Connecting Life With ADD

Four years ago, my 10 year old son was starting another school project. He had a month to complete it. That Saturday, I was encouraging him to get started, and he, of course, was adamant that he had plenty of time. Basically, he didn't want to use up his weekend working on a school project! He wanted to go back to his friend's to play more video games! What 10 year old wouldn't?

Sounds like a pretty typical scene, so far. Millions of parents struggle with millions of kids every day to finish homework. What makes this story a little different, and hopefully of some use to you, is that both me, and my son, like some 3-7 million others, have something called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. What also makes it a little less typical is that he started working on the project that day, turned it in for the "early completion" extra-credit, and got a great grade, with never another argument about it after that first day. At almost 15, that project poster is still hanging on his wall, and it makes us both feel terrific when we see it there. Even though we still have our share of troubles, ADD hasn't really been the issue since about that time.

ADHD has an interesting history, and a remarkable reputation. Here, in the 21st century, you're as likely to hear that ADHD is the bane of existence, a chronic and impairing disorder, a disease, or a mental illness, as you are to hear it is the salvation of creativity and innovation in our world. How can two such different opinions and pictures exist about the same thing? How can we unravel the statements made by my friend, Dr. Steven Hinshaw, and other prestigious members of the APA, that "ADD is 100% genetic and 100% environmental," and, "ADD started with our compulsory education system"?

While the battle rages on in our schools, our homes, and throughout society, many researchers, like Dr. Hinshaw, are trying to understand exactly what ADD is, what causes it, what its doing to the people who have it and what it means to the world at large. Unfortunately, most often, if you ask a researcher what their new study means, they'll tell you they don't know – it needs more research. Even conclusive, published, and accepted findings periodically get refuted and proven wrong. With apologies to my friends in the research world, even though research is hugely important and vital toward understanding what this thing is, while the studies continue, people, families, and other segments of society affected by it today, continue being devastated by ADD. Even though the empirical approach serves and stands for viable and important reasons, it leaves the rest of the world in an ongoing and concurrent dilemma about what it all means, and more important, what to do about it in the "real" world. Hopefully, I can shed some light on the subject of ADD to my readers in this blog!