Receive a Complementary Copy of the ADHD Monitoring System

David Rabiner, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist at Duke University has developed a simple but reliable tool to track how well your child’s symptoms are managed at school.  It provides a simple, user-friendly means of getting objective, behavioral feedback from your child’s teacher about how he or she is coping in the classroom.  Using this tool regularly will alert you to when changes in your child’s treatment may be necessary.  I think you will find it extremely beneficial!  It can be used regardless of what treatment or treatments your child is receiving.  You can request a free copy of this tool by visiting www.helpforadd.com/monitor.htm Wishing everyone a successful school year! Have a great first day!

Encouraging New Results from the Largest ADHD Treatment Study Ever Conducted

579 children ages 7-10 diagnosed with ADHD were studied over a 3 year time period.  The children were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 treatment conditions.  The results of this complex study suggest that children who received intense medication management either alone or combined with behavioral counseling had more positive outcomes than those who received behavioral treatment or community care alone.  Furthermore,  there was also evidence that those children who received medication and behavioral counseling together did better than those who received medication alone.  The most important results from the study is the improvement in all 4 treatment groups between baseline and the 36-month follow-up.  Significant reductions were found in ADHD symptoms, oppositional defiance, and general impairment, while ratings of social skills increased. Rates of other mental health problems associated with ADHD also declined.  This was the case regardless of which treatment group the ADHD children were assigned to.  These results provide an important source of hope and encouragement for children and families dealing with ADHD!  Long term treatment for ADHD works as these children had fewer symptoms, coped significantly better, had fewer behavioral issues, better social skills and continued to make strides!

School Days

Well, its that time of year again.  The kids and teens (parents too!) I know have enjoyed this extra long summer vacation.  But now that we are basking regularly in triple digits more and more kiddos are ready to go back to school.  There are just so many video games one can play before the mind turns to mush and apathy sets in.  The popular refrain “I’m bored….” becomes the favorite family catchphrase.  Its time to get cranked up for a successful school year! For those who have a child with ADD/ADHD or Learning Disabilities I encourage you to utilize the “Back to School” resources at www.additudemag.com. There is a whole tool chest of strategies and guides from meds, working with your child’s school, accommodations, modifications, behavior, social life, and homework/study skill tips. Check it out. ADDitude magazine is an excellent online resource for families. http://www.additudemag.com/channel/School_and_Learning_Disabilities/index.html

I don’t feel very “purple” today

My wife frankly pointed out to me recently that all these expectations to be a remarkable parent can be overwhelming and downright irritating at times.  Hmmm…with a high maintenance preschooler and infant son to care for all day I cannot imagine why she might feel that way?  There are those days when you don’t feel like a “purple” parent; but should you feel guilty?  Intentional parenting is tough and often it’s just a grind.  Weeks or months can go by when you don’t see the fruits of your labor or reward for all your hard work in the lives of your kids.  We need to forgive ourselves, relax, and accept our imperfections as humans when we have one of those days or one of those weeks.  There are those times when we are on edge with our kids, tired, depressed, stressed, not so patient, and not the loving, supportive parent we want to be.  I make such a big deal about parenting with purpose and can even get a little aggravated when I see people who routinely parent “by the seat of their pants”. However, none of us are going to give our kids that perfect childhood. They will turn out okay.  Living in this imperfect or unjust world with less than perfect parents will give us all bumps and bruises, but your kids will survive and most likely develop greater resilience because of it.

A recent not so “purple” moment of mine occurred this weekend as we traveled for the first time with our preschool daughter and infant son.  (In fact – most of the weekend was anything but “purple” to be honest.) I did not feel like being a remarkable Dad or intentional parent as my son woke up twice in the night crying inconsolable as I fought a terrible bout of allergies myself.  So as not to get ourselves kicked out I ended up taking him out of the hotel (downtown Austin) twice in the middle of night while under the influence of Sudafed.  I understood exactly what my wife was trying to get across in a whole new way.  We also met a lot of interesting people coming in after a night of drinking on 6th Street.

