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@adhd-family
weird little brain tweak/reframing that helped me out. i Often find that advice that seemingly helps Everyone Else doesnât make any sense to me, in ways that are hard to describe, and it can be really frustrating. but when i find a way to explain it to myself that finally seems to break through and make it click, it feels really good
A video on my method for falling asleep that has worked 100% of the time for me; based on this post of mine.Â
It can be used by non ADHDers too to be honest. Should work for everyone.
To my german followers
Please, if you live in Germany, consider signing this petition and sharing it on social media. At the moment, ADHD children in Bavaria have no right to any accomodations whatsoever.
Please sign so children like my son can have the accomodations they need at school.
www.openpetition.de/!adhs
@abcsofadhd, would you consider giving this a signal boost?Â
I donât know how how many german people I can reach here, but I know some are out there.
Y'all, share this with all your German friends. The kids need our help.
@official-german-autismus
Thatâs not what the petition is about.
The petition is about improving the already existing structures in the school system to further support education of kids with adhd. They (rightfully) think that the state of bavaria doesnât do enough to fulfill the lawâs requirements to support the education of children with difficulties, in this case especially for those with adhd.
They want better education of teachers, individual concepts in each school, recognition of adhd as TeilleistungsstĂśrung (= disorder that partially disturbs learning processes) for a better handling of individual cases, and smaller learning groups.
Itâs still a good cause, so go ahead, but did any of you actually read, what you are signing?
OP, please stop spreading bullshit about anyone not having any âright to any accommodation whatsoeverâ or at least add a source for those claims.
Before accusing me of âspreading bullshitâ you might want to do your own research.
Yes, this petition is about supporting ADHD kids âbetterâ at school, i.e., at all. Itâs about children having rights.Â
What does the state law currently say about accommodations, for kids who are disabled or suffer from chronic illness?
That teachers are allowed to provide specific sets of accomodations. If they want to. Hereâs your source, have fun:Â
https://www.gesetze-bayern.de/Content/Document/BaySchO2016
Go to relevant parts and note the repeated use of the word âzulässigâ => that is, the law allows you these options. No obligations.
And specifically:
https://www.gesetze-bayern.de/Content/Document/BaySchO2016-35Â
Teachers have the last word on every accommodation you request for your child. What does this mean in practice? Letâs look at my example! I had frequent meetings with the teacher to explain all about my childâs difficulties, the diagnosis, and what could be done about it.
Accomodations she refused:
giving kiddo his afternoon meds
letting him have his fidget toy
giving him more breaks
giving him less homework
giving him more time for tests
Accomodations she accepted:
letting him sit in front of the classroom. UNTIL she decided to send him at the back again a few months later for unknown reasons, and without telling me (found out by accident)
Wow, so much support! What can I do about it?
Nothing. The teacher has zero obligations. She can give accommodations, she doesnât have to.
And even if they say yes, they can change their mind. Or next yearâs teacher can say ânope, I donât wannaâ.Â
I canât even change schools, unless I move in another district or am wealthy enough to afford a private school.
My family is not an exception. I go frequently to local support groups, Iâve never met another family who got a teacher to agree to the things I listed above. In fact, weâre one of the lucky ones, because the teacher actually believes that ADHD exists. It is a frequent dilemma of parents in support groups to evaluate the risks and benefits of disclosing an ADHD diagnosis at school.
It is still frequent for teachers in Germany to believe ADHD is a fake diagnosis for undisciplined children, and if the teacher decides to just punish your child to âfixâ his disability, there isnât much you can do about it (unless he goes really overboard and does something the law forbids in general, like hitting).Â
This is such a problem that parents share strategies on how to prode the waters, like claiming a niece or a neighbor has ADHD during small talk and see how the teacher will react. Just go to any german ADHD forum and read the posts...
So what are those âalready existing structuresâ available to disabled kids?
Theyâre called âSonderschuleâ, i.e. special ed schools. Now itâs not unheard of to make it to high school after going to a special ed school. But itâs so rare local newspapers write inspiration porn articles about it. Sonderschulen are an unemployment highway where disabled kids are put away so the normal schools donât have to deal with them.
Great, right!
