New Harbinger Publications: You remark that telling exuberant children they have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is like telling women they have “penis-deficit/hypermammary disorder.” What do you mean by that?!

Lara Honos-Webb: To say a woman has penis-deficit/hypermammary disorder would be offensive because it would be a clear example of taking differences and turning those differences into a disorder. Children with ADHD really are different from other children. I don’t claim in my book that ADHD is not real or that children with this diagnosis don’t need appropriate individualized attention in school settings. Certainly, these children ARE different from other kids in predictable ways, but these differences can be seen as gifts. Just as women’s anatomical differences allow them to birth and feed babies—something men are not equipped to do—children with ADHD have abilities that other children don’t have. These gifts should be appreciated and developed.

NHP: So, do you think that ADHD is not a valid diagnostic term?

LHW: I think that the label can point to children who have differences that do set them apart from other children. In that way it can be useful for parents who are struggling to understand their child. But there is also evidence that the label ADHD has very low reliability, meaning that different experts often cannot agree on who does or does not have it. Other problems like anxiety, depression, or stress within the family can cause behavior that looks a lot like ADHD but isn’t. I think that ADHD is often over-diagnosed, but in some cases it is appropriate in pointing to a cluster of symptoms that hang together. Using the term “deficit,” has its problems, too. On the whole, I think the label points to real differences, but those differences aren’t necessarily deficits or disorders, so the label itself can be potentially destructive.

NHP: You point out that for every 250 American children diagnosed and treated for ADHD, only one child would similarly be diagnosed and treated in all of Germany, England, France, and Italy combined. Why do you think there’s such a disparity in rates of diagnosis?

LHW: No one really knows the answer to that question, and the truth is probably that there are many reasons. Some of the speculations that seem most relevant to me are that the American physicians and psychologists are very strongly influenced by pharmaceutical marketing, so big business drives the push toward diagnoses that can be treated with medication. I can’t open a magazine these days without seeing a few advertisements for ADHD medications. The tag lines often say things like, “Does your child hate to do his homework?” While most children would rather do other things than homework, the marketing would have a parent assume that such normal behavior indicates a need for medication.

Also, we should consider the competitive hyper-parenting trend in the United States, where parents with the best intentions to give their children every opportunity have bought into the biomedical model that personality and performance should be shaped by medical interventions. Basically the thinking is that if the technology is there, why not use it? If other kids are using medications to their advantage, aren’t your children being deprived if you don’t pursue an assessment of their need for these medications? This sort of thinking has led to parents unthinkingly buying into the medical model.

Finally, there seems to be an emphasis in our culture on conformity and compliance, traits really enhanced by the use of medications. There seems to be less tolerance for the gifts of ADHD in the United States, traits like creativity, exuberance, and intense sensitivity. Other cultures may have a wider range of gifts that they value.

NHP: I imagine that many people will think that this is really a Pollyannaish way to look at ADHD, that really, if you’ve got a child with ADHD, you’ve got a child with a serious problem that’s going to limit him or her throughout life—not to mention take a real toll on the family’s stability. What do you say to this?

LHW: In my book, I make it clear that having a child diagnosed with ADHD means that these children really are different and that they really are “a handful.” If I remember the story of Pollyanna correctly, a young girl with a very positive perspective transforms the people with whom she interacts. There is solid evidence that positive perceptions of children will impact their behavior and educational outcomes. By seeing the gifts your child has you will bring into play the most powerful healing principles to change the situation, however bad it might be.

Your connection with and your positive perception of your child will transform him or her. There is also solid research evidence that your ability to make meaning out of events—or, in this case, a diagnosis—leads to more positive psychological and health outcomes. This way, parents can be also transformed by actively searching for their child’s gifts.

NHP: Tell us a little bit about what you think are the benefits and drawbacks of Ritalin, the most commonly prescribed ADHD medication.

LHW: The research is clear: Ritalin works. This means it reduces symptoms. In this way, it can help children get through developmental milestones so they do not fall too far behind. The problems with Ritalin are that if ADHD is really a gift as I suggest, than getting rid of symptoms means you are enhancing the child’s conformity and control at the expense of their other gifts, which do often come off as irreverence. You are depriving the child and the society of these important gifts.

