Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)

Imagine you ask your 6 years old son to brush his teeth. As he listens to the word ‘brush’, he starts thinking about a big paint brush he saw with his classmate a few days ago. He remembers the green tree his classmate drew with that big brush. His mind flashes pictures of the colored water that was dripping out of the water colors on the green tree. He thinks crayons are better that way because they don’t need any water. He has a good collection of crayons. The last pack of crayons was a gift from grandpa. Grandpa is wonderful. He had so much fun with grandpa during last holidays. Holidays are fun. What if he could color lots of pictures with the crayons with grandpa? That would be real fun …

By the time he has been busy thinking these wonderful ideas, you've called him three times and you are boiling with anger now. To you, he doesn't listen to you ? he isn't behaving ? he is careless ? he needs to be disciplined ? and so on.

But the fact is he was lost in a world of his own imagination. He had no intention to disobey you. He was behaving to his best. Your reaction confuses him. He wonders what?s going on? What is he being scolded for? He didn't do anything wrong.

That?s ADD ? (Attention Deficit Disorder)

It is a developmental disorder.

Statistics of ADD

3-5% of children are born with ADD. It is more prominent in boys than girls. 50-80% kids carry ADD to adulthood. Primarily, it causes academics problem. The intensity of symptoms might be reduced with growing age. Many adolescents or adults adapt themselves and develop positive aspects of this ‘disorder’, despite carrying some of its weaknesses.

Sub-Types of ADD

ADD has following three broad sub-types:

•     Add-inattentive type
•     Add-hyperactive type
•     Mixed types of the two types

This page deals primarily with ADD - inattentive types.

Click here to know more about 'Add-Hyperactive' type.

Gift of ADD: Positive side of ADD

The words ‘Attention Deficit Disorder’ indicate that it is some serious sort of mental disorder. This word takes our attention to the darkest side of such kids. I think it is not fair. This nomenclature needs to be changed. Kids like this are amazing in some other ways. They have lots of rare positive qualities. They are raw material for geniuses. Click here to find out the positive qualities they are gifted with.

Diagnosis and Symptoms of ADD

There is no physical test to identify such kids. No blood test, no lab test. No X-ray or scanning can detect it. The child looks normal in physical appearance. It is a little difficult to identify ADD kids because they do not create any disturbance to anybody. They are inattentive, passive, quiet and cooperative. Click here to read the details of the diagnosis and symptoms of attention deficit disorder

ADD Vs. ADHD

There are significant differences between ADD (inattentive type) and ADHD (Add with Hyperactivity). Click here to see the differences between add and adhd in an easy tabulated form.

Read more »

Be a good listener

Kids are always on hunt for a good listener, and parents are the best audiances for them. Parents listening to their kids is the most important part of parent and child communication.

Each day children watch, hear and experience new things and they want to speak out what and how they feel about these new things. They find it extremely difficult to hold those little surprises, emotions and experiences within their little hearts. They are over excited to speak out all that.

All they want is a good listener, so that they can pour out all they have in their little hearts.

What if their own parents listen to them? perfect!

But if a child doesn’t get enough opportunity to speak out his emotions and little experiences, these unspoken words, emotions and experience remain unsatisfied, keep steaming up in the little heart and cook something else which later manifests in some other undesirable manner.

The distance between parents and children keeps on increasing … and then we complain of misbehavior.

Most of kids’ complaints dilute just by listening to them. All we need to do is let them speak as much they want and just listen to them patiently with an open mind. This satisfies their sense of importance as well and certainly improves the parent child relationship.


Do parents listen to their children?

Listening is the most basic communication skills, yet most parents are not good listeners. They never think it important to listen to their kids and then complain of their kids not listening to them. They are busy preaching their kids and telling them to do this or that. When the kids want to share their little thoughts, feelings, experiences, these parents find them childish and useless, stop them immediately and order them to do chores or studies.

They are practically deaf to their kids’ inner voice, and behave more like a dictator and less like a parent. All they do is talking and make the child listen, which should be the other way round. This brings complete communication breakdown between parents and kids.

Effect? … This arouses resentment in kids.

Result? … kids misbehave and go out of discipline.

If your child is out of discipline and you can’t understand why, it simply means you don’t know you child enough. This is because you never listened to your child to peep into his heart to see what is happening there. We can’t connect with our kids unless we listen to them a lot. Talking is fun for children and parents need to listen to them.


