Our ADHD Holiday ADDventures

We are no strangers to adventures in holiday life - I have way to many stories - some charming and humorous, some terrifying, honestly, most are both.  It's just what you juggle when you juggle disorders like ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorders (SPD), anxiety, OCD, Aspergers, Autism, and many more.  Where "normal" families surely have bumps in their holiday road (I like to think they do anyways) navigating the special needs holiday highway can be a crazy obstacle course of road blocks and pot holes.

In case you're feeling like you're alone in having to juggle the holidays like exquisitely sharpened knives I thought I would share some of our families holiday adventures and mishaps

 I Saw Rachel Pantsing Santa Clause

Call it excitement, anticipation combined with impulsiveness.  Call it what ever you want to - I just remember sitting at a table with a bunch of other parents watching our adorable kids huddle around Santa, hankering for the candy he was passing out.  There was my daughter, about 8 years old at the time 9she's an adult now), impatiently tugging on his pants trying to get his attention. There was Santa, with his red furry pants around his ankles.  The parents were in an uproar, some racing to tell Santa - who had no clue he was flashing the entire Christmas Party.  Some literally rolling on the floor laughing.  Me, I was completely in shock - did that really just happen?

Twas the Night Before Christmas

One of our earliest holiday traditions seem to revolve around Christmas Eve.  Anticipation of the mornings stocking and present excitement building, cookies and milk set out, all the kids tucked safely in, surely it was time for mom and dad to relax a bit while everyone drifted off to sleep so the evenings real work could begin.  Magical, until, like clockwork, one children would wake up vomiting. Yep, we have an anxiety vomiter and Christmas Eve made her anxious.
Finally, one year, she cued us in on why we had established such a terrible Christmas tradition. When we were trying to get her calmed down she stammered out a question,"Why can't Santa leave the presents on the doorstep like the Easter Bunny?"

As she's gotten older she's expounded on her fear- she told us, 'think about it - an old man, who lives forever, who knows what you've been thinking, your deepest desires, who watches your every move, good or bad and sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake.  He waits until you're asleep then sneaks into your house, eats food, and leaves presents. Creepy."

It was NOT okay with her.  I never would have guessed that in a million years.  The magic of Santa had never translated into danger for me. We didn't change our tradition of finding the presents under the tree or stockings full of small surprises but we did address her fears and figured out ways for her to feel safe.  Over the years she found enough peace to ditch her nasty Christmas Eve tradition - one we were all happy to see go. She loves the season she still is no fan of Santa. Lucky for her Santa loves her anyways.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

A couple of years ago our oldest daughter was at the mall with our youngest son.  She thought she would do something special and sentimental with him so she offered to wait in line with him to see Santa Claus. He looked at her with skeptical eyes, "You want me to go sit on a strangers lap and reveal my deepest desires? Uh...NO thank you, that's not fun, that's creepy."

The Little Drummer Boy (Our not so little anymore flute girl)

Our daughter has played the flute since she was 7.  We got her started because she was such a little stress and anxiety ball and needed an outlet.  She's has always been gifted at it, had nearly perfect tone, and almost never hits the wrong notes.  Why?  She's has auditory defensiveness/sensitivity and hears wrong notes so intensely they drive her crazy.  She has a hard time enjoying music, though she loves it, writes it, breathes it like it was air to her, because she can't help but hear any missed variation.

Recently we were at a beautiful Christmas concert.  They had a flutist who had a very unnatural vibrato to everything she played.  Years ago our daughter would have loudly complained about it.  Everyone around us would have had a lecture on vibrato, and known exactly how violent this ladies was making our daughter.  We've found that progress in social skills and every other coping mechanism with our kids comes very slowly, sometimes it's down right imperceptible but then you wake up one day and all those little bits of progress have added up to something remarkable. 

She still complained, expressed her deep desire to run up to the stage, rip the flute out of the ladies hands and beat her with it. BUT, she didn't flee the building, huff and puff for everyone to see her disgust, and she whispered it.

"The Fire is so Delightful"

Our latest fascination it a video the kids stumbled onto while searching for Prep and Landing on Netflix.  It's a video of wood burning in the fireplace.  First of all, we have a fireplace to burn wood in but this has tripped every ADHD wire in their ADHD brains and they are fixated with it.  They keep joking about the special effects and fine quality of the video.  They were ecstatic to find out there was two episode and are eagerly awaiting a sequel.  They wanted to move the TV in front of the real fireplace just to watch the video, to buy a 100 inch TV so they could see it even bigger on the wall.  They run up and warm their hand in front of it, my son rips his shirt off because it's getting so hot, and they yell at each other for walking in front of the screen and obscuring the view.  Who knew a recorded fire could bring so much entertainment and fun, I didn't.

