ADD: The Challenge for Parents and Siblings

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Parenting the Child, Not the ADD
Hopefully, this exercise has provided you with some insight into your own leadership and parenting style. It is not meant as a critique or as an indictment of past behavior. The idea is to look inward and to be honest in your appraisal. Examine both your limitations and your strengths and then build on the strengths.

It is important for parents to develop and tap into supportive relationships, whether with friends, family, community resources, or spiritual beliefs. Although this book will provide you with techniques I believe in, you shouldn't rely solely on them. Don't let your relationships suffer because of the ADD challenge in your family. Do your best to stay in touch with your own support team.

One other cautionary note: be careful that you don't depersonalize the child with ADD. You are dealing with a disorder, but more important, you are protecting a child. That person may have ADD, but he is not ADD. Respect and love the person even as you take action to make his life better. There will be times when you will lose sight of the distinction between the person and the ADD. Anger, frustration, and irritation will get the best of you from time to time, but it will help you to deal with your child as he is rather than as what you think he should be.

Actions to Promote Healthy Family Patterns
A healing home is the secret to treating a child with ADD. I've seen miraculous and inspiring things happen when families rally around a child with the diagnosis. I've also seen terrible, traumatic examples of what can happen when family members run from the challenge. Although dealing with a family member with ADD can be daunting, it can also be a journey to enlightenment and to a deeper and more powerful family bond.

If you haven't done so already, take concrete steps now to assess your parenting style. Identify and document your strengths and limitations. Use the audit provided as a starting point. Begin to write down your own observations of your values and beliefs about yourself and your reactions to one another. Don't focus only on the child with ADD. Take a look at your whole family and at others who may be closely involved. Get the input of other family members so you have an honest understanding of yourself and your impact on your children and spouse. (You may feel that you behave consistently as a team player and Supporter, but everyone else may see you as authoritarian and a Monarch.) This action alone can set your family on a new course.

Second, have a family meeting and discuss the positive aspects of each family member.

• Each person takes a turn in the hot seat. That person becomes the focus of the family and cannot say anything until after his or her turn is over. The other members each express three positive perceptions of the person in the hot seat, with at least one example of each perception. Remember the perceptions must only be positive (no one learns from negative perceptions).
• After the full round is over for the first person in the hot seat, the person can respond to the perceptions in terms of how meaningful they were and how accurate they seemed.
• Another person takes the hot seat and another round is completed as before. This continues until everyone has been in the hot seat at least once.
• This exercise is intended to develop a sharing of perceptions so that everyone can learn from one another and discuss their reactions without defensiveness and regression into anger and denial.

The third action you must take--this is truly an essential action--is to begin to select individuals to be part of your healing team. Find and identify persons from within the family circle, which can include nonblood relationships and trusted friends, who will be available for the following needs (one person can be identified for more than one need):

1. Someone with whom you can let down your defenses and show your vulnerabilities, your frustrations, and your disappointments.
2. Someone who can be trusted to understand the technology and medical information presented so that she can explain it to you when you don't understand or remember.
3. Someone who will provide inspiration for you regardless of how badly things seem to keep going.
4. Someone who will tell you the truth about yourself from an honest and nonnegative perspective.

This is your support team. From here on out it's up to you to let each person know how they can help and be sure that they will seriously attempt to fulfill the roles that you have assigned. Congratulations! You are on the threshold of a journey that will bring healing knowledge from sources of creativity and strength that you may never have known existed for you.