, aren’t there a lot of kids getting hit for behavior they haven’t the ability to manage? Of course, I think the estimates are too conservative. I also think, btw, that there are a lot of kids without ADHD who are getting whacked and I think that is wrong, too. But, I intend to focus here on the kids with ADHD, because I think that we might agree about what should and should not be done to people whose accountability is compromised. I think too that the plethera of mysteries about the identification and proper treatment of ADHD make our igorance inarguably glaring. When in doubt, don’t? Dr. Christie says that he expects *untreated* ADHD children to be about 30% below the normal curve of childhood development of self-regulatory behavior at any given age. They aren’t as able as other kids to develop self-discipline. They are more likely to act on impulses, without the regulatory consideration of outcome. They are admitted to emergency rooms 4 times more frequently than other kids. The untreated child driver with ADHD has 4 times more auto accidents than those treated for their ADHD. They are… impulsive risk-takers. These are kids who are most handicapped when rules are numerous and covert and the reinforcement is low (few parents can be "overt" about the violations which will result in spanking). How unfair! They should NOT be blamed for not behaving normally; they are not intentionally *lazy, naughty or unwilling to conform*. Children with ADHD have diminished proficiency in their ability (due to response inhibition) to organize a series of events over a long period of time so as to change the probability of a distant consequence. They fail to learn from experiences. How can spanking "teach" them anything? And, as a penalty, it can only qualify as torture, because it has poor likelihood of achieving anything of value as a deterrant for the child with ADHD. Russell Barkley, Ph.D. (_Defiant Children_, 1987, New York, The Guilford Press) suggests a new look at ADHD and would call it, instead, "Behavior Inhibition Disorder". His reconceptualization of ADHD is that it is an "output problem" (preparing to act, sustaining effort, and inhibiting action), NOT an input problem and, he says, it is an "impaired goal-directed persistence". Who could think that a child suffering from such a condition (1.5% to 2.5% of U.S. children have ADHD and are unrecognized and untreated) has not enough punishment in his or her life and can afford to have a spanking for not behaving normally. These children need less punishment and more positive attention. Shame on anyone who would take the chance of hitting their child, when in fact the chances are 3 to 5 in one hundred (maybe higher?) that they are hitting someone who hasn’t the capacity for "regulation and maintenance of behavior by rules and consequences." These deficiencies are evident in early childhood (more very young children are spanked by the parents who spank than are older children) and are probably chronic in nature." It would seem prudent to recognize 3-5% as a large number and a high incidence (compare the prevalence of ADHD to other chronic conditions of childhood). With the potential for harm to a *large* number in our population of children and the low long-term learning value of punishment, it seems exceeding foolish and risky to use spanking on any child. Do you know for sure that you are spanking a child who does not have ADHD? I hope that this risk seems more "real" to folks than the other evidence we’ve presented so far. I never advocate alarm, but spanking seems to have such low benefit, that, when we compare cost to benefit, the significance of the risk of a high cost seems too great to me. I’m hoping that it will seem too great to you also. To spank a child who can do little to avoid it in the present and can not organize the steps to avoid it again in the future seems to me cruel and torturous. In conclusion, setting aside the subgroup, ADHD, I remind you that all young children display some degree of developmental deficiencies in the regulation and maintenance of behavior by rules and consequences. These deficiencies are most profound in the newborn, but the performance of the normal child (in the areas of inhibiting, initiating or sustaining responses to tasks or stimuli, and adhering to rules or instructions) improves with neurological maturation. Most children, who are spanked, are spanked when they are very young and unable to perform well enough to avoid it or to benefit from it in future behavior. Parents who spank are very likely spanking someone with developmental deficiencies. Normal neurological maturation and mastery in the place of these deficiencies is not evidence that spanking is effective. Spanking is just an extra, unnecessary, unpleasantness that can only make the hardship of any child’s maturation greater. Randy Cox The NoSpan King Page http://www.cei.net/~rcox/nospan.html
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