Hark, the Herald Angels Weep

My husband leaned over to me in church yesterday and said, "Do you think my plan for the tree topper angel is sacrilegious?" I honestly had to think about it for a minute or two.  I really don't hink of the Christmas tree is a very religious symbol of Christmas.  I know that their are all kind of explanations of how it represents different facets of faith but really I think those explanations  but personally I think the tree is a great decoration for the season and part of magical tradion and that's about it.

Qualifier, our kids are NOT very little anymore, our youngest is 12 in a couple weeks.  Fact, everyone in our house loves Dr. Who.  Add to this mix the fact that my husband has a deep seeded distaste for our Christmas Tree topper angel. Add to the old tree topper angel some serious ADHD, some creative genus, some impulsivity, some Modpodge, some spray paint, and you have a weeping angel Cristmas Tree topper.
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That's right, by tonight our new and improved weeping angel Christmas tree topper will be staring down from the top of the Christmas tree.  I leaned over to him and whispered back, "No, I don't think it's sacrilegious at all."

Holidays can be hard: uncomfortable clothes, overstimulating events, social skills war zone, organizational hell, too many demands coming from too many directions.  But in the midst of it all we have learned to compromise, teach, ditch the demands, and find what works for our family.  It's not perfect but it's our holiday, our traditions, and we love it.

Vacuum Tube Transportation and Other Strokes of Genius

I have to admit, the older the kids get, the more responsible they are for getting their own medication in the morning, the harder time I have managing when they are getting close to running out.  Then, I'm in a rush to call the doctor's office for refill prescriptions, get them to pharmacy, and get refills before they run out.  So, more and more I end up in the drive through line at the pharmacy with one or more of my kids.  They're there because they are completely unmedicated.  Best bet is to take them with me.

Interestingly enough, my 13 year old son was talking about the experience of being unmedicated as we were on our way to pick up the medication.  He said he kind of enjoys being with out medication at first - there's a sort of freedom to his thoughts.  He indicated that at first that is a fun feeling - ideas bouncing around in his brain like a hand full of bouncy balls that have been thrown down really hard on the ground.  A sense that he's carried by his brain - having no control over where it will take him.


But, he added quickly, there's a relief when he takes his meds.  A sense that control is on the way, that soon he'll be able to manage the thoughts running through his mind.  He'll at least have some control over what he thinks about and where it will take him.  What an odd paradox - the freedom feels good but uncontrollable and therefore a little scary.  The control from the medication feels safe but somewhat restrictive.

We were still very much in the "freedom of thought" state when we pulled up to the pharmacy's drive through lane - the one with the vacuum tube that sucks your payment and paper prescriptions up a tube and deposits them in the pharmacy and then sends the medications back the same way.  I thought my boys were going to have an aneurism they were so excited.

They wanted to jump out of the car and into the tube themselves. They wanted to take it apart.  They wanted to know all about how it worked.  They wanted to make a super large one that ran from our house to their father's work and stick him in it every morning to send him off.  Dad's 6 foot 3 - he is a big guy.  This was an amazing visual that they could not resist.  Can you imagine, they mused, somebody's standing at work and wooosh, "Hey, it's Mark.  Mark's here!"  The sound effects and scenarios filled the car.

But what if he got stuck?  Easy, all they needed was a gigantic plunger or maybe a bunch of gigantic plungers.  A hatch would open, the gigantic plunging system would fall into place and plunge until daddy was successfully dislodged and sailing through the vacuum tube once more.  I was slightly disturbed - they were in heaven.

My next stop was to take my husband his lunch and medication, since he is equally as bad at telling me when he's close to out of meds, great at telling me when he has taken his last day.  As he walked up to meet us at the car the boys couldn't contain their excitement - they were talking over each other explaining design and functionality of vacuum tube travel.  The sound effects were flying like bullets in a war zone.

What did Mark have to say about all this, "Hmmm, what if you got positioned in the tube wrong.  You could get a really horrible wedgie."  Well, that was an unexpected answer.  The boys loved it.  Jaren pointed out that they were not going to stick him in the tube directly - he would be in a pod of sorts, sailing through the tube underground.  No atomic vacuum tube wedgies.  Mark was not happy about traveling underground.  He was totally up for vacuum tube travel as long as he could be up high, have a sense he was flying, and a great view. 