More inimical are the negative side effects of Ritalin and the fact that there are no research studies that explore the consequences of its long-term use. Many anecdotal accounts suggest that Ritalin can stunt physical and emotional growth and lead to increased drug and alcohol abuse. Methylphenidate (Ritalin) is classified as a schedule II drug by the Drug Enforcement Agency along with Cocaine and Morphine, which means that these drugs are highly addictive. A study published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association was titled, “Pay attention: Ritalin Acts Much Like Cocaine.” The study found that, in some of the biological mechanisms, Ritalin is as potent as cocaine. The author said that the findings demonstrated that the idea that Ritalin is a weak stimulant is completely incorrect. So, in addition to the risks to the child, there are the deeper philosophical issues of using drugs to increase compliance and control and the possibility that you are depriving the child and our society of their gifts.

NHP: Parents whose children are not achieving academically often fear that this will condemn them to a future of limited career and financial possibilities. What do you say to a parent of a child with ADHD who has these anxieties?

LHW: It is very difficult to teach or train people to be creative—a gift with which your child is naturally endowed. It is much easier to train someone who is creative to be disciplined and to pay attention to details than it is to teach someone who is focused and disciplined to be creative. Your child has the potential for excellence if he or she can learn to apply discipline to paying attention to details and following through in translating their imaginative flights into completed projects.

However, parents should recognize that the best career for their child is one that uses his or her gifts rather than one that patches over his or her weaknesses. Child with the gifts of ADHD will likely be happiest in non-traditional fields or pursuits that capitalize on creativity, innovation, and social connections. In general this means that parents who expect their children to go to top schools and become professionals might do better to change their expectations and allow their children to feel free to live the lives that best use their gifts. However, parents can still have appropriate expectations, and these may include every mother’s dream—having her a child become a doctor! One of the gifts of ADHD is an intuitive connection to the natural organic world. The human body and anatomy is part of the living organic world. Some of the best doctors have overcome the limits of ADHD; these excellent, intuitive doctors capitalize on their gifts of interpersonal connection and intuition. If a child can get through the rigors of advanced schooling, often they can become exceptional in their chosen field if the subject area is one of intense interest.

NHP: You say it’s important for parents to be advocates rather than apologists for their children. Can you tell us why you think parents of kids with ADHD often become the latter and how they can become the former?

LHW: Parents often apologize for their children because they are intimidated by the authority of teachers and doctors. They think these people must really be experts who know what they are talking about. In my book, I am careful to point out that many teachers and doctors really are experts and do care for your child, but they are working from the medical model which equates differences with disorders. So their pronouncements about your child’s deficits and disorders are wrong in that, while knowledgeable, these folks have not shifted their vision to allow that your child’s difference might indicate a gift.

Parents can become advocates for their child by respectfully sharing their own perceptions of their child’s gifts with teachers and mental health care providers. Parents need to advocate for supportive instead of demeaning or punishing interventions. Parents can help teachers and doctors reframe these symptoms as gifts. In one example from my book, a young boy’s interest in girls was interpreted by his teacher as a symptom of ADHD. The boy’s parents helped the teacher reframe the behavior as a normal, awkward attempt at engaging a new interest. The teacher was able to back down and stop pressing for serious medical interventions. You can expect your child to respond positively to your becoming an advocate for him or her, especially since he or she will not feel so defective and alienated.

NHP: To a large extent your book is about “reframing,” or changing the way in which we view common ADHD traits like short attention span and frenetic energy. Tell us what you mean by reframing and how you would reframe those two characteristics.

LHW: Reframing is a central cognitive-behavioral technique of “telling yourself a different story” about the same events or, in this case, characteristics. Reframing means coming up with a different interpretation. One example is a woman who finds out that her husband did not tell her about a difficult work situation, and she immediately thinks he is hiding something from her. A different interpretation or reframe that would have more positive effects for marital happiness would be for her to reframe his intentions with the idea that he was trying to protect her from stress by not telling her.

In a similar way, the symptoms of ADHD can be reframed so that they are seen in a positive light. The easiest trait to reframe is the excess of energy, which I reframe as exuberance. The benefits of having too much energy seem almost obvious. Wouldn’t we all love to come home on a Friday night after a long workweek and play with the kids or tackle new projects or pursue our dreams? If a child’s excess energy can be appropriately channeled, it can be put to great use and can be felt as charisma and exuberance. It can be a joy to be around. Exuberance is characterized by high energy, intense interest, and curiosity in the world. Exuberant children are wonderful to be around.

