Nitin Gajria via Compfight

I retrieved my two pieces of junk mail from the mailbox, and tossed them on the pile on my kitchen table.

Just as I turned to go to my office, a flyer’s bold print, in all capital letters, screamed:

5 DAYS ONLY

For what? I thought. I was hooked.

As an adult with ADHD, I’ve never been at a loss for questions and this is especially true when I’ve given someone tacit permission to poke, prod, x-ray, and provide potent chemical substances meant to assist healing or at least mask my symptoms.

With this in mind, I felt even more empowered to ask questions after reading Confessions of a Medical Heretic. It was written in 1979 by Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. (I finally got around to reading it.)

Written by a medical doctor, Confessions describes the dangers of putting blind faith in those to whom we’ve ascribed near-supernatural powers and unquestioned authority over our body, mind, and soul.

lintmachine via Compfight

This Monday is Victoria Day in Canada. Its origin is a celebration of Queen Victoria’s birthday and it occurs on the weekend prior to May 25. (Canada still has a British Queen, why I don’t know. Maybe we’re just too polite to point out to the Brits that we’re Canadian, but I’m just speculating).

In lieu of ousting the monarchy, we’ve created an alternative name for our holiday: the May 2-4 weekend, thus named both for the date, and after a 2-4 case of beer (hey, we’re poetic like that.)

With the first summer-ish holiday looming, and Canadians across the land opening their cottages for the first time in our short summer season, I thought this would be a good time to review some do’s and don’ts of holidaying with ADHD.

Lisa Aro and husband Mark

I’m happy to report that our Mother’s Day with ADHD: How to Keep It Happy! webinar went off (almost) without a hitch.

On a personal note, I was terrified before we started. I’d planned to create a visual presentation but only had 3 hours to create it – right before the webinar!

With minimal time, I decided I’d keep it simple, and let the content be the focus of our session. I knew my special guest had great content, having read her excellent blog, Queen of the Distracted, and having had a preliminary phone call to plan what we’d cover in our webinar.

But – what I didn’t count on was for three friends to drop in – all at the same time – and all needing my attention just before the webinar!

t horizontal.integration via Compfight

It appears that my little rant on spanking has struck a mighty chord.

In addition to readers and comments here at my blog, I’ve received a lot of input on my Facebook page and elsewhere from those weighing in on the weighty topic of how the heck do we deal with our ADHD kids?

It’s distressing to see that some of you (and I suspect many more whom I haven’t  heard from) are suffering and agonizing over what the right way to discipline your ADHD children.

The blog comment that tipped the scale was (excerpted here):

“…how in the world do you get an ADHD kid to learn the social skills required to get along in life before their parent finally finally [sic] loses it and spanks them..” [read molbiomom's full Comment here]

How indeed?

  Tambako The Jaguar via Compfight

Don’t panic! I’m not talking about housework.

I’m talking about a Buddhist expression, “polishing your mirror.” It means clearing up your personal inner gunk, so you can shine more brilliantly.

After my ADHD diagnosis, I realized my mirror was more spattered with toothpaste than I thought.

Vinoth Chandar via Compfight

In Spanking Hurts ADHD Kids More Than You Think, Part I, we considered the first 2 of 7 critical factors that suggest that spanking may be especially detrimental to ADHD kids.

Having considered an ADHD child’s heightened sensitivity and their parent(s)’ possible undiagnosed ADHD as two reasons to rule out spanking, let’s move on to the 5 final considerations.

D. Sharon Pruitt via Compfight

Recently, I read Parenting a Child With ADHD – Is Spanking Helpful? by ADHD expert Keath Low. Low does a good job of explaining why it’s difficult to parent a child with ADHD, and offers some general guidelines on how to do so appropriately.

From my perspective, some critical considerations about whether or not to spank a child with ADHD need to be added to the discussion.

Full disclosure

My mom hit me until I was 17.

An ADHD Reflection / Reflecting on ADHD

Yesterday we talked about a few strategies for getting unstuck in your ADHD treatment.

Today I’ll talk about another roadblock that keeps us from moving forward: our new-found fabulousness!

No, really. It happens. One day, you wake up, you look in the mirror and you mutter, Where is that clumsy, blurtacious, chronically late, kinda kooky ADHDer who couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag with a GPS?

Frightening, I know. But this can happen: you reach a point in your ADHD treatment when you no longer recognize yourself.

In fact, it’s even worse than that: you don’t even recognize your mirror.

photo credit: quinn.anya

I’d had to travel out of town for a medical appointment which I’d dreaded, and decided to stop at one of my favorite restaurants for lunch on the way home.

The appointment went far better than I’d expected, so instead of driving home feeling sorry for myself I felt happy and celebratory. I began wishing I’d had company for lunch.

This got me thinking about why I hadn’t called ahead to make a lunch date with a friend. That’s when it struck me: for nearly half a century, I’d believed I was a natural-born loner. By the time the waitress brought my food, I’d started to deconstruct that belief.