I need a minion

I've always made lists. It's a coping mechanism I taught myself at an early age to deal with my ADD. Even though I didn't know that I had ADD until a few years ago, I knew I suffered from CRS (can't remember shit), so I made lists. Then in 2001 I was in a car accident that scrambled my brain a little and wiped out my short term memory, and I really needed my lists. Before the days of Blackberrys I had a day planner. I'd write down all my appointments and refer to it daily. It had a leather cover and I lovingly called it my Bible. If it were not for that day planner, I probably wouldn't have made it through college. Whenever I had something particularly important to remember, I would enlist the help of friends to give me a call to remind me to look at my day planner. Now I set my Blackberry to remind me. If I lost my phone I would be so dead.

We move in 32 days. I have so much to do, I have multiple lists. I made a big calendar of the six weeks leading up to the move on a poster board. I needed to be able to visually see where the openings were in my schedule with one look. There is a lot going on in the remaining 4 weeks. Forgetting the move for a moment, there is the stuff of normal life that usually keeps my days quite full. There are dentist appointments, doctor appointments, therapist appointments, orthodontist appointments. There is endless laundry to do and weeds that seem to grow back as soon as I pull them up. Then there are the things I have committed to doing such as the American Cancer Society Relay For Life, the school PTA carnival, and chaperoning my 3rd grader's school field trip. Once you add in the move, there is the trip to Disneyland with our cousins from California we are making because we don't know when we will be anywhere near California again, a going away party, and garage sales that need done. The car needs new tires, an oil change, and hopefully a DVD player installed. Have you noticed that I haven't even mentioned packing yet? Somehow I have to fit that in between all that other stuff. And I do mean "I", as in there is only one open weekend left on my big calendar and the hubby might show up at home a week before the move and the kids are in school all day every other day. Oh, and just for the record, we still haven't found a house in Michigan.

So I have lists.

A list of things we need to get/take to the Relay For Life

A list of things that need done to the car to make it roadworthy

A list of things we need to pack for Disneyland

A list of things I need to make sure don't get packed and go with me on the road trip to Michigan

A list of things I need to fix so I get my deposit back

A list of things we may need before we have a new home and therefore need to be on the ass end of the moving truck in case we need to access them while it's in storage

A list of what is not getting moved and getting sold in a garage sale

A list of the hotels we are staying on our road trip along with the touristy stops we are making along the way

Each day I make a to do list for that day. Each day I feel that things get added to my list faster than I can check them off. I need a minion to help me get this all done.

The Name Game

I am asked frequently what the difference is between ADD and ADHD. The short answer is nothing.

The long answer is:

The disorder currently labeled by the psychiatric community as ADHD has been called many things over the years.
1902 Defects in moral character
1934 Organically driven
1940 Minimal Brain Syndrome
1957 Hyperkinetic Impulse Disorder
1960 Minimal Brain Dysfunction (MBD)
1968 Hyperkinetic Reaction of Childhood (DSM II)
1980 Attention Deficit Disorder - ADD (DSM III) with-hyperactivity without-hyperactivity residual type
1987 Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or Undifferentiated Attention Deficit Disorder (DSM III-R)
1994 Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (DSM IV)
Broken down into 3 categories ADHD, Combined Type ADHD, Predominantly Inattentive type ADHD, Predominantly Hyperactive Type

Many people like me grew up in the 80's and learned to call someone with these symptoms ADD. It's like if you have a friend named Bertha who decides she wants to be known as Brittney. Even though you know she wants to be called Brittney, she's always going to be Bertha to you. Now some of these changes are good. I'm sure glad they don't call it Minimal Brain Dysfunction anymore, but personally I think it went all down hill after the 1980 name.

I don't like the term ADHD mostly because I feel that it implies hyperactivity. My daughter and I are both technically ADHD predominantly inattentive type. We are not hyperactive. If I tell people that we are ADHD, the usual response is "but you aren't hyper at all". Just saying ADD is easier for the lay person to understand. It's also a lot shorter for me to say ADD and not ADHD predominantly inattentive type. I mean come on, I have ADD, I don't have the patience for wasted syllables.

I expect in another few years the psychological community will probably change the name again to further confuse people.

Rewards

My friend Beth and I talked a couple of times today on the phone trying to brainstorm ways to help her with her son after she posted this. She's in the middle of trying to get a correct diagnosis for him and figure out how to manage his behavior. Different doctors have told her that he's a little ADHD, mildly Asperger's, and now ODD. Of course figuring out which one, or combination thereof will help considerably. Since so many of the symptoms overlap between them though, there were some strategies I was able to share with her, things that work for my daughter.

We got to talking about how punishments don't work with these kids. They just don't respond to taking their toys, tv's, video games, trading cards, privileges or allowance away. They definitely don't respond to spankings. The only thing that I have found that works with my daughter is rewards. Whether it is simply thanking her for doing what she was asked, acknowledging the fact that she controlled her behavior instead of melting down, or giving her a treat for her good behavior, she thrives on success.

