ADHD Is a Gift

So says Lara Honos-Webb, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating kids with ADHD. Why? Because children with it tend to be exceptionally creative, intuitive, and imaginative. The problem is that our medical and educational systems allow the difficult ADHD traits like short attention span and inability to memorize facts and figures to eclipse the positive ones, and parents often follow suit, leaving their children without an advocate to fight for their best interests.

In her book The Gift of ADHD: How to Transform Your Child’s Problems into Strengths she shows parents how to maximize their children’s unique gifts and how to use them to correct the behavioral problems that typify ADHD. As importantly, she offers a fresh perspective on ADHD that destigmatizes and demystifies it for parents. Here’s just some of what she has to say:

• It’s a lot easier—and cheaper—to diagnose a kid with ADHD and put him on Ritalin than it is to create an environment that nurtures his unique gifts.
• Telling exuberant children they have ADHD is like telling women they have a Penis Deficit Hypermammary Disorder. Differences do not mean disorders.
• In 1900 Freud discovered that cocaine was an effective cure for depression. Similarly, Ritalin and other medications do work for children with ADHD—but at what cost? There is currently no science that tells us what the long-term effects are.
• ADHD appears to be an American phenomenon. For every two hundred and fifty children diagnosed and treated for ADHD, only one child would similarly have been diagnosed and treated in all of Germany, England, France, and Italy combined.
• If ADHD is really a gift, not only are we hurting these kids by calling them disordered, we’re depriving the world of their much needed gifts of creativity, exuberance, and intuition.

Lara Honos-Webb, Ph.D.,is assistant professor of psychology at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, CA. She is the author of numerous scholarly articles and book chapters. Visit Honos-Webb at www.visionarysoul.com.

For more information e-mail Lorna Garano or call 510-652-0215, x107.