I passed out the meds and bottled water.

It was time for a little thought management.  Freedom of thought is not bad thing.  Most of the time it's amusing and certainly adds a lot of humor into our lives.  I am sure that many of the world's greatest creations have come from moments just like ours when one thought sparked another until something totally new and revolutionary came to mind and then into existence.

One thing that all of my ADHD/ADDers have pointed out is that medication does not take away their creativity and, believe me, they are an intensely creative group.  The minds in our house are full of art to draw, music to compose, inventions to build, films to make, and novels to write.  Medication allows them to aim their creativity, to follow through with their thoughts.  It allows them to take a concept, have the wherewithal  to take out of their mind, and create it in the real world.  Not without struggle, but it opens up the potential and makes success plausable.

This same son, Hunter, who was talking about his love hate relationship with medication pointed out that one of the hardest aspects of ADHD and its co-occurring conditions is to have such great thoughts.  So many thoughts that completing any of them is a struggle.  One great thought knocks the other out of the spot light, then that one is knocked by another in never ending bombardment of great ideas. The medication gives him the concentration and focus to further that cascade of brilliance and carefully direct it towards a fabulous end.

Does that mean that those that can't take medication or choose to not take medication are doomed.  No.  We have a daughter who has recently gone off stimulants.  They aggravated her anxiety, impulsiveness, and some other ADHD qualities to that point where what she gained in focus was nothing compared to what she lost to these other symptoms.  She would be the first to tell you how hard it has become to direct those brilliant creative thoughts into tangible completed work.  She's having to master her brain without the benefit of a stimulant and it is exhausting.  It easily one hundred times as hard, but, definitely doable.  Especially, since she is aware of the battle that's raging.  Trust me when I say she has a lot of, "lost the battle but will still win the war" days.

We are still laughing about my big husband, Mark, sailing through the vacuum transportation tube with a wedgie, on his way to work, hoping to avoid getting stuck in the tube, and having to be plunged to continue on his way.  We will be for a long time.  It's not likely that this particular idea is going to be the one we see to completion - I'm not so sure it should be.  But there are many more where that came from, in my house and in houses around the world where these brilliant brains reside.

These are the brains that given the right support, encouragement, and tools will change the world.  They will change the way we see it, feel about it, and interact with it.  The trick for us as parents, teachers, and caretakers of this unlimited amazing potential is to remember the possibilities, continue to encourage, and direct even when we are exhausted from being up all night because that child has insomnia. Even when your teenage daughter is torturing the cub scouts because she's frustrated and over stimulated.  Even when your brilliant child is in danger of failing because they haven't turned in one homework assignment all semester and no one told you until it was almost too late to fix.


The trick is to remember and hold onto the knowledge that they are brilliant because of their unique BRAINS not in spite of them.

If I Knew Then What I Know Now

Well time did not come to a screeching halt.  We were on the eve of Rachel’s most dreaded 18^th birthday and last night she said family prayer,  in it she slipped in a little personal request, “God if thou will please stop time for me.” 

Thinking about our oldest becoming a legal adult started me thinking about her life.  As the oldest there is no doubt she is the child we learned on, our guinea pig in parenting.  That is especially true when it comes to ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) as she was the first diagnosed.

There is no good way to put into words Rachel’s brilliance or her struggles educationally.  She was about two years old when she drew the boy next door playing basketball.  There was a face, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, body, with circles for all the major joints, feet, hands, and a basketball.  Developmentally that is astounding. 

But as she started school there was no end to her struggles.  She wrote her letters perfectly, but they were just art to her.  Perfectly formed but they had no meaning and she could not recall what they stood for or what sound was associated with then to save her life. 

As we worked and worked with her and she started progressing she was plagued by a younger sister who would blurt out the word she was agonizingly trying to sound out.  It was a never ending battle that raged in our house daily after school for hours on end.  Despite the years spent struggling, reading and math were like foreign languages to her and no matter how hard we tried or how many ways we tried she could not break the code.

I remember Mark and I many times trying to convince Rachel that she was smart, but one time in particular really sticks out and stings.  As Mark and I told her how smart she was and she argued back. She stopped the conversation, pulled out a spelling pretest with a big red F on it and said,

“See I am not smart... I am a failure.”

Our highly intelligent, amazingly artistic 8 year old could not be swayed.  To her core she felt she was a failure. It didn’t matter at that point what we said she wasn’t buying.  She had all the proof she needed. 

One of my biggest regrets has to be not seeking help for Rachel earlier. 