How to be a good listener

Here are some tips for parents on listening skill and communication with children:

•     Mind your body language
•     Acknowledge kid’s words and emotions
•     Undivided attention
•     Get involved
•     Encourage children to talk
•     Do not interrupt
•     Don’t be in a hurry to finish listening

1. Mind your body language

Remember! Most of our emotions are reflected through our body language. So better we mind our body language. Straighten the skin folds on your forehead, relax facial muscles, eye-brows, and other body muscles. Come close to the child, smile and look into his eyes. But don’t stare so hard that the child becomes uncomfortable. Pat on his back or give him a hug, or touch him affectionately. If you find it difficult, just smile. It makes the environment comfortable for the child. It also adds great emotional value to your communication with the child. Maintain the right body language and look into his eyes. Your body language should show that you are deeply interested in listening to your child.


2. Acknowledge kid’s words and emotions

Mere silence is not listening. It has to be something more than that. Keep sending him messages that you are listening to them intensely. How to do that? Acknowledge their feelings with the words- “oh” , “Mnn” …”, “I see” etc. and do it genuinely. Ask relevant questions. Do not fake.


3. Undivided attention

Remember how did we used to attend a girl-friend or boy-friend in younger days? We focused all our senses on him/her. Everything else was an interruption.

That’s undivided attention!

Most of the times what kids say is meaningless to us or not important enough to focus on. But for the child, it is like a UN conference. To the child, those are burning issues of his small world.

If you don’t pay attention, you are like a deaf and indifferent ruling party of his small country. This attitude would certainly ignite resentment in his heart. No wonderful he would be disobedient and defiant next time.

So pay full and undivided attention to him. Kids know when we are listening to them and when we are just pretending to listen.

If you don’t give undivided attention to kids, you are not communicating with kids at all. You are not in talking terms with them. Talking just to the point as and when necessary and just to remain under a roof is not communication.

While talking to kids, don’t do anything else at all. Let nothing come in the way of you and your kids when those not so important things are being discussed.

Stop what ever you are doing and listen to the child. This shows how much you love the child and how much is the child important to you.


4. Get involved

You can’t listen to kids attentively and intensely unless you are genuinely interested and involved in something the kid is talking about. It just won’t work. Parental involvement in the communication is a must.

You can do it only when you:

•     see the things from child’s point of view.
•     Feel what the child is telling you.
•     Feel as if the same thing is happening with you.
•     Feel as if you saw it with your own eyes and felt his emotion yourself.
•     Actively participate in the discussion.
•     express surprises and curiosity.

Once you are involved, your communication with the kids gets on to auto-pilot. Kids enjoy it.

Remember! Kids can sense it. They can tell you if you are listening to them or just pretending to listen.


5. Encourage children to talk

Encourage children to talk … about anything they want. Their words make the largest window to their heart. You can see almost everything lying there through this window. Yet, most of us choose to keep this window shut.

• Ask simple questions that the children would enjoy answering.
• Encourage them to tell an event with more expression, emotions, colors and mimicry and more.
• Encourage them to talk about their little achievements, and they will jump out of their soul to tell you so many things.
•  If you think they have difficulty in finding words, give them the right words.

6. Do not interrupt

Children have a special way of telling things. They break one simple sentences in so many parts, and repeat them quite often. They take a long time telling a small thing, which is irritating. Plus there are so many occasions when you disagree and tempted to interrupt. But don’t interrupt. Why? Because:

• You’ll break their natural flow of emotions.
• They might not pay attention to you because tons of words and expressions are dying to come out of them.
• Your interruption might begin an argument.

Just give them more space to expand and express their emotions and expression. No annoying cross questions please.


7. Don’t be in a hurry to finish it

If you are in a hurry to finish listening to your child, he suspects your sincerity and thinks that you are listening to him just for the sake of doing it. He ignores your expressions and gets alert when ever you listen to him next, even if you are doing it genuinely this time.

Read more »

Ignorant Morons

I very seriously hope that someone reads this. You can tell a child no, and teach them what no means. If you can't do that you aren't a very good parent. Spoiling a child involves giving them whatever they want. Striking the child does nothing to prevent spoiling. Showing backbone is the only way to fix your problem. I have a three year old niece who is spoiled more than any baby I have ever met. However, she is constantly struck for misbehaving. Fear is not the best way to solve things.
 
Submitted by Anonymous

Read more »

Praising Words of Encouragement for Children

Praising words of encouragement
If your children don’t listen to you, praise them for their handwriting, speed, toys, shirt, bag, drawing, watch, dog, cat … anything you find good about … and they’ll listen attentively.

Speak some praising words of encouragement for children and they wouldn’t want to miss even a single word.

