**************************************************
The ADD / ADHD Gazette
The FREE online ezine all about ADD and ADHD.
http://home.freeuk.net/theadhdgazette

*** ISSUE #30 *** 24th May 2000
**************************************************

IN THIS ISSUE .........
1; EDITORIAL
2; MAILING LISTS; ADHD and GIFTED, Aspergers UK
3; ARTICLE; Making Friends
4; NIGHTLY CHAT
5; RESOURCES

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SPONSOR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Get paid for every hour you spend on line with
Alladvantange.com!!!! Get paid in UK pounds
A WINNER !!!!!! Check it out at
http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=NEK-911


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


1; EDITORIAL

Hi all.

As you will appreciate, this edition of The Gazette is a little late. The
reason
is I have had a hell of a time with 'stuff' recently which has meant that I
have
had to neglect my Internet interests because of this.

I have, after much 'argy bargy', letters, meetings, pleading, educating,
getting stroppy (all to no avail) eventually had to take my son out of
mainstream school. As of now he is being home educated until further
notice. There is a wonderful National Autistic Society school which
*I* want him to go to, but knowing my education authority, I am going
to have to go through hell and high water to get him there.

(My education authority is the subject of a GREAT website
http://www.members.tripod.com/truthline/ which some person has felt
strong enough to publish) PLEASE - I don't mean to offend anyone -
should any teacher look at this website, for example. I only include this
link to give an idea of the regime I am battling with. It is about the
education 'authority'.

The school my son has been at, have, over the years, excluded him on a
regular basis anyway for his symptoms. He has had literally hundreds
of detentions and to add insult to injury, there has recently been a
Governors meeting where they have come down on school's side
and endorsed them excluding my son for his autistic symptoms
whenever they like, by giving them carte blanche to exclude at whim.

In addition my son has been subject to a number of bullying incidents
(BY TEACHERS and recently a parent) the latest one being when one
so called profesisonal mocked his facial tic! Don't these people know,
it's not nice to mock the afflicted! Worse, the man has completely denied
it and as it is his word against ours. Guess who is being believed! Well,
I know my son doesn't lie! The upshot is I have had to take him out of this
so called school for his own safety and sanity.

Anyway .....

This all means that since last week I have been phoning round, writing
letters, visiting special schools, leaving messages for LEA which are
ignored ... therefore I might, during the next few months, only be able to
publish The Gazette on an occasional basis (every 4 - 6 weeks). We have
been badly, BADLY let down by our education system but at least George
is not suffering day in day out stress and bullying now, so I suppose
it's a blessing. Hope you will bear with me on this - I will try to keep
things
up but the strain on me is telling and I have been ill so much recently.
Please do not unsubscribe, The Gazette WILL keep on going, only
publication might be erratic, for which I appologise

Gail

*************************************************

2; MAILING LISTS

I have found a mailing list which discusses gifted children
who also have emotional problems, ADHD,ODD,depression etc
To subscribe to http://www.egroups.com/group/ADHD_Gifted

also

A super group which offers support for parents whose
children have Aspergers Syndrome and any of the Autistic
Sprectrum of disorders. For more info or to subscribe, visit
http://www.egroups.com/group/AspergersUK


************************************************


3; ARTICLE

Making Friends
by Christine Waterman

When I first took my son out of school, the first question
everyone asked was "what will you do about socialisation?
He won't have any friends."

My answer was that he didn't have friends at school, and I
didn't see how it could be any worse if he stayed at home.
I feel strongly that being without a friend amongst a class of
children is even more lonely than being on your own.

We joined Education Otherwise, and went along to any activities
that seemed suitable. As my son has ADD and dyspraxia, he
could be over boisterous, loud, excitable, and clumsy, often
crashing into people or pushing them over. Making friends
was hard, and he was very anxious around other children. When
he got anxious he got louder, rougher, and lost his temper more
easily, none of which helped him to make friends.

I tried a number of things to help him. At home I played with
him as much as possible, to build up the play skills that he needed.
After a stressful time at school, we'd got into tense habits with
each other and we both needed to learn how to have fun together
again. I tried not to direct his play, but follow his lead and even
join in silly things with him - the kind of things that made him
laugh, but that used to make me anxious because I imagined
him doing them at school and getting into trouble.

He had one friend that we could invite to play. This little girl was
very forgiving and great fun. When she first used to visit I had
loads of activities available; making play dough, icing biscuits,
outings ,and joined in with everything they did so that I could
support him and help him keep control. As they got used to
each other they developed games that they wanted to play
together and I could withdraw. This took a long time but
has been very satisfying.

At organised activities I learned never to stay too long,
so we tried to leave before he had time to get stressed or bored.
I found another advantage to being home educated. If he was
having a bad day, we didn't go to activities so his new
acquaintances didn't have to see him at less than his best.
Also, children who might have found him hard work for long
periods were able to enjoy his company in short bursts. He
began to make some new relationships.

