Down the Rabbit Hole of Distraction

Rachel sings as she works - the little woodland creatures have yet to come join her and help like they do in Disney movies but I guarantee you they can hear her.  She is a vocalist and boy does she have a set of lungs.  She insists that this helps her work but I am seeing more wandering, singing, and staging than working.  I keep asking her to take the volume down but clearly we define quieter differently.

In the mean time, there is a raging argument about whether spoiled milk should be kept or thrown out.  I know, this seems like a no-brainer decision, but Mary is a junior scientist.  We got her a book for Christmas with all kinds of things that can be made out of stuff you have at home.  She has found the grossest one and latched onto it.  She is going to make plastic out of milk and some other things.

She is trying to defend keeping the curdled milk in an effort to not waste the good milk.  Mariah and Fernie are disgusted by the thought of keeping the spoiled milk.  I suppose they are pretty sure they will accidentally grab it early in the morning and it will glob out onto their cereal.  They are getting pretty loud about it.  They are working in the kitchen.  Though there is definitely more arguing going on than working.

I will resolve the issue by telling Mary that her experiments are worth using good milk.  It is not a waste to me.  I don't want curdled milk in the refrigerator either.

Hunter is supposed to be cleaning the living room.  He has found Sid's tennis balls that are floating around the house.  Sid is our Aussie, she is obsessed with tennis balls.  The tennis balls have reminded Hunter that he is learning to juggle.  He has now totally forgotten that he was cleaning the living room and is jumping around trying to dance, juggle, and is singing circus theme music. He needs redirecting to remember he is doing a job.  He spends the next 10 minutes repeatedly apologizing for getting side tracked.  I repeatedly tell him to stop apologizing, I know it was not intentional.

Jaren is also on living room duty.  He is trying to convince me that he can do plenty of work while holding his spy case in one hand and with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and head.  I am not buying.  Seems to me that two hands are better than one.

We know attention deficit -- we see it when one distraction leads to another and another.  We live while trying to stay on task as it seems everything is pulling you in opposite directions.  Even though I am not ADD/ADHD I can see that my husband and children often feel drawn and quartered by their own thoughts.

It definitely gets frustrating when you are trying to get things done, like daily chores.  When I see the quickest path between two points as a straight line and everyone else sees no lines.  Frustrating for me because life seems to move so slowly in the direction I need it to move.  Frustrating for them because they are trying so hard to control their direction but can't seem to resist the diversions.

Hannah, who doesn't have ADHD either, and I exchange glances that scream, "It's time for a non-ADD day."

Some might say it's time for some heavy discipline.  Crack the whip, so that they won't get distracted during chores.  Punish them for not staying on task.  I am here to tell you that no amount or type of discipline will keep them from getting distracted.  It is the way their brain functions chemically that leads them down the rabbit hole of distraction.   Like an asthmatic can't completely control their reaction to an irritant in the air or a diabetic can't completely control their blood sugar by willing it to be so.  A person with ADHD cannot completely control their intake of  the stimuli around them. 

Coping mechanisms are our goal. We define a coping mechanism as a skill that helps you cope life.  A skill that helps you make life work for you instead of against you.  It is not just skills that help you when you are overwhelmed or in crisis. 

Coping mechanisms are everyday skills.  In this case it is what do you do with the stimuli when it hits you over the head or tugs on your shirt and tempts you?  How you judge what reaction would be appropriate for the time and place?  Is it okay to embrace the diversion, maybe even run with it?  Learning to control what they do with the stimuli has been more important than just getting whatever task needs to be done.

Someday they will be out of the house and their won't be singing, and tennis balls flying, and arguments raging.  Someday they won't have me to walk around reminding them what they are supposed to be doing.  Certainly, no one there to ground them for not paying attention.  Then they will need to know how to redirect themselves.  Punishment, alone, while it may make my life easier now will not make their lives more productive later.

For now, chores take as long as they make them take.  If they can control the diversions then they will finish pretty quickly and move on.  If they are sucked in by the diversions then it will take them a long time to finish.  Natural consequences are the greatest tool in our toolbox.  That combined with a little "learning experience" (as my mom used to call them) to point out the natural consequences.  That is how we manage and teach. 

I will have to admit, though, it is hard not to laugh at their diversions.  Redirecting someone with any sense of authority is difficult when you are laughing. Then again how do you not laugh when after the window air conditioner is removed and the window is standing wide open your teenage daughters start singing songs from Titanic and acting like they are standing on the bow of the ship in the wind.