Have you ever noticed? … when your boss praises your work or encourages you in the morning, how delighted you are! You feel like pouring your heart in the work you do, even if there is no other good reason for that. The words of praise keep ringing sweet bells in your ears throughout the day. In the evening, you even tell your wife about it.

You are unconsciously happy about the boss who appreciates you. Next time your boss tells you some more work to do, you hesitate to say “no”.

Words of encouragment work like magic.

We can be easily led by people if they show appreciation for our work, ability, performance, belongings etc.

We are all alike … including kids.

Few words of appreciation get results where criticism and ridicule fail. Give honest and sincere appreciation and encouragement to kids and they would do anything for you. Parents’ daily words of encouragement condition this process permanently.

The purpose of praise is to genuinely appreciate the kids with a view to encourage them to make more efforts for improvement and success.

How do praising words of encouragement work?

The deepest urge in human nature is ‘the desire to be important’. Everybody is hungry for appreciation words. Praise is food for soul and self-esteem.

Praise makes us feel good. When we feel good, we do good. And when we do good, we feel good. Words of praise set a wonderful cycle into motion which keeps producing good results. Praise by gestures also produces same effects as verbal praise does.

Praise opens our mind and heart and sets them in acceptance mode. We’re naturally biased towards the one who praises us. We think he’s on our side and not on the other side. He seems like a close friend.

We want to please him and look for opportunity to favour him, even if we have to go out of the way for that purpose. We don’t want to annoy him because we want him to keep us in his good books and continue praising us. Saying ‘NO’ to him is a big task for us. We want to listen to this person more than anyone else.

AND NOW … this person is in a position to lead us.

We are all alike … including kids.

Positive words of encouragement and praise make a child feel important in his own little world. He walks on air… feels two inches taller that time. He’s in listening mode for whatever you say.

AND NOW … you are in a position to lead him.

Positive effect of words of appreciation on kids

Like every adult, every child wants to feel valued and appreciated. If you praise him for the good things he does, he is more likely to do good things again. Your praise helps him know good things about himself, which is first step towards developing those good things.

Parents’ appreciation is invaluable for the kids. If you show no interest and approval in the things they do right, you are encouraging and conditioning them not to do anything right.

Nothing kills the ambitions as criticism does. Replace criticism with appreciation and praising words of encouragement. When criticism is minimized and praise is emphasized, the good things kids do will be reinforced and the poorer things will eliminate.

The children who get frequent appreciation for the good things they do, feel good about themselves. Their self-esteem goes up. Based on their past good experiences, they take initiatives to do new things. They set new and higher goals for themselves.

This is the powerful effect of praise on a child’s personality.

Even if you have a highly defiant and spoiled child of the first order, there must be something positive about him. Try to find it and appreciate it in carefully chosen words of encouragement.

First few days there may not be any improvement and it might upset you. Slowly some of his faults will begin to disappear. He will start to do some things in the right way.

Keep praising for new things and you will keep finding new things as the time goes by. If you persist and give appreciation and praise in the right way, very soon you will notice great transformation in the child’s behavior.

Then it won’t be necessary to react the way you used to. He will be doing far more right things than wrong.

How many praising words of encouragement do we speak

… The exact opposite! We go mad when kids do something wrong, and say noting to praise our kids for numerous small things they do right in the course of daily life. The power of Praise is most under utilized at home.

Almost all of us are conditioned to be very quick to criticize and extremely slow and reluctant to find words of encouragement. Praising seems to be a burdensome task to us. Even if we notice good things about others, we avoid mentioning it to them. But we jump out of our soul to tell them their bad things. The whole world is like that.

When ever your child steps out of home, expect him to face same kind of reaction from the world. The whole world is waiting out there, eager to keep telling your kid what’s wrong with him. It’s our responsibility to tell him what’s right about him.

We are in the most advantageous position to promote our kids self esteem. Let’s not miss the opportunity.

You are in the best position to speak positive words of encouragement for your kids

The whole world might not know much about your kid. But you know a lot. If you can’t notice anything to praise him about, how can you expect the world to do so?

If we have the desire, we can find numerous good things about our kids in one single day. Don’t waste time in finding words for the perfect praise. Just keep our eyes and ears open and discover the little things we can appreciate our kids about, and TELL THEM ABOUT IT!

I am sure nobody needs a microscope to find good things about their kids.

How to use praising words of encouragement for children.

Praise the child for his efforts not for his intelligence or talents.

Don't overuse the praising words of encouragement for children. 