So no, ADHD kids in Bavaria have no rights to any accommodations. They have the right to beg for accommodations, to hope for accommodations, to pray for accommodations. And then they might get accommodations. Or, in most cases, not.Â
Emergency cleaning: Unfuck your whole house in the shortest time possible
So, your landlord/parents/home inspector/favorite movie star is dropping by, and your place is a disaster. You donât have much time to clean it up. Youâre in emergency mode. Letâs get started.
Donât panic. Panic leads to fear, fear leads to procrastination, procrastination leads to the dark side. You can do this, but you have to stay calm.
Unlike maintenance cleaning, weâre not looking to completely unfuck one space at a time. Instead, we want to decrease the overall mess in stages, spread evenly across the whole area that weâre concerned about. If you think your home is at Level 10 filth, we want to bring the whole thing down to a Level 9, and then down from there. One really clean spot in an otherwise messy home is not going to be helpful here.
Get prepared. Youâll want to shut the computer down (or turn the modem off if you need your computer to play music). Trust me. Get your music going. Gather up trash bags, your vacuum and mop, some rags or paper towel, sponges, and other cleaning supplies. Use what you have on hand. Donât get distracted running to the store and spending an hour browsing cleaning supplies. A multi-purpose cleaning concentrate or a jug of vinegar will be just fine.
Breaks are very important. Depending on your time constraints, work in 20/10s (20 minutes working, 10-minute break) or 45/15s. But take breaks because otherwise youâre marathoning, and marathon cleaning is no oneâs friend. Keep hydrated, donât forget to eat, and check in with yourself frequently to make sure youâre physically doing OK.
Make your bed. This will be your home base if you get overwhelmed or need somewhere clear to take a break.
Start with the garbage. Going from room to room, throw out anything that is obvious trash. Once you fill a bag, take it out. Repeat as many times as necessary.
Move on to dishes. Gather the dishes from all over your house and bring them to the kitchen. If you can, start them soaking in a sink of hot, soapy water or start loading the dishwasher. After the dishes are all in one place, spend one 20/10 getting started getting them under control.
Now itâs time for your flat surfaces. Countertops, tables, dresser tops, etc. Clear them off and wipe them down. Donât get distracted in too much sorting and organizing. Weâre in crisis mode here. There will be time to get in-depth once this is all done. The same applies to cabinets and closets. Unless you have reason to believe people will be opening closed doors, leave these alone for now.
Attack the floordrobe and shoe pile. Get your clothes either put away or in the hamper. Start a load of laundry if you need to, but keep in mind that laundry and dishes have three steps: wash, dry, and put it away, goddammit!
Get random stuff up off the floors. If something is trash-worthy, throw it away now rather than just move it around a bunch of times. Otherwise, put stuff where it belongs.
Take another 20/10 or 45/15 to catch up on more dishes, if needed.
Head into the bathroom. Pour some cleaner in the toilet bowl, fill the sink with hot water and cleaner, and either spray the tub and shower with cleaner, or fill the tub up with some hot water and add cleaner and let it soak. Put everything away thatâs out and shouldnât be, clean the mirror, counters, and toilet seat. Sweep or dry mop the floor. Wipe down the sink and tub/shower, and give the toilet bowl a scrub. Mop the floor.
Sweep and mop the kitchen floor.
Vacuum everything you can, and sweep everything you canât.
Walk outside of your house (donât lock yourself out, please). Walk back in and see what catches your eye first. Go and deal with that.
If youâre being inspected or your landlord is coming in for repairs, spend time on whatever area theyâll be focusing on.
Give the whole place one more once-over and pay attention to anything youâve missed so far.
Itâs an old trick, but if your place is a little funky-smelling, put a pan of water on the stove on low heat and add some citrus or cinnamon or vanilla. Donât leave it unattended or forget about it.
Take a shower, put on something clean, and eat something.
You can do this. Itâs overwhelming, yes, but it is not impossible. You just need to do it. You have a list. You have directions. You have a whole bunch of Internet strangers who have been there before and who are cheering you on. You can do this, but you need to get started.