It was sixth grade before we would get her help.  Before she would get the help she needed.  The help she deserved.  I took her to a trusted friend and pediatrician and she was on medication the next day.  People have all kinds of things to say about medication, good and bad.  There are experts and studies to support whatever position that you want to hold onto.

There was, however, no greater proof for me than her excitement the next day as she greeted me at the school with the news that she had gotten a 90% on a math benchmark test. She had never ever passed a math benchmark test before. Never.

I have said before that medication takes you most of the way but is not a cure all.  Rachel didn’t ace every test or assignment placed in her path since she started medication but she was drowning before and it gave her the power to swim. 

Our last self esteem/intelligence talk was only a few months ago.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to matter how many successes she has had since she started medication, and she has had many, she still battles that rough start, she can’t get that big fat red F out of her mind.

I can’t help but contrast that with our youngest son Jaren who started medication in kindergarten. Of course by then we knew what to look for.  When he started kindergarten I told his teacher that we suspected ADHD, filled her ear with the family history.  I told her we were watching to see when, not if, to put him on medication.  She clearly thought I was crazy and assured me that I was over reactive.

It wasn’t three months into school when she grabbed me after class and indicated that Jaren was, “not available to learn.”  Jaren started meds with in a month or two.  Jaren has never doubted his intelligence or his ability to learn.  Largely because he has had the benefit of everything we learned from parenting Rachel.

He is not scarred by those years of frustration, the hours of work to get one assignment done, the supplemental programs, summer long work to retain,  not to mention seeing and feeling the difference between him and his peers that Rachel had before we got her help.

Mark always says, “IF ONLY will kill you.” That you have to live by phrase “NEXT TIME” and that is true.  Rachel has made it and we have worked one day, month, year at a time to better meet her needs.  Despite her own doubts she is a good solid student and an amazingly creative and talented young woman.

But if I knew then what I know now I would not wait to get help, I would pursue it with a vengeance that would make any mother bear proud.  I would go to my pediatrician, if I was not satisfied with the answers I got I would seek a second opinion. I would not wait to do all the research and reading that I did after I was given her diagnosis. 

I would not be afraid of any diagnosis because now I know the power of knowing, accepting and doing.  Today I would encourage anyone facing the same road as our family to do the same. 

What Box? Where?

This weekend has given me more material for this blog than I really care to admit.  After all, do I want the world to know that my 11 1/2 year old son, Hunter, tried to flavor his bath water with lollipops.   For that matter do I want the world to know that the summation of the experience was that he thought he really needed more lollipops to make it successful.

Ironically, Mark and I had been discussing our families inability to think inside the box, in fact, as we were reviewing a few experiences it became clear that we are far beyond the notion of 'thinking outside the box.'  We are somewhere around, "Box?  What box?  Where?"

Some people would definitely have issues with our embracing our uniqueness so wholeheartedly.  I am sure that some of our extended family question our tactics, feel that we should conform more.  Teach our children not to embrace who they are and what they are but squash it as much as possible.  As if it could or should be willfully set aside.

I want to be clear that we are not saying we or our children should act any way they please anywhere they please.  We have standards we expect to be met and consequences both good and bad.  We encourage choice with the understanding that they make their choices but do not choose the consequences. We, Mark and I, feel and have tried to teach our kids to embrace their uniqueness while respecting others and the boundaries of the situation they are in.

Boy that sounds simpler than it really is, it is a lot of constant work teaching them to recognize and establish boundaries.

For example, we went out for Chinese food for lunch on Saturday.  Our favorite family owned restaurant, The China Garden (in Fresno, CA).  Hunter's medication was clearly wearing off, actually that was a common problem at the table, and he was getting more and more hyper.    His hyper is not running around jumping on things hyper, his brain speeds up, he will sit in the same spot but is very fidgety and talkative, usually obsessively about one subject. He spent a great deal of time turning straw wrappers into a surly disguise while repeatedly asking Fernando, who is like a big brother to him, about a certain aspect of a video game.

Here is where my standard were enforced.  You can use all the straw wrappers on the table, no matter how embarrassed we get.  You have to stop driving Fernando crazy, and instead of your volume getting louder and louder you need to tone it down.

Fernando had asked him to stop because he was in public, to Hunter he was not in public, he was in a restaurant we always go to.  Hunter's world and perspective had shrunk to the table we were at with family and friends.  I turned him around and had him look at the other tables, "Hunter, this is the public, the other people around you."  Ahhhhhh...public.

