I have still been pouring over the book Overcoming ADHD : helping your child become calm, engaged, and focused– without a pill written by Greenspan, Stanley I. I cannot believe my eyes as I am reading this. A lot of it makes perfect sense but one of those not until you actually read it kind of, Yeah, I get that!
More children than we like to give credit to have difficulty concentrating for no other reason than they need a little extra help learning simple motor skills. For instance with me, I have trouble reeling myself in sometimes to focus on one thing without straying on to other things. I also have horrible balance. Is there a connection here? Possibly.
Weaknesses in motor skills, motor planning and or/sequencing can cause other problems such as being easily distracted (daydreaming) or too highly active.
A typical evolutionary ladder (as it’s called in the book regarding the motor skill portion) begins with crawling on the belly. Using the whole body. Then crawling on all fours. I wonder if the parents that never let their child walk and fend for themselves are really setting the child up for these issues. Walking and falling and walking again build balance. Believe it or not, your brain controls everything. It controls your muscles just as much as it controls your nervous system as much as one’s ability to pay attention. Wouldn’t it make sense to strengthen all of these areas?
A program that I am starting to work on is a physical program for the kids at our local Salvation Army. Hopefully they will find it just as important and help me with this project. These kids are a bit older starting at 6 years old so crawling may be a bit too juvenile for them. My goal is to improve each child’s attention, behavior and problem solving/consequence understanding ability through play. The program will address weakness in motor skills, motor planning and sequencing through games and activities.
Wish me luck and please give me your opinions and suggestions.
I think one of life’s problems is,too much going on around us. No more simple life for us or our children.
It used to be sleep, go to school,do homework,chores,eat,go to bed.
There is so much going on all the time, we are always distracted.
This is one key to teaching our children(getting and keeping their attention).It doesn’t always work for one reason or another, but under normal circumstances it can.
By the way, what is normal?
I think you should start them off with crawling on their belly’s. It will get their attention and who knows, maybe one or more may not have that motor skill. Don’t assume because of their age and activeness they can do it. (is that a word?) Plus it can be your warm up exercise. And you know how they can loose focus, that can be your tool when you need their attention in future sessions. And that can be their memory test for next time, who can remember what we started with last time?
Normal is considered (as I understand it) a child who’s nervous system and other body functions allow him/her to regulate themselves properly in each situation. Some kids are too active and do not know how to slow down and some are too calm and withdrawn and need to be taught how to speed up when necessary.
With the reading that I have done, I believe that this may be possible through exercises and training before resulting in medicating the child. Gie them a chance to strengthen these skills before you assume it’s not possible.
Personality is one thing. A true deficiency is another.
The above comment was added by myself from Cynthia’s words in an email. Thanks!!
Reminds me of a bad habbid of mine. Strange that memories trigger because of a blog post haha. I am a bit sad now even though it aint because of the post itself :/