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The ADD / ADHD GAZETTE
Knocking down the walls of ignorance

Gail Miller
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*** ISSUE #9 *** 4th June 1999

The ADD / ADHD GAZETTE. A FREE online ezine all about
the issues surrounding ADD / ADHD and co-morbid
conditions and syndromes. Authors' views are not
necessarily the views of The ADD / ADHD Gazette.

This community has now grown to 1,435 subscribers!

==========Sponsor=================================

The Mental Health Matters Newsletter
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Mental Health Matters!
The User-friendly Mental Health Directory
FREE search Service available.
http://www.mental-health-matters.com/

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IN THIS ISSUE:

#1 -- NEWS & VIEWS

#2 -- UK FOCUS

#3 -- ARTICLES: a; The Impact That having A Child With ADHD
Has On Parents' Satisfaction With
Family Life
b; The 4 Things Kids Need Most
#4 -- RESOURCES

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER
Items in this newsletter are published for educational and / or
informational purposes only. Any therapy, product, service, or
featured web site mentioned here, does NOT imply endorsement
or approval by The ADD / ADHD Gazette. The accuracy and
content of any web sites featured here cannot be guaranteed.
Thoughts, views and statements written by contributors are
not necessarily the views of The ADD / ADHD Gazette.
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# 1 News & Views

May I tell other readers about another really brilliant ADHD
newsletter that I subscribe to. It is a publication from New Zealand
and has an extremely friendly and easy to read approach. Dedicated to
looking at ADD and ADHD in a more holistic way, the ADHD Ezine
offers strategies, products and book reviews to help the parent looking
after an ADHD child. This month the emphasis is on behaviour and
discipline plans and there are books featured on this very subject. So
if
you prefer to use 'natural' methods for symptoms, then this free monthly
newsletter is for you. All $ mentioned, are in American $ and anyone
wanting more information should let Tricia know they are in UK or
Europe,
to enable her to get relevant info to you. Published monthly, this
newsletter
is a welcome addition to your ADHD recourses. the current issue, along
with links to back issues of the newsletter can be found at
http://www.angelfire.com/biz2/makemoneynet/mayezine.html

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Celebrities. Actress Mariette Hartley and Daughter Justine Boyriven tell
about their ADD at http://www.additudemag.com/on-line.htm

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Last issue, I had a request from a reader about a timer watch she had
been trying to locate. Many other readers have emailed me since
asking for the same information. Therefore here is the website where
you can find these items http://www.watchminder.com. Our
original enquirer tells me they ship all over the world and it's 20
dollars cheaper at the moment.

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**New Book** "Biological Unhappiness" by Dr. Leland M. Heller.
Diagnosis and treatment of biological "disorders" that cause
unhappiness, ADD/ADHD being one chapter. A review can be found at
http://www.biologicalunhappiness.com

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Why's and Whines
Parents may often wonder why their sweet little baby suddenly
turned into an assertive child. Parent Soup child development experts
can help you understand toddlerdom and enable you to enhance
your child's development at this tricky age
http://www.parentsoup.com/experts/parentpartners.html

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Dear Gail,
Thank you for a fascinating issue.
1) J.R.Harris's book - I have definitely been concerned about my
nurturing
style lately.
2) My son swears like a trooper, my aim is to get him to stop doing it
in
front of his teachers!
3) O.M's input on food allergies was timely. I read this recently;"signs
of masked food allergy include a pale complexion, dark crescents under
the eyes and a double wrinkle under the eye." This describes my sons
appearance. I have now arranged for an allergen test.
4) Education at home - drastic, but sometimes I can't face tackling the
LEA again, and they can't educate him anyway!
5) Severe depression (magnet treatment) - my son has been very
depressed lately. Thanks again,
F.L.

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# 2 UK Focus

SNIP ~ Special Needs Information Press. A monthly newsletter
packed with up to date information on all aspects of Special
Educational Needs. SNIP is designed to help busy teachers and
SENCOs effectively integrate students with SEN into Schools /
Colleges by finding practical ways to address a student's learning
difficulties. SNIP builds up each month into a digest of useful ideas
and information.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/modus_snip/index.html

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UK (New Scientist) - Antidepressants can prevent heart diseases
as well as treating depression. Scientists making this discovery
suggest that it is the improved mood in patients that makes the
difference, rather than direct action by the drugs.
http://www.intelihealth.com/enews?224847

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Two free booklets from the Mental Health Foundation aim to help
parents who are looking after children with learning disabilities.
"Learning Disabilities and the Family. The Young Child with Learning
Disability" addresses some of the questions parents might ask when
they are told their child has a learning disability.

