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I’ve been a dentist for over 27 years and have pretty good knowledge of how drugs work. I am also the parent of two boys with ADHD. While my second son actually got a clinical diagnosis of ADHD, he has a lot of the traits as my eldest son as well as myself.
When my second son was diagnosed with ADHD, the first thing the doctor wanted to do was to put him on medication to “control” him. I disagreed and vowed to find a better way. I feel the drugs are used to control children’s behavior so that they can be more easily managed both at school and at home. I had no desire to rob my son of his creative gifts.
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This was a child who was able to build a computer on his own but who struggled with English homework. While I wanted him to pass English and go as far as he could academically, I did not think that he should do it at the risk of his own health and losing the personality traits that made him who he is.
I looked into herbal remedies that are touted to allegedly “cure” ADHD without drugs and found that they do not work at all. While there is merit in vitamins and nutrients found in certain foods to help alleviate the negative aspects of this condition, your child needs more than just vitamins if he is going to be able to turn this diagnosis from a negative into a positive.
By working with my sons, I learned how a parent can use a combination of methods to enable the child to focus and calm himself. It is my firm belief that the child need to learn how to focus and calm himself, not to rely on drugs to artificially calm him down. I found that my method of working with both of my sons was very successful in helping a child cope with ADHD. I did not like to see my children frustrated because of the negative aspects of this condition.
We are all under the impression that the diagnosis of ADHD is a bad thing because the child is not “like everyone else.” But that’s just the point - children should try to stretch the limits of their imagination so that they are not “like everyone else.” Some of the most innovative and talented individuals have had ADHD. I wanted to deal with my children’s individual personalities and help them cope with the negative traits of ADHD while accenting the positive.
Drugging children so that they can be calm at home and at school and be more complaisant is not the answer to anything. By doing this you are actually robbing them of their unique talents. I don’t believe that the creative drive of a child with ADHD should be “cured” to make things easier for other people. I do believe that by working with the diagnosis instead of against it, ADHD kids can achieve remarkable results.
I’ve received quite a bit of feedback from my book. Parents who have read my book have confirmed what I already knew by dealing with my own two sons and that is that you can help your children with ADHD without having to resort to drugs. |