They say that life is what happens when you have other plans - in our house life is often what happens when we are distracted.

Parkas in Summer, Shorts in the Winter

My dad is a safety fanatic, truly obsessed.  So when I was a kid our dart board was Velcro.  The "darts" were ping pong balls with little strips of the scratchy side of Velcro.  The dart board itself was soft material.  You had to throw that dart-ball just right; because, if you didn't the smooth side of the ball would bounce right off the board.

The more I experienced ADHD with my husband and children, the more I learned about it,  the more I saw a similarity between my old dart board and the ADHD brain.  So much information comes at the brain,  there is not much rhyme or reason to what sticks and what doesn't.  It is just like those little dart balls - it has to hit just right to stick.


Some things stick so well that you can hardly get them off the board.  

In my years as a parent I have spent all summer trying to get my kids out of their winter clothes, despite the 100+ temperatures.  Right about the time they finally put away the parkas the seasons change.  Then I spend most of winter reminding them that they are cold because they are wearing shorts! 

My current dilemma is how to pry my two youngest off the sides of the shopping cart.  I realize that this might not be something to complain about given the alternative.

I remember when my second child was born, I was panicked about taking two small children to the store by myself.  By the time my last child was born I had six under nine years old.  Of course, shopping had to be done, so I figured it out.  I did it by having them hold onto the cart, several on each side. What a spectacle we were, bulldozing our way through the store!

The kids knew that if they did not hold onto the cart it was a deal breaker - we would leave or they wouldn't get a promised treat.  One by one they all got older, they all reached the point where they could let go of the cart.  I will have to be honest, sometimes their exploits in the store make me question that decision.

My last two, my boys, won't let go of the cart.

That rule stuck and now I am stuck with the rule.  People coming the opposite direction - the boys won't budge.  Narrow isles - I am begging them to let go.   Encouraging them all the way - you are big now - you don't have to hold on to the cart...every second.  Then finally the voice of frustration, "Okay, we're stuck, someone has to let go!"


Then there are the darts that don't stick no matter how many times you throw them.

For example, we have toy box we bought many years ago to use as a shoebox in our house.  No matter where we have lived that shoebox has been within steps of entering the house, you practically trip over it to get through the entryway.  And yet, almost anytime of day, any day of the year, there will be shoes all over my house.

No amount of threatening changes this.  I have not yet found a consequence that has the power to make them remember to put their shoes in the shoebox.  No matter how many times or differing ways I throw that dart it just doesn't stick. I have a friend who is fighting the same battle - she has been confiscating the shoes that aren't put away.

I thought about that for a moment - I may have tried that in the past - to be honest, I don't remember.  I do, however, know exactly what would happen if I tried it today.  My children would all be shoeless.

Truth be told, regardless of motivations disciplining a child with ADHD is just different than one without.  Traditional punishments rarely work.  Maybe it is their tendency toward creative problem solving (see post Creativity and ADHD part II).  Their minds naturally go toward a solution that makes the punishment not a punishment.  I cannot tell you how many times I have taken away a privilege only to hear something like, "Its okay that I can't play the Play Station, I have been meaning to read more."

No matter how many punishments I can throw out they can come up with ways to make the punishment work for them.  It is a frustrating process.  I think it is why I am so fond of the "put your nose on the wall" punishment, boredom is the worst and most powerful punishment I have found. 

But, it has yet to get the shoes in the shoebox.

I am sure there are many reasons why some things stick and some don't.  When it comes to the shoes I am sure that when my children come through the door they have long ago left behind whatever they were doing before they came inside.  Mentally, they have already been in the house and working on whatever they are running towards.  They are moving as fast as they can so that they don't lose the idea or forget it.

I have come to a place where I pick my battles.  In addition to being hard to discipline I believe their is a real danger in a child being constantly in trouble, being constantly reminded of how forgetful and in translation how incompetent they are.  I don't want my children to feel defeated, I want them to feel empowered to conquer their struggles with ADHD.  How can they feel that way if their faults are constantly the only thing they see?

So, I choose what rules I will be a stickler about and I do my own "creative problem solving."  I send the kids out once or twice a day to get all the shoes and put them away.  The shoe situation is one of those things that I have had to find a different solution to.

So, if you stop by my house my advice is, watch your step.