As this is the start of a new year, it is a wonderful time for a new start for your child with ADHD. We all can benefit from new beginnings, chances to start over… a fresh re-start. When an opportunity to begin again, with new abilities and strengths, is granted to us, often a difficult, previously failure-stricken activity (school, for example) can start to see some success, which can build confidence and hope, and the downhill slide starts going up at last.
This is particularly true with children. Children have a natural innocence, and an ability to believe in something easily if given a little bit of evidence that it’s true. The key to this turn-around for children with ADHD is to remove the obstacle that was getting in the way (the ADHD), and to stop working at things that were not really helping.
Erroneously believing drug company advertisements, or pressures from elsewhere, that tell them that medication (with its unwanted side-effects and rigors) is the only way to treat this disorder, parents often mistakenly refuse to have their children tested and/or if diagnosed, deny that it exists. In my opinion, this is a failure to exercise the proper protection and care incumbent on parents who love their children. As a further result of this misunderstanding, there are many things that parents try (often in vain) to help their child.
In my nineteen years of ADHD neurofeedback practice, I often hear about martial arts classes, on-line brain exercises, nutritional supplements, ADHD coaches, tutoring, restricted diets, counseling, special parenting classes, and so on. While some of these have their own inherent value and may help your child “live with” the problem, it must be remembered that ADHD is a neurological disorder (not an emotional disorder or “too much energy”… and so on), which can be corrected, and correcting it, as opposed to “living with it” is by far the best solution.
As mentioned above, the other part of this much needed new start is to remove the obstacle (correct the disorder). Fortunately, there is an alternative to the medication scenario. Neurofeedback treatment for ADHD is an effective, drug and side-effect free, painless procedure in which the child learns to re-train the attention mechanisms of the brain, alleviating these conditions. Once training is complete, no further treatment is necessary.
