Why are ADHD children and adults so oft | ADHD Information

Thanks Brooklea!! Very informative Why are ADD/HD children and adults so often socially inept ? http://www.thomhartmann.com/socialskills.shtml

Why are ADHD children and adults so often socially inept?
by Thom Hartmann


Sandra’s parents looked across the table at me with a deep sadness in their eyes.

“We can handle her struggles with academics,” said Bonnie. “She’s in a private school and has a tutor, and is learning how to learn. But at twelve years old she should know how to make friends.”

“It’s even worse than that,” interjected Joe. “Whenever it looks like she might be making a new friend, she invariably ruins the friendship. She doesn’t attend to the other kids’ needs. She almost frantic about other kids, wanting them to like her, but she has to be the center of attention, she’s always bouncing around, and the result is that she sabotages any possibility for a friendship to develop.”

Bonnie and Joe were not incompetent parents, and ADHD wasn’t a new idea for them. Joe had been diagnosed almost a decade earlier, in his thirties, and Bonnie - a clinical psychologist who runs a shelter for battered women - had both academic and clinical exposure to it.

Bonnie added, “It really makes you think that maybe those who say ADHD is a mental illness are right. I mean, why else would Sandra have failed to learn social skills?”

And here we came to the core of the issue. Why, indeed, are so many ADHD children and adults relatively incompetent at social interactions?

Conventional wisdom is so firmly entrenched in the pathology view of ADHD that other options are generally not even considered. When the MTA study was done of the relative efficacy of therapy versus medication for schoolchildren, the type, quality, and style of the children’s instruction in school wasn’t even considered. (In fact the teachers were both paid a stipend and assured explicitly that their performance and the school’s teaching styles would not be evaluated in any way.)

The result, of course, is predictable. If you’re only looking for one thing - in this case, evidence that supports a theory of a mental disorder - then there is little doubt you can easily design studies to find it, even if it’s not there.

“Bonnie,” I said, “what was your worst day in the past year, the one that really hit your self-esteem the hardest?”

She thought for a moment, then, frowning, said in a soft voice, “It was when our agency brought in an outside consultant to do evaluations, and he concluded that I wasn’t doing my job right. He did what he called a 360 degree evaluation, and solicited feedback from both the people funding our program, the people using it, and our staff. Everybody got to criticize me, although they called it a critique. And then he shared with me the things people said, and some of them weren’t all that flattering. I know he was trying to be constructive, but I was devastated. I was depressed for a week.” She looked at her hands, which were fists on the table, and relaxed them with an effort. “I guess I’m still upset about it.”

“How would you perform if that happened to you every single day?” I said.

Her eyes widened. “I’d be a mess. I’d quit my job.”

“What if you couldn’t quit your job? What if you were told the police would come and get you if you tried to?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not kidding,” I said. “And you have all the mental and emotional resources of a grown-up adult, and training in these things as well. What if you were six years old?”

“Ahhhh,” she said, leaning forward on the table. “Now I get it. But what does that have to do with Sandra not knowing how to make friends?”

“I know,” Joe said. “I remember how terrible school was. To this day, I still feel like a fraud whenever I’m successful, because they so managed to convince me I was no good.” He turned to me. “She was so wounded by school during the early years when she should have been learning social skills that she wasn’t available to learn them. Her self-esteem was so low she couldn’t even imagine herself interacting with the other kids on an equal basis. Is that what you’re saying?”

“It’s exactly what I’m saying,” I said. “The style of instruction our schools use - including most of our private schools - is so dissonant with the style of learning these children have that they can’t succeed. It’s a set-up. And when they don’t succeed - even in the first grade - the teachers don’t question their own style of teaching. After all, it works with other kids: it must be the child’s fault. So the child is blamed for her own failure. We try to sugar coat it by calling it a diagnosis, but she knows she’s being blamed. It’s her fault. And every single day in school is, for her, like Bonnie’s worst day in the office. Every day. Over and over and over. Year after year after year. When you think about it that way, it’s amazing she learns anything and that she even developed the most rudimentary of social skills. She’s the victim of severe, ongoing, institutional child abuse. And she’s responding in the way that many abused children respond: she’s shutting down in some times and situations, and becoming reactive at other times.”

“So what’s the solution?” Joe said.

“It’s twofold. First, stop the pain. Get her out of a school situation where there’s only one, limited style of teaching that doesn’t match her style of learning. Get her, instead, into an alternative school or homeschool her. Anything is better than the wounds that are being inflicted on her right this moment.

“And, second, start systematically teaching her the social skills she missed learning as a child because she was in so much pain and so ostracized that she wasn’t available to learn them when the other kids did.”

“How do we do that?” Joe asked.

“There are lots of books and trainings on social skills,” I said, “but I’ve always thought the best was written by Dale Carnegie three-quarters of a century ago. It’s a book titled ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’ It contains thirty specific techniques that embody the best of interpersonal skills. Every week, read her one of the chapters, and give her the assignment of trying out that technique on somebody at school. When she reports back on the result, she gets a reward. By the time you’ve finished the book, I guarantee she will be more socially competent.”

“It’s that simple?” Joe said.

“It could be,” Bonnie said. “Social skills are learned, not born. Every culture has different versions of them. And interactions with groups of non-related peers are learned mostly in school, in the primary grades. If she was in that much pain during those years - and when I think back to how many times she begged me not to send her to school I realize she clearly was - she probably just missed that developmental stage because of all that pain.”

“And it’s never too late to learn,” I added. “The success of the Dale Carnegie Course for adults - where very week you have to try out two of the techniques and report back to the class the following week - proves it.”