The other, for parents of older children; Learning Disabilities and the
Family. The Teenager with Severe Learning Disability" looks at
the issues of transition into adulthood and possibilities for the
future.
To obtain the booklet of your choice, send a large SAE to;
Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities, Mental Health
Foundation, 20-21 Cornwall Terrace, London, NW1 4QL
There is also a list available of other publications available.

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The National Extension College's Equal Access to Open Learning
(EATOL) programme offers individual learning support to disabled
children or those with caring responsibilities on low incomes. The
programme aims to give students access to educational opportunities
they would not otherwise have. Successful applicants receive a grant
to cover 90% of their course fee, which includes course materials,
tuition and other learning support. The courses are followed at home
by correspondence with an individual tutor.

The wide range of courses offered include Basic Skills, GCSEs, A Levels,
Career and Business Skills, Counselling, and Leisure courses. To be
eligible
for a grant you must be over 16 years of age, resident in the UK, have a
disability or caring responsibility and be on low income. For full
details
and an application pack please contact: Priscilla Barlow, Equal Access
to
Open Learning, National Extension College, 18 Brooklands Avenue,
Cambridge, CB2 2HN Tel: 01223 450253

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Our two articles this time are completely different! The first by Dr
Rabiner
illustrates the degree of discord in our families when ADHD is present.

The second one, reproduced from Empowered Parenting Newsletter, is
incredibly inspirational as sometimes parents bringing up ADHD kids
find it very difficult indeed to 'connect' with their children. This
article
gives us something to strive towards! - A beautiful piece.

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#3 The Impact That having A Child With ADHD Has On Parents'
Satisfaction With Family Life
by David Rabiner PhD

During my years of working with children who have ADHD and their
parents, the level of stress that many families seemed to experience
was striking. I have seen many parents who felt incredibly burned
out by the daily struggles around behavior, homework, etc., and
this was often compounded by frustrations associated with
trying to make certain that their child's needs were getting
adequately addressed at school. In many instances, I felt like
one of the most helpful services I - or any other mental health
professional could provide - was simply giving parents the
opportunity to discuss their struggles and frustrations. In the
process, we were sometimes able to help identify ways to manage
these frustrations more effectively, although this was not always
an easy task.

There is a very nice study that appeared in the November 98 issue
of the Journal of Attention Disorders that looks explicitly at how
parents who have a child with ADHD feel that things are going in
their family (Kaplan, B.J., Crawford, S.G., Fisher, G.C., & Dewey,
D.M. (1998). Family dysfunction is more strongly associated with
ADHD than with general school problems. Journal of Attention
Disorders, Vol. 2(4), 209-216).

The authors of this study start with the premise that having a child
who is struggling in school is likely to create stress for parents, and
perhaps lead to problems with how parents feel that things are
going in the family.

They wondered, however, whether this differed depending on what
the reason for the child's school difficulties were. Specifically, they
wanted to learn whether having a child with ADHD poses an
additional challenge above and beyond the stresses and difficulties
encountered due to general school problems.

In order to evaluate this, the authors obtained information on family
functioning from parents whose children were having difficulties at
school for different reasons. These included 49 parents whose child
had a primary diagnosis of ADHD, 59 parents of children with a primary
reading disability, 50 children who had both ADHD and a reading
disability, and 90 control children who had neither type of difficulty.

Parents of these children completed a 12-item questionnaire that
had been derived from the McMaster Family Assessment Device.
Each item was rated on a 4-point scale from "Strongly Agree" to
"Strongly Disagree". Examples of some of the items that parents
were asked to respond to are shown below:

"There are lots of bad feelings in the family."

"We don't get along well together."

"We are not able to make decisions on how to solve problems."

As can be gleaned from the examples above, parents reporting high
levels of agreement with these items were acknowledging higher
levels of dissatisfaction with how things were going in their family.
For all 4 groups of children, the parent who responded to the
questionnaire items was almost always the mother. (This was not
something the authors chose to do deliberately but is simply how
things worked out.)

The results of this study indicated that parents of children with ADHD
reported significantly higher levels of dissatisfaction about family
life
than did mothers of children with a primary reading disability. What I
found particularly interesting was that even after the authors re -
analysed the data after removing the children in the ADHD sample
who also had been diagnosed Oppositional Defiant Disorder, the
results did not change. In other words, even for parents whose child
with ADHD did not have a serious co-occurring behavior disorder,
significantly greater dissatisfaction with how things were going in
the family was still reported.