Read more »

My Thoughts

I am pro corporal punishment. I was punished with corporal punishment as a child and teen and I also use corporal punishment on my kids.

I am saddened that corporal / physical punishment has been basically driven underground. I am also disappointed to see that the anti corporal punishment advocates lump everything into one basket. They seem to group everything from a little 'smack on the wrist' and an un restrained abusive attack of punching, kicking etc. by an adult to a child as one and the same and call it both corporal punishment and abuse. To me there are huge differences between these extremes.

As for me, I did receive some pretty severe punishments by todays standards anyway both at home and at school. At home, I would get spanked by hand when younger and also received the cane through my teen years. At school I received the cane. At home it was always on my back side. At junior school it the cane on my hands and at high school it was on my back side. By severe I mean that they would bruise and hurt a lot. Actually amongst the kids getting stripes was seen as part of the deal. If you got the cane and no bruises other kids would say you got off too light. It was not all that often. Probably a couple of times a year at school and maybe as often as 20 times per year at home. Although averages can distort things. Thinking back it seemed like I would go through long periods of not being punished at all and then other periods when I would be punished often like every few days. I should also say always with clothes on I never heard of anyone getting punished nude until I thought I would research this on the net.

I can not recall a time when I got caned when I did not actually deserve it. I do not have any feelings of being 'hardly done by'. In a way, in that agonizing time after I had been caught and awaiting punishment, I would know that I had done wrong. There was no feeling that I was being punished un fairly. I can recall doing something dumb in class or wherever and knowing as I was doing it that it was wrong and being caught and just rolling my eyes and going I just knew it was dumb. Getting the cane would just end the affair. The message was and I believe still is that I had crossed the line. One thing was that whenever I was caned, that was the end of it. Neither at school or at home was there ever any mention of it again.

I contrast getting the cane with detentions. I hated detentions. Sitting in a room writing lines or writing out an essay as to why I had done something or writing a letter of apology or doing extra home work. Why had I done it? Who knows. I'm a kid. Kids do things on the spur of the moment. There is no reason. How can I write down why I did it. I still can't tell you half the reasons I do anything. I would sit there and feel sorry for my self. I would sit there and get depressed. I would feel frustrated that my friends were out there playing and here I was doing nothing.

So to me one of the real advantages of physical punishment is that it is over quick. As a boy, I would do dumb things on the spur of the moment. Today, such behavior would mean an endless drawn out process involving parents and meetings and what not. To me a whack on the backside gave the message that I had crossed the line.

I do use corporal punishmnent on my kids. Similar to me, up to age 11 they have just received smacks on the back side. My eldest, now 13 gets the paddle. The main reason to change from the cane to the paddle is that the paddle does not seem to leave such deep bruising, more of a sore red back side. I have to confess to be really worried that should the authorities see her bruised backside that it would break up our family. And that is a real problem today that I feel parents have been disempowered. That as a society, we do not expect children to be respectful of adults and so most parents have just given up. They have long and heated arguments with their kids but eventually just go on living parallel lives rather than ones where the parents are in control or in authority over the kids. To me it is a real pity that corporal punishment has effectively be a little family secret. In fact one of the differences bewteen when I was a kid and now is that we would talk at school about who had been punished and how and show each other the 'stripes' but today, the kids have to keep this secret because they know as well as anyone else that if they tell that it is likely to be reported up the chain until their families are broken up.

Anyway that's my opinion

Submitted by Aiden (Brisbane Australia)

Read more »

Effective communication with children

Parent Child Communication

Communication is the most important component of any relationship. More so with kids. We pass on our values to our kids through Communication only.

Communication may be 'verbal' or 'non verbal'. Some times 'non verbal' communication has a more powerful impact than 'verbal' communication. 'Non-verbal' communication includes all kinds of emotional expressions, actions, body language, meaningless words or even being silent.

More than 300 years ago, Isac Newton laid down his third law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

This law best applies on communication. If we communicate something positive, it brings back something positive to us. Similarly, if we communicate something negative, it brings back something negative to us.

Kids can sense the underlying emotion and message of any communication, and they follow the Newton's third law religiously. They react with the same emotions. So they can't be blamed for any negative reaction.

You must have noticed that sometime kids easily agree to what we say but some other times they don't. Why does that happen?

In the first case, we unconsciously use some effective communication techinques, and in the second case we do just the opposite.

We can choose to be in harmony with the kids by learning Effective communication with children. Interested? Here are some effective practical tips:

Be a good listener

Parents listening to their kids is the first and most important part of parent and child communication.