Why are you still here? GO. START. NOW.
the number of times in my past that I desperately wanted/needed someone to sit me down and tell me this stuff. I will never get back the hours and hours lost to headless-chicken mode, but itâs nice to know that in the last year Iâve learned so many coping mechanisms :D
this is also good if youâre NOT in crisis mode but you need to Do Something with your mess & canât focus enough for an in-depth clean of one spot. wander through all rooms with a trash bag and get rid of obvious trash, and youâve done a lot for your space without having to concentrate too much. if in a few days you have the energy for doing the next step, hooray! if not, at least all the trash is gone.
pls stop saying there is only advocacy for neurodivergent kids and not neurodivergent adults. there is advocacy for neither. there is mostly just advocacy for parents and "loved ones" of neurodivergent ppl that paints them as burdens
Sâwhy we gotta advocate for ourselves, mâdudes.
Iâm sick of looking up something about ADHD and seeing nothing but articles that are like âTHIS IS WHY YOUR WEIRDO KIDS ARE ACTING WEIRD!â.
Hell, even the ADHD deniers donât target the adults.. its always about Big Pharma wanting to drug kids. Atleast fucking acknowledge our existence.Â
Adults have ADHD too! Kids with ADHD grow up to be adults with ADHD!
Why are all Facebook groups on ADHD parenting either âTake away everything he owns except his mattress and toothbrush until heâs compliantâ or âHow dare you have any needs of your own whatsoever, youâre a horrible parentâ.
Itâs like there are sides, and some are on the parent side and trample the kids, and others are on the kidâs side, and everybody else in the family needs to suck it up no matter the consequences on their own mental health.
My kid and I are a team, ok. When I ask for advice, I look for tools, tips, not some arbitrary moral judgment on who should stop having needs.
To my german followers
Please, if you live in Germany, consider signing this petition and sharing it on social media. At the moment, ADHD children in Bavaria have no right to any accomodations whatsoever.
Please sign so children like my son can have the accomodations they need at school.
www.openpetition.de/!adhs
@abcsofadhd, would you consider giving this a signal boost?Â
I donât know how how many german people I can reach here, but I know some are out there.
Y'all, share this with all your German friends. The kids need our help.
My phone automatically translated it to English, so see if you can still sign it!
Thanks, but please donât sign if you donât have a german address! Someone signing with a fake us address will not help sway the regional government of Bavaria.
To my german followers
Please, if you live in Germany, consider signing this petition and sharing it on social media. At the moment, ADHD children in Bavaria have no right to any accomodations whatsoever.
Please sign so children like my son can have the accomodations they need at school.
www.openpetition.de/!adhs
@abcsofadhd, would you consider giving this a signal boost?Â
I donât know how how many german people I can reach here, but I know some are out there.
To my german followers
Please, if you live in Germany, consider signing this petition and sharing it on social media. At the moment, ADHD children in Bavaria have no right to any accomodations whatsoever.
Please sign so children like my son can have the accomodations they need at school.
www.openpetition.de/!adhs
I would be the worst spy of all time because on one hand I overshare like hell, but on the other hand I also have THE shittiest memory so itâs really a lose/lose scenario for everyone involved.
guy interrogating me: Whatâs the passcode?
me: Ah fuck. I think it might be 792.....4?
me: Actually no I think it starts with a 2.
me:
me: Yeah I usually just rely on muscle memory for it. Do you think you could get a keypad in here? That might be faster.
guy interrogating me: who do you work for?!
me: Okay, so this is super embarrassing. I know he told me his name when we first met but I forgot and at this point it would be weird if I asked him for his name again, right? So I just kind of go with âsirâ whenever I have to talk to him. It might be David though. He looks like a David.
me, after being extracted: bad news guys, I totally blew Daveâs cover.
my boss: Wait, what?
me: Yeah, like they had knives and shit and it was kind of stressful so I just told them that my contactâs name was David Johnson. Really sorry about that.
boss: We donât have a David Johnson working for us. Are you thinking of James?
me:Â
me: Good news, guys, I did not blow Jamesâ cover!
Enemy 1: So, how did the interrogation go?
Enemy 2: We got nothing. All they did was ramble on about their childhood trauma for two hours.
Enemy 1: Hmm. maybe lower the dose of the truth serum next time.
Enemy 2: We didnât use truth serum.
How to (Actually) Get Out the Door on Time
Plenty of great strategies in this video of âHow to ADHDâ. But the most important part is at the end:
âOne of the most challenging things with ADHD is that nothing is ever the last solution. Managing ADHD is a constant reevaluation of strategies, because once the newness wears off, theyâre harder to stick to. Itâs really hard to predict whatâs gonna work, and for how long.