There is no way of knowing with any certainly from this data what
the reasons for this higher level of dissatisfaction actually was. The
authors note that although it could be a direct result of having a
child with ADHD, it could also reflect the fact that parents of
children with ADHD are more likely to have ADHD themselves.
Thus, the mothers completed these forms could have been
expressing frustration they experienced as a result of having a
husband with ADHD in addition to frustrations brought about
by difficulties with their child.

From my own clinical experience, I believe that many different
explanations for this finding are possible and that no single
explanation is correct in all instances. One thing I will say -
although let me be clear that this is based on clinical experience
and not on research data - is that with the parents I have worked
with, there often seemed to be real disagreement about the best
way to handle their child's difficulties.

For reasons that I won't even begin to speculate on, in many
couples it seemed that fathers were not willing or prepared to
accept a diagnosis of ADHD in their child, and were unwilling
to get involved in their child's treatment in a supportive way.
In an unfortunate number of instances, they were not even
willing to allow treatment of any sort to proceed. (Please
understand that I have no intention of offending anyone here
and there are many couples who clearly work together to help
their child in a co-operative and supportive manner. I
sincerely hope that has been your experience.)

In contrast to this situation, I almost never saw this level of
disagreement in a child who had a reading disability. In such
situations, parents seemed to invariably accept and understand
the nature of their child's difficulties, and were in agreement
about the help that needed to be obtained. It is possible that
this experience was idiosyncratic to my own practice, but
from many conversations that I have had with colleagues, I
don't believe this is likely to have been the case.

Certainly, this type of disagreement could be one important
factor contributing to dissatisfaction with family life more
generally. Regardless of the reasons for this, however, I think
the important implication of this study is the need to recognize
that there can be unique frustrations about parenting a child
with ADHD that can spill over to create difficulties for an
entire family. I found that parents I worked with were often
reluctant to bring these issues up, perhaps because they
were so focused on trying to attend first and foremost to
the problems experienced by their child.

My experience has also been, however, that providing parents
with an opportunity to discuss the frustrations associated with
their child, and how this was affecting the entire family, were
often experienced as enormously helpful. Thus, if you have
found yourself experiencing some of what the parents in this
study reported, I hope that it is helpful to recognize that yours
is by no means an isolated experience. Perhaps developing a
way to address some of these issues may prove to be useful
to you as well, and that finding a good person to discuss
these issues with could be something to consider.

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The above article comes from David Rabiner's ADHD RESEARCH
UPDATE. David Rabiner, PhD Licensed Psychologist. Visit
http://www.helpforadd.com for information and services designed
to help parents promote healthy development of children with ADHD.

Receive a FREE trial of ADHD RESEARCH UPDATE by going to
http://www.helpforadd.com/nresearch.htm

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THE 4 THINGS KIDS NEED MOST
Reproduced from Empowered Parenting Newsletter

1. Unconditional Love that lets your child know they're loved, no matter
what.

This can be a difficult one to accomplish, but accomplish it, you must,
dear
Parent. I would sometimes tell a misbehaving child, "I love you with
all my
heart, but I don't like what you're doing right now."

You have to love your children unselfishly. That is hard. But it is the
only way. ~ Barbara Bush ~

2. "Active Listening" to your child's feelings, without judgement. Agree
to disagree, when your opinion differs.

This is a good time for feedback listening. "I can understand how you'd
feel left out when you weren't chosen for the team." This defuses the
anger inside your child. You recognize s/he's upset.

Having children makes one no more a parent than having a piano makes you
a pianist. ~ Michael Leaven ~

3. A "Total Learning Environment" with clear expectations and
consequences so they can WIN at the "responsibility game."

It's true a child needs lots of love, but a child - YOUR child - needs
rules to live by. Consistently. The "fence" is quite small in the
beginning, but as the child proves s/he can take on more responsibility
for her/his behavior, the fence expands until... they are old enough and
smart enough to set their own limits. Those Parent-imposed limits are
NEVER changed or cancelled in the middle of a situation. YOU keep your
word about limits; your child learns there are consequences if not
obeyed. Remember Gram's Instruction: What you promise... deliver!

The word "No!" carries a lot more meaning when spoken by a parent who
also knows how to say "Yes!" ~ Joyce Maynard ~

4. DO NOT "Run Interference" for them. Teach them the Coping Skills to
gain control of their own life.

Boy, this is a toughie! Above all else, we don't want our child to
suffer,
right? So shall we save the child from learning some tough lessons in
life? NO! And then we (because of some mental/parental flaw) may even
get a bit righteous w/ the accuser. "What? You think my child did
that?
My Child? Oh, you couldn't be more wrong." NOTE: But sometimes, it's
true. We can usually feel it in our heart if it's true. It is at this
time we
must help our child to cope. If s/he has done wrong then the child
must,
with you at her/his side, face the music and apologize or confess and
deal
with the consequences.

