Category: Behavioural Modification

Pre-schoolers and ADHD medication – scary? Not so much…

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When the Guardian writes a piece about preschoolers and ADHD, as they do here , we don’t expect it to scaremonger or to conform to prejudices around this complex neurodevelopmental disorder. We expect some breast beating from the Daily Mail or the Telegraph, but we hope for sense from the Guardian. However, while medicating preschoolers is controversial, ADHD medication (please don’t call it drugs – this not pushing recreational ecstasy tablets or making toddlers smoke joints) is immediately written off as a Bad Thing – without any explanation for what type of medication it is. Continue reading “Pre-schoolers and ADHD medication – scary? Not so much…” →

Why is Negative So Much More Attractive than Being Positive?

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ImageWhy is Negative So Much More Attractive than Being Positive?

I’ve written on this blog before about Kevin Roberts being the poster boy for ADHD and now have completed his rather good book – Movers, Dreamers and Risk-Takers, Unlocking the Power of ADHD. I like it, ironically, because he is so positive about the whole ADHD issue, something that the Neuroscientists like Russell Barklay are not (“It’s a Neurodisability, why dress it up as anything else?”)

One of the more fascinating nuggets to emerge from this book is that ADHDers create negative dynamics in many areas of their lives because “negative information and stimulation weigh more heavily on the brain than positive information and stimulation, thus creating brain activity”*.

As Roberts writes: “I have come to the inescapable conclusion that I feel more alive when I am being negative. Opposing something gives me more juice than supporting it. We ADHDers create negative dynamics in many areas of our lives… Continue reading “Why is Negative So Much More Attractive than Being Positive?” →

From Concerta via Ritalin to Elvanse & Strattera, a month’s journey in meds

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UnknownI wonder how families who have only the NHS to fare cope when it comes to “Child and Adolescent Mental Health“?  Our initial meeting with the NHS pyschiatrist left me holding some Concerta 12-hour stimulant medication – and a date for a follow up meeting IN A MONTH. A Month was too long, too long by 28 days almost, as the daily rollercoaster of keeping our son on track began. Continue reading “From Concerta via Ritalin to Elvanse & Strattera, a month’s journey in meds” →