The goal here isnât to be perfect, itâs to figure out what tends to work for us, so that when we need to tweak things, we can; to develop our ADHD tool belt, so that we can get better at working with our brains, not against them.â
Thank you Jessica, I could not have said it better.
I was talking to my mom the other day, and she said she was going to start going to the gym, because its important care for your body. Iâm disabled w/ multiple chronic illnesses, so going to the gym is impossible for me. She seemed to realize this, and started to backtrack, saying like - its part of taking care of herself, and I interrupted and said, âIts okay mom. You and I taking care of ourselves look very differentâ. And thats what I would like you to know.
Taking care of yourself looks different.Â
For some people, taking care of themselves looks like fruit smoothies and gym visits, cutting out sugar and weight training.
For some people, taking care of themselves looks like hospital visits, feeding tubes and ports. Needles and tests.
For some people, taking care of themselves looks like taking medication and lying down in a cool dark room.
For some people, taking care of themselves looks like getting any calories in their body that they can.
For some people, taking care of themselves looks like adding in more vegetables and trying to go outside to get sun more often.
For some people, taking care of themselves looks like seeing a therapist, keeping symptom journals, and practicing mindfulness, meds, or grounding techniques.Â
We all have different needs. Please donât feel bad about how you care for yourself just because someone else is able to do âmoreâ, or their care is more performative or obvious. Please donât look down on someone for caring for themselves in a way that you do not. Medication and rest are just as important as exercise and vegetables.
Keep doing your best to care for yourself, the best way you know how. Your self care and health is important, no matter what it looks like.Â
Due to our emotional dyregulation (especially anger problem), we ADHDers can often find ourselves in trouble. These difficulties go much deeper than people realize.
Studies have estimated that 25-40% of prison populations could have undiagnosed ADHD, despite global average being 5-8%.
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4)
Yes. Not just because of emotional issues, but also:
- impulsivity, with ADHDers doing things in the spur of the moment without thinking through the consequences
- poverty, as ADHDers tend to lose or quit their jobs a lot, mismanage their finances and get into debt
- drug addiction, very frequent among us, often as a form of self-medication
- ODD and ADHD comorbidity in childhood evolving into antisocial disorder because of a long history of toxic relationships with parents, other adults and peers, a huge pitfall for undiagnosed folks.
ADHDers do fill the prisons.
I Was Always On Green Because My Mama Didnât Play That Shit.
I got a Red for the first time ever cause I launched a basketball at this girls face đđ it was an accident tho I swear lmao
This traumatized so many kids. I knew someone who had no memory of this until I said the phrase âgo flip your cardâ and suddenly they remembered everything
I went from green straight to red because I gave my friend a piggyback ride for like five seconds
America are y'all okay..?
We had to move popsicle sticks into a green, yellow or red can.
I had to move mine to yellow once for âtalking out of turnâ.
Literally never spoke up in class again.
This is seriously some fucked up shit, jfc.
itâs funny, because it works as a very effective means of discipline/reinforcement. the concept is simple: instead of the teacher disrupting the whole class and stopping teaching to deal with one person stepping out of line and being, themselves, disruptive, they tell you to go turn your card. then they carry on with the lesson while you do it. kidspawnâs school calls it a point out system. you get three warnings, then you have to log into a book. it takes attention away from the mistake and discourages acting out for that attention.
done properly, it puts the choice in the studentâs hands. you know the consequence for an infraction, and you choose whether or not that consequence is worth your action. in a perfect setting, it would only be for actual rules, you spend less time talking to school authority figures, and parents wouldnât flip out about it unless there was a string of repeated red cards. you donât double punish, after all.
the best way not to get a red card is not to get a yellow card. it really does benefit everyone in a classroom setting if implemented and respected by all who use it. i find it strange that people find this âfucked upâ. itâs not corporal punishment, which IS fucked up, and it keeps infractions from taking away from instruction time, robbing other students of their education. loss of instruction time is in no oneâs best interest.
and in every setting iâve seen it used properly (both as a student and as a parent) it works exactly like itâs intended to.
I am a teacher working toward my Masters in education, and I spent my entire kindergarten education and third grade (the only two years I had to suffer through a classroom with one of these boards) entirely on red. The Flip Your Card classroom discipline system is in fact unimaginably fucked up.
