Living With ADHD
By Nana Linda
Having an ADHD child is can be both a difficult and enlightening
experience for parent and child. There are many sites out in cyber space
about this dilemma that my grandson,Taylor and I share everyday. My plan
for this site is to share his thoughts and mine, as well create a links
area to easily access some of the sites I have found along the way.
When Taylor first came to live with us he was 6 1/2 years old
and in the first 6 weeks of 1st grade. He did not even know his alphabet
at that time. The pediatrician thought he might have a chromosome
disorder know as Fragile X, but genetic testing for this proved negative.
I could see sign of ADHD even then, but she felt he needed to live with
us for at least 6 months to make that diagnosis.
Taylor is a happy, bubbly child who is big for his age. He is rather
like a big loveable puppy....excitable, occasionally rambunctious and infinitely
lovable. He has some speech problems with the sound "th" . Ineterestingly
he is way above average in math and significantly below average in spelling
and reading. The discrepancy in these two factors even caused the school
to test him more than once, but all tests showed the same results.
Controlling the aggressive side of his nature is a problem for Taylor.
He reacts too quickly to remember the rules of society sometimes. So as
a result he hits or bites first and thinks about it second. He is very
sorry when he realizes he has taken the wrong route, but the swirl of thoughts
he has to deal with with ADHD make it very hard for him to think about
all the consequences of his actions before he reacts.
Many brilliant people who have become very famous had ADHD or some similar
learning disabilty. Some names you might recognize are Albert Einstein,
Galileo, Thomas Edison, Sylvester Stallone, Mozart, Gen. George Patton,
the Wright Brothers, Leonardo da Vinci, John F. Kennedy, Cher, Whoppi
Goldberg, Bruce Jenner, Gen. Westmoreland, Tom Cruise,
Eddie Rickenbacker, Charles Schwab, Henry Winkler, Harry Belafonte, Danny
Glover, F. Scott Fitzgerald , Walt Disney, John Lennon,
Robin Williams, Steve McQueen, Greg Louganis, Louis Pasteur, George
C. Scott, Winston Churchill, and Werner von Braun, just to name a few!