Normal Day

Let me be aware of the treasure you are
Let me not pass you by in quest of
some rare and perfect tomorrow.
Let me hold you while I may,
for it will not always be so.
One day I shall dig my fingers into the earth,
or bury my face in the pillow,
or stretch myself taut,
or raise my hands to the sky,
and want more than all the world, your return.
-Anonymous

(Poem given to me by a friend who today attended the Funeral Mass for Hunter Berry at St Ann Parish in Coppell.  Hunter, a Flower Mound 9 year old, died tragically July 16 while on vacation with his family.)

A father’s love for his son (Dick & Rick Hoyt)

Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 
26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 
miles in a wheelc hair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while 
swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars–all in 
the same day. 
Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him 
on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a 
bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right? 
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much–except 
save his life. 
This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years 
ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, 
leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. 
“He’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life;” Dick says 
doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. 
“Put him in an institution.” 
But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way 
Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. 
When Rick was 11 they too k him to the engineering 
department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help 
the boy communicate. “No way,” Dick says he was told.  “There’s 
nothing going on in his brain.” 
“Tell him a joke,” Dick countered. They did. Rick 
laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. 
Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control 
the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was 
finally able to communicate. First words? “Go Bruins!” And after a 
high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school 
organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, “Dad, I want to do 
that.” 
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described “porker”
who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five 
miles? Still, he tried. “Then it was me who was handicapped,” Dick 
says.  “I was sore for two weeks.” 
That day changed Rick’s life.  “Dad,” he typed,  “when 
we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!” 
And that sentence changed Dick’s life. He became 
obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got 
into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 
Boston Marathon. 
“No way,” Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts 
weren’t quite a single runner, and they weren’t quite a wheelchair 
competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive 
field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race 
officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the 
qualifying time for Boston the following year. 
Then somebody said,  “Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?” 
How’s a guy who never learned to swim and hadn’t ridden 
a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a 
triathlon? Still, Dick tried. 
Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 
15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old 
stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, 
don’t you think? 
Hey, Dick, why not see how you’d do on your own?  “No 
way,” he says. Dick does it purely for “the awesome feeling” he 
gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride 
together. 
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished 
their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 
starters. Their best time’? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992–only 35 
minutes off the world record, which, in case you don’t keep track of 
these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another 
man in a wheelchair at the time. 
“No question about it,” Rick types. “My d ad is the 
Father of the Century.” 
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two 
years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that 
one of his arteries was 95% clogged.  “If you hadn’t been in such 
great shape,” one doctor told him,  “you probably would’ve died 15 
years ago.” 
So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other’s life. 
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and 
works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in 
Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches 
around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every 
weekend, including Father’s Day. 
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing 
he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. 
“The thing I’d most like,” Rick types,  “is that my 
dad sit in the chair and I push him once .” 

What’s Purple Cow?

Seth Godin writes in his popular business book “Cows, after you’ve seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though…now that would be something. Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat out unbelievable.”  Parenting has never been more challenging and truly remarkable families are more and more rare these days.  A Purple Cow family is one where parents intentionally raise their children based upon morals, values, attitude, and character traits they have mutually envisioned their children will internalize.  We are so busy and overwhelmed much of the time that we usually “parent by the seat of our parents”.  Intentional parenting that results in respectful, polite, and well-mannered children is remarkable these days.  It’s practically counterintuitive.  Confident and kind but certainly not entitled.  That’s a Purple Cow kid these days. 

Slow Dance

Have you ever watched kids

On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain

Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You’d better slow down.

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day

On the fly?

When you ask “How are you?”

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores

Running through your head?

You’d better slow down

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,

We’ll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,

Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,

Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time

To call and say “Hi”?

You’d better slow down.

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,

It is like an unopened gift….

Thrown away.

Life is not a race.

Do take it slower

Hear the music

Before the song is over.

-David L. Weatherford