 At first I worked really really hard to try to keep my card on green, or at least on yellow, but no matter how hard I tried, by the end of the day, my mom was getting a phone call all about how I was a problem. I was regularly stripped of every single privilege my teacher conceivably could strip me of. My third grade teacher gave up on taking away my recess because she just didnât want to have to deal with me for that extra time, every single day. And every single day, there was a bright red card telling everybody, telling all the other kids, telling my parents, and telling me that I was a problem.
Hereâs the thing, no matter how hard I tried, I couldnât keep my card off red, so it wasnât this behavior or that behavior that felt like the problem. It just felt like I was the problem.
I did what many kids in that situation do. I gave up. From the outside, it must have looked like I didnât care that my card was on red, but in reality, I had given up on trying to keep it off red, because nothing worked. It wasnât apathy. It was hopelessness and despair. In kindergarten, I just checked out and ignored the board. I flat out told my teacher that she could turn my card from then on, because I wasnât going to. But in third grade, I hit on something worse. Instead of simply pretending the board didnât exist, I responded to the realization that I couldnât win by changing the perimeters of what winning was to me. If I was trouble and a problem, I was going to show everybody just how much of a problem I could be. Instead of winning because I made my teacher happy, I won by making everything into a power struggle. Yeah sure, I got sent to the principalâs office and my mom was called, but I didnât do that thing my teacher wanted me to. Score one for me. That year, I went from difficult to hell on wheels.
This is not actually uncommon, and there are some very good sociological and psychological reasons for why I reacted the way I did. One of the most basic sociological principles is that of labeling theory. This is the idea that people go through life collecting labels, and that these labels affect how we act and how we function in society. People by and large live up to or down to the labels we are given. We can see this in the criminal justice system, where the ways in which we label and treat people, especially juveniles, who commit crimes greatly affects whether or not they will commit a crime in the future, in other words the more someone is treated as a criminal, the more they will act in criminal ways. In a similar manner, being told that you are a bad kid, a troublemaker, a problem, whether outright or through a card system, is liable to convince you of this fact and reinforce that problem behavior. This is one reason why Flip Your Card systems often worsen behavior problems in children with existing difficulties with classroom behavior.
Another failure of the Flip Your Card system is that it has no room for incremental improvement and does not promote reteaching of behavior on the part of the teachers who use it. Most kids with behavior difficulties in the age range where Flip Your Card systems are used are really struggling on learning the rules of behavior and how they should be reacting in a given situation, or learning emotional self regulation. In my case, I had a siezure disorder that wasnât diagnosed until I was mid-way through third grade, that aside from being misidentified as behavioral problems also prevented me from learning appropriate behavior by damaging my ability to form memories during the period when they were untreated. I also have ADHD, which I canât treat with medication, because all of them cause me to have siezures. I needed extensive reteaching, and a teacher who was willing to work with me in the moment to help me find better solutions to the situation I was responding to with bad behavior.
Likewise, Flip Your Card systems do not recognize incremental progress. I have a student who just last week refused to come inside when it started thundering, because he wanted to stay outside and spend time talking to his little brother through the fence between the toddler and preschool playgrounds. This is normal for him. Separation from his brother causes him a lot of stress. But I was able to get him to come inside with a little persuasion and a kiss from his brother, and as soon as we were inside, he washed his hands and went to the cozy corner to calm himself down. This is progress. This is in fact the kind of progress that I told his mother about with pride at the end of the day. Once he was calm, I also talked with him about how he should be proud of himself for using some of the skills he was working on to calm himself, and what we could have done differently together outside. Under a Flip Your Card system, his behavior was the kind where he would be required to flip his card to yellow, his progress ignored. What I did instead was to construct a label for him of a student who is working hard on behavior, and affirm for him that I can see the progress and effort he has made. I also established us as partners in helping him reach behavioral and social emotional goals.