Similarly, a short-attention span can also be reframed as creativity and intuition. A person with a short attention span is being “inspired” by events, people, and going-ons in the world around him or her. It is the opposite of a horse with blinders, plodding along. Similarly, creative genius or inspiration requires a certain sort of spaciness—in fact, it requires exactly the sort of spaciness often tapped as a symptom of ADHD. Creativity often requires reframing or rethinking old problems. Spaciness provides a larger frame for seeing a bigger picture to old problems. Children with ADHD have the capacity to solve problems created by rigid modes of thinking. Children are often labeled as spacy for daydreaming, but daydreaming is the fount of creativity. Daydreaming is the process of engaging the imagination. Imagination creates new possibilities, dreams of new and original possibilities not yet existing in the world.

To think daringly original thoughts and to create new ideas or perspectives requires impulsiveness. Impulsiveness is the urge to do things or think things that are new and daring, that fall outside the boring grind of the everyday humdrum. Impulsiveness is the urge to forge ahead into new areas of thought. Impulsiveness is being bored with whatever everyone else is doing or thinking. Impulsiveness is a necessary ingredient for forging new ground in any area of study or thought. Creativity and originality are by definition shockingly different from what has come before. Creativity is the introduction of something new and never before seen. Children with ADHD are quite good at creativity.

Your child is truly gifted to have been given the natural ability to engage in reverie or imaginative thought, to be bold and daring in wanting to bring their imagination into the world, and being sensitive to inspiration from their thoughts, emotions or the outside world. In spite of these gifts, your child may struggle in school. This is because in the early years, educational systems focus on a “regurgitation model.” Children are expected to focus attentively, take in material presented in a rigid format, and “regurgitate” it back to the teacher to prove they were listening attentively. This style of learning goes contrary to the great gifts your child has been given.

NHP: A chapter of The Gift of ADHD is dedicated to ecological consciousness. What does this have to do with ADHD?

LHW: Children with ADHD have a strong intuitive connection to nature and organic life, more so than abstract book learning. The image of a child with ADHD staring out the window in a classroom can show that he is paying deep attention—but to the natural world outside of the classroom that he can glimpse from the window. Even solid empirical research has shown that children with ADHD show improvements in symptoms after play in green nature. This isn’t just because they’re getting exercise: the effects are not shown, for example, if they play on a concrete basketball court.

This is a tremendous gift to the world, and it may be children with ADHD who go on to have careers in conserving the environment, keeping the water clean, or as exploring the seas. In their connection to the natural world, they may represent a much-needed force in the world to protect the environment that has been destroyed by considering the natural world to be exploitable and expendable.

Children with the diagnosis of ADHD have a preference for learning about the world through hands-on engagement. They like to be immersed in the topics they are learning about. They are often very curious about the natural and organic world, feeling a deep connection to it. This gift for engaged, experiential learning is often overlooked because existing educational systems focus on abstract learning and rote memorization. What looks like a “deficit disorder” can be viewed as a mismatch between a preferred way of learning and current standards of teaching and assessment of learning.

NHP: You talk about the problems that can arise simply by labeling a child with “ADHD.” What are some of these and how should a parent address them?

LHW: The main problem with the diagnosis is that the child internalizes that they have a deficit and a disorder. They come to think of themselves as somehow fundamentally flawed. This can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lots of research has shown that in the classroom, kids live up to their teachers and parents expectations. If the diagnosis conveys expectations that these children will be behaviorally disturbed, the children are more likely to actually act behaviorally disturbed.

Additionally, many of the symptoms of ADHD can result from low self-esteem, which the diagnosis may play a role in creating in these children. For example, if I’m told I have a fundamental deficit, I may adopt a “why try?” attitude which decreases my motivation and decreases perseverance. We know that 50 to 75 percent of academic success is dependent on factors such as persistence and motivation. So we are increasing the likelihood of academic failure by giving this diagnosis.

Also, the diagnosis can convey that the child cannot control his own behavior. A child may be less likely to exercise control because they believe the diagnosis is something they have that makes them act in disruptive ways. This can lead to a “my ADHD made me do it” syndrome, which decreases a child’s behavioral control.