Children have lots of things to talk about. All they want is an interesting listener, so that they can pour out all they have in their little hearts. This satisfies their sense of importance as well and certainly improves the parent child relationship. Talking is fun for children and parents need to listen to them. Yes, it needs lots of parental involvement.

If child doesn’t get enough opportunity to speak out his emotions and little experiences with his parents, the distance between parents and children keeps on increasing … and then parents complain of misbehavior.

Do parents listen to their children?

Listening is the most basic communication skills, yet most parents never do it. They are busy preaching their kids and telling them to do this or that. This brings complete communication breakdown between parents and kids.

Here are some tips for parents on how to be a good listener, and improve their listening skill and communication with children.

Words of encouragement and praises

If your child doesn’t listen to you, praise him for anything you find good about him and he’ll listen attentively. Few words of appreciation and praise get results where criticism and ridicule fail. If you praise him for the good things he does, he is more likely to do good things again.

You can maximize the power of praise by learning how to praise and encourage a child. But remember! everything has a limit. Over praising a child might do more harm than good. A revolutionary study teaches praise the child for his efforts not for his intelligence or talents.

Constructive criticism

You think you are improving kids by finding their faults and criticizing them. But do they really improve by our doing this? No one likes to be criticized … including kids. Rather criticism hurts ego and arouses resentment. Nothing kills enthusiasm as criticism does.

If you still find need to find faults in your child, tweak your words a little and convert your criticism into constructive criticism. Criticizing in a constructive manner improves child behavior. There are lots of ways to do that. Want to explore? Here’s how to criticize your child in a constructive manner.

Do not argue with your children

'If you win an argument, you lose a friend'. When we argue with someone, we directly attack his ego, and self-esteem and sense of pride. No one likes it … including kids. Every argument involves sharp criticism, which triggers hatred and resentment. Even if you think you have won the argument, you actually lose, because you have lost all prospects to have a good relation with that person ever in future. Every argument increases the distance between two persons.

When we argue with our kids, we complain, condemn, ridicule, scold, shout, humiliate and insult them. This makes the argument much more ugly and filthy. Does this correct the child’s behavior which triggered the argument? No way! The child will be more adamant than ever before. Result … things get messed up more than before. So, why argue with him?

But what if the child starts an argument and you have to face it? Here’s how to argue with your kids and win the argument.

Read more »

Parenting Discipline

Parenting discipline is a precondition for child discipline. Parental discipline creates the conductive atmosphere for child to behave correctly. Right parenting and discipline go hand in hand. We must, therefore, discipline parenting first.

Children learn from Parenting Discipline

Kids are born with a blank mind. Like new or formatted hard disc. But this hard disc is live … fitted with powerful sensors like ears, eyes, nose, tongue and skin. It can automatically programme itself sensing all kinds of data from its surroundings ... without making out any difference between good or bad data.

During early years, children spend more time with us. Therefore we are their surroundings. As they are fully dependent upon us during these early years, we mean the whole world to them. We are their Hero … Superman … their role models. And therefore parenting discipline has a direct positive effect on them.

Parenting discipline: Dad I'm Watching You

As far as our children are concerned, we are the best in the universe. We are irreplaceable and indispensable for them. They want to be like us in every way. Therefore they imitate us in eating, standing, sitting, walking, talking, smiling, laughing, joking, making gestures, attitude, expressing anger or happiness, fighting … and much more.

Children are fitted with extremely sensitive sensors. Sensitive enough to detect, identify and record the message that we emit by our words, actions, body language, gestures or even being silent.

We are under their constant surveillance. Their sub-conscious mind is listening to us even while they are sleeping.

If we want them to do something, let's do it in front of them. If not, let's not do it ourselves at all.

So we better watch our words, gestures, emotions, actions and body language. We are the biggest influence in our child’s life, so let's not miss the opportunity and make good use of it. Making them angels or devils is our responsibility. So, take parenting discipline seriously.


Consistent Parenting Discipline

As parents we are not supposed to surprise our kids by behaving in variety of ways in variety of situations. That would not only confuse them but also make them have a poor opinion of you. We are sensible grown ups. Our kids expect us to behave in a consist manner. If we are consistent in our behavior, our kids would follow it and they'll learn to be consistent.

Halen Williams has so much to say about being consistent in parenting discipline, that she has written a whole website about it (consistent-parenting-advice.com), where she says:

"Discover the simple but profound difference clear, firm and consistent parenting will bring to your family. How to enhance your children's happiness, self esteem and responsibility while increasing and developing your own emotional maturity as adults and parents."  

Read more »