Another problem with things like the Flip Your Card system is that much like zero tolerance systems, or any system that are supposed to make things fairer by taking out teacher judgement is that they do not in fact take out teacher judgement. One of the big discussions right now in computing is that the way in which algorithms for job searches or hiring software, or worse algorithms for software used in the criminal justice system, are biased on racial and gender lines, both because of the algorithms themselves and because of the biased information fed into them. This is another example of that. A supposedly unbiased system that becomes very biased because of its nature and because of incorrect input. I already talked a little bit about how students with disabilities that affect their behavioral and social and emotional development are penalized by this system, but another factor is that disabled students, students of color, and especially disabled students of color, are much more likely to be asked to flip their card for behavior that would go unremarked upon for a white or non-disabled student. This is also true of so-called zero tolerance policies. This means that the toxic effects I outlined previously of labeling children as bad fall especially heavily on childen who are already especially vulnerable to being funneled into the school to prison pipeline.
Flip Your Card systems and other similar systems (and throughout this essay I talk about the Flip Your Card system, but Move Your Clip, Name on the Board, behavior charts, and all such similar systems are analogous) also do not promote student choice and autonomy as ouyangdan asserts. They are a classically behavioralist model of classroom management, one that functions on a system of reward and punishments. Reward and punishment systems increase student feelings of powerlessness and decrease their feelings of control. Giving a child a choice between a punishment and doing what you want them to is not giving them a real choice. Itâs the same as a bully saying âgive me your lunch money or Iâll beat you up, itâs your choice.â These behavioralist systems of classroom management also decrease studentsâ intrinsic motivation to behave, and replaces it with an extrinsic modivation. This can be seen in my case when my intrinsic modivation to try to behave for my teacher and my fellow students was overriden with the extrinsic modivation of the Flip Your Card board, which didnât work because I gave up on avoiding the punishment. With my intrinsic motivation leached away and the extrinsic modivation proving ineffective⌠But this can also be seen in kids who behave well in class. Instead of learning the whys of good behavior and learning to regulate their emotions and reach consensus, and other skills of living in civil society, they learn that to be good is to be obedient and avoid punishment, to please the person In Charge. This is what happened with @thecityhorse higher up in this thread. They learned that speaking up in class brought pain, so they stopped, at a detriment to their education and their psyche.
So why are behavioralist approaches like the Flip Your Card chart so popular? One reason is that for most students they work in the short term very well. Humans like to avoid humilation and pain. This makes them convenient for teachers to implement, even if they cause other problems. Another reason is that they look fair to most adults even though they are not. Also itâs impossible to discount how thouroghly we as a society believe in certain ideas about a childâs place as obedient and subservient to adults, especially parents and teachers, and view enforcing this idea as a good in and of itself. Most people, even teachers, who absolutely should know better, and have in fact been learning better in teaching programs for decades, donât step outside this paradigm. Behavioralist systems of reward and punishment reinforce this obedience.
Behavioralist approaches to classroom management are so normative that it can be hard to think about what the alternatives to them are, and when I talk to people about the alternatives to behavioralist methods, they express scepticism about the effectiveness of these methods. The biggest method I use is to get to the root of a behavior. Johnny screems during play, which causes Tommy to hit him. Tommy gets scared when Johnny screams in a way that seems aggressive, so we work on reading body language and what to do when weâre scared. Johnny screams because he gets wound up and overwhelmed playing chase, so we work on stopping and leaving the game before he gets that overwhelmed. I do a lot of teaching my students to recognize and name their own emotions, and recognize and name each otherâs emotions, and think about what caused those emotions. I teach them ways to calm down, to get what they want and need in acceptable ways, and I build a relationship of mutual respect in which they want to do things for me and for their classmates because they care about us. This is that intrinsic motivation I talked about. And yes, many of the kids I work with have some pretty severe behavioral challenges. This was also the method that worked with me as a child. My fourth and fifth grade teachers both worked hard to develop relationships of trust and respect with me, and worked with me on processing my emotions and understanding the needs and feelings of others. This method really does work, and it promotes empathy, self-awareness, and moral self-reliance, which are important lifelong skills.
YES, all this.
The year I was in 5th grade, we had âthe stick system,â which was a lot like this - you start each week with 5 sticks in a little pocket, and for every infraction you have to take one out and put it in a jar. If you ended the week with 5 sticks, you got a prize (a sticker or a piece of candy). With 4 sticks you didnât get the prize, but there was this recess period on Friday afternoon that was like 1.5 hours long, and you got to have recess the whole time. For every stick after that, you lost some time in recess and basically you had to be in time out instead; youâd sit in a classroom quietly and do nothing for up to 90 minutes. Because the best thing to do with a kid who canât behave is make them sit still and do NOTHING for a longer period than they can basically conceive of, instead of making them run in circles on the playground.
