If you are a parent, a teacher, or a struggling student ADHD is Awesome is a must read for you. From a parent’s perspective, just because we bore a child, does not mean they will be like us. And they may be exactly like us, which will make it easier to deal with them.  Either way, this book helps parents understand a child who doesn’t think like them.

From a teacher’s perspective, our students may not process material the same way we do. They may not see a subject as easy when we find it simple. Or they may see a subject from a different perspective in direct conflict with our views. That does not make them wrong and us right. Our strategies may not work for them, so instead of judging them unfairly, we need to seek to understand how their brain is wired and how to support them as they learn how to live in a world that expects them to know what they do not know naturally.

In the case of the ADHD student, their strengths are overshadowed by what they do not find easy or natural. Making accommodations leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, because it indicates something is wrong with them. They often will reject any accommodations that make them look different. 

What’s missing? The demystification of why they can find creative solutions without using the internet, but they can’t get a paper turned in on time that isn’t wrinkled. When they understand their brains are wired differently and that they need to learn skills that others seem to possess, they are more likely to be willing to embrace the extra time they need to write essays. 

How to Help Student Who Don’t Fit the Mainstream Model

1. Demystify their situation. Help them understand how their brain works and how to develop skills that are not natural.
2. Offer a simple strategy for organization that helps them manage papers and their time. Homework Solutions for the Weary Student and Their Parents and Backwards Planning: Steps to Prevent Procrastination: Student Planning Book
3. Allow them to try different ways to solve their own challenges, and allow time for failure. Fail is just “First Attempt In Learning.” Many successful ADHD or students experience processing issues will develop amazing and unique ways of navigating their brains given time to experiment. Homework Solutions for the Weary Student and Their Parents is a book of solutions presented by my third graders to overcome over 35 challenges they faced with homework. 
4. Teach them to advocate for themselves and educate their future teachers, colleagues and bosses about how they work best. 
5. Help students manage the stress they experience related to completing difficult tasks. 
6. Teaching them how to rehearse tasks before they initiate them. Closing their eyes and and validating that they can see themselves completing each step of a task to be completed. Have them see themselves going upstairs, (after each step ask them,”Can you see yourself doing this?) entering their room, finding the dirty laundry basket, grabbing it, bringing it downstairs, placing it next to the washer will help them complete the task without getting distracted. Using visual imagery of the items they need to get at the store by creating a picture of all the items in a humorous way will help them get through a store with the items on their list and not the items designed to attract their purchase. EI I needed plastic champagne glasses, grapes, a chicken, an onion, and celery. I drew a mental picture of a chicken sitting in the bowl of the champagne glass, holding grapes in one hand and an onion in the other wearing a hat made of celery stalks. I was amazed when I left the store with everything I needed and nothing extra. Without the imagery, I would have left the store without the item I came to get and $45 of items I did not plan to purchase when I entered. 

These are just a few of the many strategies available. Please message me for help with challenges for those struggling with any sort of processing challenge. 

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