I think these kids have so many situations in which they feel like failures, that punishing them just reinforces their feelings of not being good enough, and I think that's why they don't work. If you already feel like you are worthless, having your things taken away must just reinforce that belief. Can you imagine what this must feel like to the child? That they aren't worthy of having their toys, etc? On the other hand, they light up with the slightest success. They like to help. They love to be appreciated. They need to be told that they did something right.

S0metimes it's hard to notice the good that your child is doing when you are so frustrated with their misbehavior. It's hard to rearrange your own attitude to focus on the good instead of the bad. There are times where you have to focus on the bad. When your child is doing something destructive or hurtful to someone else, you have to step in to stop it. Other than that though, you need to look for the smallest of their successes.

With my daughter, we have rewards instead of punishments. Instead of "If you don't clean your room, I'm taking away your toys" it's "When you get your room clean, we can go to the park". I also choose words very carefully to try to foster that success. You notice I said "When you get your room clean" not "If you get your room clean". This gives her the subtle message that I know she can and will do it. In school she gets a sticker for every assignment she completes without goofing off. When she gets 10 stickers she gets to pick a candy from a jar. I reward her for good behavior with extra time to play on the computer or Wii, or getting to do something with just me (without her sisters). It doesn't have to be something expensive, she loves to bake cookies or watch a tv show alone with mom.

There were a couple of things that came up in our conversation about rewards. She and I both have tried elaborate reward/sticker chart systems in the past. Often they are hard to keep up and be consistent with, and if the parent doesn't keep up with it, the child gives up on it too. Also, Beth's son is 13 and my daughter is only 10. The little candy rewards my daughter loves may not entice her son to strive for good behavior. Baking cookies with mom might not be his idea of a good time. So my question is this, for those of you with older kids and especially boys, what kinds of rewards work for them? Has anyone developed a good reward system that isn't too difficult to keep up with?

Bribery

My middle child has ADD. Getting classwork and homework done on time is challenging. Even with a 504 plan, there are still a lot of things that are REQUIRED. Even though my child does NOT want to do them. She tries to ignore them, she tries to make deals, but the assignments don't go anywhere, they just accumulate. The deadline was quickly approaching for the assignments to be turned in because the teacher needed to turn in grades for the first report card. We had something like 20 missing assignments that needed to be completed, and right before the assignments were due, a nice long 4 day weekend. I didn't want to spend my 4 day weekend yelling at my child to do homework, so I got this brilliant idea. "If you get all these assignments done before the weekend, we can go to Disneyland" I said to my dear child. Ohhh, was she excited. We haven't been to Disneyland in 3 years. She quickly got a couple assignments done and then decided it was hopeless. Somehow the idea of the trip got leaked to the other two children. I had not told them for fear they would kill the middle child if she didn't get the work done and prevented them from going to Disneyland. Now they knew and the pressure was on. "Get your work done, we want to go to Disneyland" they said. Slowly but surely she got one assignment after another completed. By Saturday night I felt that she could get the rest done on the way to Disneyland and back. So we went. Sunday night in the hotel she got more work done, and Tuesday when we returned she completed the last couple pages. It was amazing. Here are some pictures.

Everything was all decorated for Halloween. Growing up in California and having been to Disneyland bazillions of times, I had never been there when it was decorated for Halloween. It was cool.

The sign in front of California Adventure was decorated too. The A's were big candy corns. I like candy corn, lol.

Here are my kids standing in front of the R. We took a picture like this the last time we went to Disneyland 3 years ago.

See how much they have grown. Cool Huh??

Here are the kids as we are waiting in line to get in. Tiff was pissed about something, but Kimberly was happy. See the heart she is making with her hands?

Here's Aimee, annoyed that I'm still taking pictures while we are waiting in line. She couldn't wait to get rid of us. Some of her friends were there too. She was excited to spend the day with the other teenagers instead of the little kids.

This is a picture of me waiting in line. It's not the best picture ever taken of me, but since I'm usually not in the pictures because I'm always taking the pictures, I won't complain.

Kimberly and Tiffany got invited into the wheel house of the Mark Twain river boat. Kimberly got to steer the boat and blow the whistle and ring the bell. They were very excited. I didn't even know you could do this. There was a log book we got to sign our names in, and the kids got pilot's certificates when we were done.

Kimberly and Tiff in a cage made out of bones on Tom Sawyer Island.

Here are the kids sitting in a tea cup after we bought mouse ear hats. We just happened to bump into Aimee and the teenagers at the hat place. See Aimee's boyfriend sneaking into the picture?

Here is Kimberly ready to drive her Autopia car. Not too long after someone had to go rescue her because she got stuck out on the track.

Kimberly and a chicken inside Micky Mouse's house in Toon Town. Kimberly has a thing for chickens and ducks.

Waiting in line to ride Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters for like the 4th time.

This is a picture from the parade. They all came out kinda blurry because of all the motion and the night setting on the camera, but I thought I would include this one, because I couldn't help thinking that if they tried to make this movie today, I don't think a hookah smoking catapillar would fly with all the parents groups.

The kids lasted all day at Disneyland, from open to close, but within 2 minutes of our arrival back at the hotel, this is what we had.