Resource:
Montessori schools information

Homeschooling information:
Oak Meadow school
Homeschooling Forum on Compuserve

Dale Carnegie information:
Summary of Carnegie's teachings
The Dale Carnegie organization
Dale Carnegie's book on social skills




(note: I’ve changed the names of the people in this story to protect their privacy, and built into the conversation parts and pieces of other conversations with other parents. This is more of a teaching story than an exact transcript of a conversation.) I don't want to start making an obvious or overdone point, but if so many of us (meaning everyone in the world) are on drugs for adhd, depression, bipolar, weightloss, daily headache or whatever, so we can fit our peg into the right hole, it's time we all got out our tools and resized the holes.

hey mopw, brilliant idea...

i'm disturbed that we do what we do in order to fit in with the norms of society..

many ppl don't take meds to fit in though, they take them so they can function to their highest capacity..

but there are ppl who take meds for the reason that you stated...

we live in a sad sad world.. but there is a lot of colour to it, we just need to find it for ourselves..

That is a very valid point.

Also, although it wasn't mentioned, kids learn social skills during PE and recess at school. Many times, an ADHD child is not allowed to participate due to needing to finish work or being punished for manifesting ADHD symptoms.

A double whammy! Not only are they not allowed to socialize, their classmates know that they are not allowed because obviously they are inferior in some way.

Feeling socially inept hits a high percentage of people, whether they are slow boring people or us ADHD types. Even more so for teens and preteens. good point!!!    [QUOTE=mopw]I don't want to start making an obvious or overdone point, but if so many of us (meaning everyone in the world) are on drugs for adhd, depression, bipolar, weightloss, daily headache or whatever, so we can fit our peg into the right hole, it's time we all got out our tools and resized the holes.

[/QUOTE]

yeah, i wonder if we just haven't got too competitive and are therefore out of balance somewhat?

it is this constant theme from classroom up of having to be better, be at the top, be brighter right to the workplace ethic of stab in the back, steal that idea and so on and so forth....  we are pitted AGAINST our peers from the start.  it's crazy.

why?  we are all in this together.  let's value everyone their different skill equally.  academia and technical/constructive/labour are equally valuable they all play their part in society.  don't demean someone for doing a good job of sweeping the street and applaud someone for doing a sh*tty job of running a huge corporation.  applaud those who do a good job no matter what it is...  the nurses as much as the doctors.  the construction workers as much as the architects.  and so on.  those who have more responsibility and a larger burden in that way can be compensated materially perhaps - but not to be accorded extra status, why?

who would like to live in a city where the streets weren't swept.  so it is a vital job. an important job.  those whose brains are more attuned to academia - they can do that.  those whose brains work better in technical/computer solutions - they can do that.  those who are mechanically minded - do that.  those who are empathetic - social work and so on and so forth.  but each valued as equal.  it is this constant aggression and competition (which has it's place as a valuable motivator) but has gone waaayyyyy out of balance.

we need some more balance here. more cooperation not competition.  perhaps???


[QUOTE=GlenW]

 

I never understood why I should dress like the others, act like them.  Nobody could explain it - just because it's done is the answer.  So - I gave up.

I think maybe if parents explain to their children that it's a game to get ready for bigger things in life - the kids might go "oh!" and understand better? Just a thought.

[/QUOTE]

 

I think that non-conformity in ADDe'rs is a positive thing within this context, and I think the preservation of ones own individuality and self is important.  Thinking back now, I'm really glad I didn't act and dress like the others, I look at the few that I know of still years later-the way they are today-and thank my lucky stars I didn't follow the leader...Its not necessairly a bad thing, as when it comes to socializing some are better at it than others thats all (I was always shy, or at least came across as being so, because I was always AFRAID I'd end up like the others if I mingled with them..sounds selfish now, but back then there was no selfishness intended).

As children- the way we learn social skills is by play - repetition and imitation.  With us with ADHD - repetition is boring and we have trouble imitating things that make no sense to us.  Normal kids can imitate without understanding why.  We on the other hand, often need to know "why?".  Once we do - it's easier to do things.  Unfortunately adults don't like to explain what's simple in their eyes - and kids - well they are more likely to mock ignorance of the obvious rather than take the time to help their peers.  It's often group versus individual - like chickens in a yard.  One bleeds, the others pick.  Nature at its simplest.

I never understood why I should dress like the others, act like them.  Nobody could explain it - just because it's done is the answer.  So - I gave up.

I think maybe if parents explain to their children that it's a game to get ready for bigger things in life - the kids might go "oh!" and understand better? Just a thought.

i wholeheartedly agree with you c.

we do overdo the competitiveness. some of that impulse to be competitive, is displaced drive for survival. but as we're a little more advanced than cockroaches, we should be able to manage that a little better.

i liken it to something paul(you know, formerly saul of tarsus) wrote. in speaking of the church, he compared the different churches to parts of the body. and those different parts had different purposes, different skills.

i extrapolate that into an idea like you are expressing.everybody has an honored place at the table. maybe the lower your place in society, the more actual value you have. the top is supported by the bottom.

as for social skills, i think there is another part of it. besides the point hartmann makes about schools, is that there is so much we adhd'ers have to pay attention to, inside and out, it is hard to focus on on societal rules that don't exactly mesh with our natural tendencies.

i could never really play well with others. they couldn't keep up with my racing mind, shifting moods, and acute perceptions. the other kids could follow the rules, more or less, 'cause they could accept them w/o challenge. i could never stay inside the lines. could never quite 'get' the things those other kids just accepted as 'the way things are done'

those other kids thought in a linear way, even if the line went nowhere that made any sense.

i encourage everyone to read thom hartmann's work. he is extremely bright, and has lots of positive and insightful things to say about add, and has many books on democracy. he knows jefferson and madison like noone i've ever run across.