So we are adding a sidebar box called Box? What Box?  Where? to illustrate the rather unique thought process and perspective that flows so freely in our house.  The perspective that leads a little boy, Jaren, in a new ninja suit to offer a sweet and humble family prayer asking for protection and safety for his family, say amen and then add maniacally - "protect them except from me." Then strike a menacing ninja pose.

Or to come up to me this morning with these little toothbrush shaped erasers that his sister got for Christmas and tell me that he wanted  his own set of toothpaste and toothbrush erasers so he could draw a picture of nasty teeth and then clean them.

But why encourage that mindset? Mark said this morning, "Our imagination is fed by what others see as impossible because it lies outside the boundaries of their own BOX."

We feed it because on the other side is art, music, humor, literature, film, acting, science that might never be dreamed of or created if we never got outside the box.  I feed it in faith because I am more of a why person than a why not person like my husband.

Yesterday it was a most painful rendition of Phantom of the Opera by a 6th grader that was just beginning to sing, sung over and over and over again. It was her sister who cried because she couldn't read music after her first music lesson but was reading it two lessons later. Today it is Border Patrol sung by those same young women who now have a message to share and the voice to move it forward. (www.blissmethod.com)

The Picture of ADHD

Here are my boys, Hunter and Jaren! They are a couple years apart in age and about the same size in stature. They are often confused for twins. Some people ask me HOW to tell them apart. I tell them it is easy Jaren always looks very put together and Hunter always looks disheveled, like he just walked out of a tornado.


I couldn’t help but think about how individual ADHD can be when I looked at this picture. Believe it or not both boys are ADHD, both take medications (though not the same meds) but clearly there are some differences in how that ADHD comes out in their personalities.

Jaren obsessively fights his inattentiveness and Hunter is overrun by it.

Jaren has responded wonderfully to medication, Hunter has struggled on a journey of trial and error with little patches of success here and there (luckily we are in a good place right now).

Hunter is often drowning in his own thoughts and has a hard time expressing them. One night I asked him if he was swimming in thought. He cried and insisted, “No, there is no room to swim.” Jaren finds expressing them easy, almost effortless and charming. At four he serenaded his pre-school teacher with Phantom of the Opera. He has charm and wit and catch phrases.

Hunter misses nothing, often memorizing books and movies with one exposure reciting them with ease. Jaren has to work at it and often repeats things over and over to learn them.

It would be SO easy if there were a simple way to diagnose and treat ADHD, if you could measure it scientifically like diabetes and give a proportional response. It just doesn’t work like that, it is so much trickier. Each person having their own struggles and reaction to how their brain functions, to this neurobiological disorder called ADHD.

We have always tried to approach each child individually even before we knew anything about ADHD. Teaching, disciplining, guiding, encouraging in a way that works for that individual. We have sought out doctors that are interested in treating our children in the same way that we raise them; treating the child not necessarily the disorder alone. As our psychiatrist now says treating what is in front of you. This is especially important because ADHD in not usually a stand alone disorder, it likes company. My husband Mark often calls it the buffet of mental health issues. A virtual smorgasbord, “I’ll take a little OCD and anxiety with my ADHD, throw a little ODD on there for desert.”

So when the kids piled out of the car for church on Sunday Hunter’s outside so completely reflected his inner struggles I called out to Mark, “Quick, get a picture!” It’s a picture of two brothers who share so much. A picture of how unique ADHD can be.

What's ADHD stand for?

Jaren just asked me what ADHD stands for? Hmmm... How do I answer that question? The first thing that came to mind was not Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The first thing that came to mind was CHAOS! Maybe it is because I always feel like I am swimming up stream trying to get all my ducks in a row and headed the SAME direction - something that is a constant battle and rarely happens. Maybe it is because I am still reeling from the holidays and I feel like my house has been turned upside down and shaken so hard that everything fell out. Maybe it is that today I am trying to keep three home schooled kids on track and working on school (ON being the operative term here) while their three older siblings are still on vacation and are gleefully following the random dictates of their mind - despite my continued efforts to redirect them to CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN!

More philosophically I think of their creativity, artistic drive, compassion, dramatics (both appreciated and sometimes not), their musicality and so much more driven by impulsivity and the moment of wonder when they are carried away by their incredible minds. I think of their struggles to reign in that amazing brain; to find balance and some measure of control. That simple question...what does that stand for is never very simple. A constant struggle carrying great blessings. Or as my ADHD husband, Mark says, "A gift with a heavy price tag" - that is what ADHD is to me and my family.