I was a very quiet, lonely kid; I have ADHD which was actually pretty debilitating as a kid. Basically I found it impossible to do anything except read novels and fight with my sister. So I would always lose my sticks for forgetting to do my homework, zoning out in class, being quietly and oddly disruptive⌠I never. EVER. had any sticks left at the end of the week. Actually I think once I ended the week with 1 stick, and I was SO proud of myselfâŚand all the other kids usually ended the week with 4 or 5, so the teachers were like âok so you failed slightly less than usual. Good job?? Now do your fucking homework.â (I paraphrase but that was basically the sentiment.)
The thing is, I was SO EAGER to be liked - by anyone! Classmates, teachers⌠my classmates just thought I was weird, but my teachers actually liked me most of the time, they just found me really frustrating. Which, fair: I also found myself really frustrating. One time my science teacher was collecting homework, and I (as usual) did not have it. So she gives me this completely fed-up look, and says, âOkay. WellâŚ(sigh) go take a stick.â Completely done. And I have to tell her âI donât have any sticks left.â She just stares at me for a few seconds, then literally throws her hands up and walks away. And I wanted to DIE. But I didnât know how to react to that, so I was just stoic.
Maybe she thought I didnât care, but it was just the opposite - I was this little 9 year old kid who constantly felt like the world was ending because I could never do anything right. I wanted so badly to be good, and I was incapable of doing what they wanted. But they still used the stick system with me, even when it was very clear that it had no effect on my behavior. To this day, I wonder why, after like a month of this technique completely failing to help me or them, they didnât just scrap it and figure out something else. Was it too much work to teach me? Was it easier to just keep setting me up for failure?
Hereâs the rest of that story: the next year, my 6th grade teacher told my mom Iâd never graduate from high school (my mom was like âok challenge accepted you bitchâ. Good mom.) Two years later I was given a period of âresource roomâ every day (basically special ed) where I learned stuff like organization and study habits and refocusing when you zone out (WHAT?! MAGIC!) And then I graduated from high school, got into and graduated from a very good college, got a masterâs degree, and then I decided to go into medicine so I took a bunch of science classes and got myself into medical school. Just started my 2nd year, and I did quite well last year so GO FUCK YOURSELF MS FISHER. I did TOO graduate from high school and guess what the fuck else! (âŚactually sheâs probably dead by now so whatever).
My 5th grade teacher, though, the one who had the stick system? She really liked me and wanted me to succeed. She worked with me a lot, but either she didnât know how to do it right or I wasnât ready. But they never thought of stopping that stupid system. I still wonder what that year (and subsequent years) would have been like, if they hadnât let me turn myself into the bad guy in my own life. You should never make a kid feel that crappy.
my most recent strategy for dealing with executive dysfunction is that when I catch myself lying in bed thinking âI want to be doing the productive thing, but for some reason Iâm still just lying here, wtf is wrong with meâ I start mentally screaming until I get up.Â
I donât mean screaming AT myself, I just mean screaming. Like, a battle cry, or a tantruming baby. The goal is to fill up my brain with âAAAAAAAAAAAâ until I am vertical. I canât articulate WHY it works, but so far itâs working for me!
I do a version of this too.
I donât know the official reason for why it works but from my experience, it pretty much shuts our brain from thinking about how boring the thing will be.
And since starting is the hardest part, once youâre up, it will be easier.
The more you think, the less you will want to do it. Same logic as counting back from 3 andÂ
lokean affirmationsâ˘
I found a paper that I wrote in college titled "The ADHD Personality and its Social Implications," and I gotta tell you, it's a trip to read my younger self write about a disorder that I didn't know I had like a scientist observing some distant phenomenon. Like how did I, a psych major with undiagnosed ADHD, not at any point go "hey wait a minute..."
Sometimes our brains tell us stuff but we don't listen.
While undiagnosed, I wrote a short story about a character who had suffered some neurological damage and I filled him with my experiences and determined he'd probably take Ritalin to deal with his symptoms. And at no point did I stop to say "wait...".
I reread it recently and was rolling my eyes at my past self the whole time.