We were lucky to meet a very understanding lady with a son
the same age as mine. The two boys were drawn to each other,
but liable to get very frustrated with each other. My friend didn't
judge or get cross when the children fell out. When things went
wrong between her child and mine we were careful not to blame
either child but to sympathise with both peoples hurt feelings,
and support them both in moving on from the problem.

I also found it useful to practice strategies for joining a group of
children. He learned to watch the game first, and ask to join in.
If this didn't work, instead of trying to force his way in, I have
tried to teach him to come to me so that we could think of
something fun to play together. More often than not other
children then come wanting to join in. It was worth being the
only silly adult running around with the children to see him
finding a place within the group. It is still hard for him at times.

Although the other children accept him now, he is aware that
few of them choose him as their partner. I hope that this too
will change for him with time. He now has a "special friend"
who doesn't live very near to us, but whose pleasure in my son's
company means that it is worth a longish journey to meet up.

-------

I would like to give my sincerest thanks to Christine Waterman
who has given me her kind permission to reproduce her article here.
Christine is a member of the HE-SPECIAL-UK mailing list
http://www.egroups.com/group/HE-SPECIAL-UK - which was
started with the aim of providing support and encouragement to
families who home educate children with any kind of special
educational need (SEN) The article first appeared in the
HE-SPECIAL-NEWS, their newsletter all about every aspect of
home educating children with special needs
http://www.egroups.com/group/HE-SPECIAL-NEWS


**************************************************


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SPONSOR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out http://www.douno.com/servlet/tyf?t=1&ref=1636 to
play the most cool, hip and happening interactive set of trivia
games available on the web today. If you sign up and play, you
can win £10,000 pounds a month without even being good!
Besides that, they're great fun and there's lots of variety.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


**************************************************

4; NIGHTLY CHAT

Many of you may know apart from this newsletter we have a UK
support group list, "ADDvocate" which has been in existence for
about 18 months now. It is a group for ADHD sufferers, parents,
advocates or support group members and leaders to exchange
news and views on British ADHD awareness - (or lack of it!). The
group has a staggering 70 plus members at this moment in time.
What a number of you may *not* know is that some of us meet up
in the ADDvocate chat room at eGroups most evenings after 9.30.

Therefore, if you have had a particularly stressful day (or week!)
you are likely to find a friendly and supportive ear should you
wish to log on for a chat. To subscribe to our list in the first place,
simply send a blank email to ADDvocate-subscribe@egroups.com

Then should you wish to chat with us one evening, log into
the ADDvocate page and click on 'chat' from the menu on the left.
Please join our group - we are dead friendly and have a great laugh
as well as swapping support and advice.


**************************************************

5; RESOURCES

At http://www.burnopfield.fsbusiness.co.uk you will find information
about child development through play. This website offers an essential
guide to understanding child development. Including children with ADHD,
it supplies information which helps your child to reach full potential


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“WILD CHILD - A Mother, A Son And ADHD”
ISBN NUMBER 1 872229 24 7 Patten Press
http://home.freeuk.net/theadhdgazette/wild.html

The true story of how I was driven to the edge of despair by
my 'unruly' son and my battle with 'the powers that be' for
appropriate awareness and treatment for his condition.

For a free excerpt, please send email to
theadhdgazette@... with WILD CHILD in subject.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


Beginning in June, Joan Bramsch, internationally published writer, will
serialize, free!, her new Adult novel - CHILLED RUN - a
sci-fi/adventure/romance that banishes child abuse from the planet.
The main characters from around the world, who also form intense
romantic alliances, are led by a wise Medicine Man. Combining native
knowledge/lore with politics and ecology, and a telecommunicating
dolphin, she shares a "Wish it were true!" tale. See book cover here:
http://www.celebrityhowto.com/JBramsch.html

Sign up now: mailto:JoanBramsch-subscribe@egroups.com

-----

Conduct Disorders.com is a website filled with 2600+ parents,
teachers, and extended family members who most likely are
going through the same trauma as those living with a child with
one of the many defiant behavior disorders such as ADHD, ODD
(Oppositional Defiance Disorder), CD (Conduct Disorder), or depression
http://www.conductdisorders.com/

----

Semantic Pragmatic Disorder (A paper prepared by Heathlands
Language Unit staff for parents and teachers involved in the care
of children with Semantic-Pragmatic Difficulties)
http://www.hyperlexia.org/sp1.html



*******************************************************


IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER
Items herein are published for education/information purposes
only. Any therapy, product, service, or featured web site mentioned
does NOT imply endorsement by The Gazette. Accuracy and
content of any web sites featured cannot be guaranteed. Views
and statements written by contributors are not necessarily the
views of The ADD / ADHD Gazette.


**********************************************

subscribe; ADDGazette-subscribe@eGroups.com
unsubscribe; ADDGazette-unsubscribe@eGroups.com

**************************************************

SEE YA NEXT TIME ~ Gail Miller 2000
theadhdgazette@...

And remember ..........
"If your not making waves than you ain't kicking hard enough"