The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to
get along without them. ~ Frank A. Clark ~

Sometimes, we must teach the child to cope w/ some unfair situation - a
teacher is not acting teacher-like ("You'll never learn this subject; I
give
up on you.") or a bully is picking on our child. That's when role-play
can come in handy. You play the part of the teacher and help your child
choose statements that will change the teacher's mind. You play the
part of the bully and help your child to learn to reason or refuse to
argue
and walk away. If the bully touches your child, then what? Tell me
what
you think.. Does s/he fight back? Do you make sure s/he knows how to
fight then? Does s/he gather a group to stand up against the bully?
Does s/he report the incident to the school? If this happens at school,
I'd
want to know where the teachers were to stop the confrontation before it
began. Yes, Parenting is the hardest job in all the world!

THIS I believe, but it's most difficult to accomplish:

The only moral lesson which is suited for a child, the most important
lesson for every time of life, is this: "Never hurt anybody."
~ Denis Breeze ~
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I'd like very much to invite you all to join my new publication -- The
"EMPOWERED PARENTING" E-zine. Timely Information for Today's
Parent, the most important job in the world! Tips, clues, questions. Get
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I won't let you down, dear Parents. Thank you. Fondly, Joan

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I have been subscribed to Empowered Parenting for a few issues now,
and it really is THE most fantastic newsletter, for parents such as us
who
often need help and an inspirational push in the right direction when
the
going gets particularly tough! I completely recommend it!

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#4 Resources

Toddlers Display Seeds of Future Violence. Some children who are less
than 2 years of age have been shown to display tendencies toward later
violence, say pediatricians, psychologists and human development
experts.
Full details at http://www.intelihealth.com/enews?226746

http://homepages.infoseek.com/~c0ffee1/Education.html
Greg's Place For Teachers. An absolutely awesome site for all
educators. Information, resources, links. Check it out!

At http://www.leeheymd.com/health.html you will find a comprehensive
selection of mental health and health links. Extremely useful!

The Busy Educator http://www.glavac.com/ an absolutely amazing
website including book reviews, Busy Educator Newsletter and archives,
educational games reviews, Teacher resources, articles, reports and
MORE!

A Study shows that people suffering from Dyslexia struggle with skills
as well as with words. http://www.intelihealth.com/enews?223891

The world's largest biomedical database; Healthgate where you can find
information on illness, surgical procedures, prescription or non -
prescription drugs, pregnancy etc. http://www.healthgate.com/

Teasing; mean spirited or good-natured? Can you help if your
son or daughter is a victim of teasing or bullying? Judith Vessey,
Ph.D., a specialist in Child Development and Developmental
Disabilities, considers whether all teasing is bad.
http://www.intelihealth.com/enews?224075

Understanding autism — a work in progress by Peter E. Tanguay, MD
http://www.cma.ca/jpn/vol-24/issue-2/0095.htm

Panic and anxiety disorders site. Free membership and your own
mini-webpage where you can list your favourite URLs and more.
Become a part of the Panic/Anxiety Disorders Site Community.
http://panicdisorder.about.com/gi/membership/join.htm

Teen depression often returns in adulthood according to the findings of
a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association
http://www.intelihealth.com/enews?223529

The Colleges, College Scholarships and Financial Aid Website is
designed to offer college bound students, parents, and counsellors
easy access to information on colleges and universities throughout
the United States, free college scholarship and financial aid searches,
SAT and ACT test preparation tips, and more. Free newsletter
http://www.college-scholarships.com

Looking for a pre-school for child care? CareGuide can help! Its
database lists more than 76,000 child-care centers across The States.
http://www.careguide.net/careguide.cgi/cobrand/iVillage/parentsoup/home.
htm

http://panicdisorder.about.com/msubmenu3.htm
Is where you will find comprehensive links on medication for anxiety.

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LINKS
If you have a website and are looking for links. I am happy
to add a reciprocal link to The ADHD (UK) Website. Take a
look at my site at http://www.gailmiller.clara.net and
email me if you would like to swap links

BACK ISSUES
If you would like back issues of this newsletter, please
go to http://members.tripod.com/add_add_add where you
will find issues published so far.

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SEE YA NEXT TIME ...............
Gail Miller 1999 gailmiller@...