Parents of ADHD gifted children have the difficult job of discovering how to help a child with ADHD in the best and healthiest ways.
Many of these children and teens with ADHD may have the ability to access a level of creative intelligence that could be called “genius.” In spite of these gifts they may need help in learning how to focus and channel their energy.
Conventional treatment for ADHD often involves stimulant medications that may or may not be helpful, due to the highly individual nature of ADHD symptoms. Use of ADHD prescription drugs has increased over 33% in the last five years for children under 16.
There is some concern that medications like Concerta and Ritalin may suppress alpha brain waves, which are predominant in many “gifted” children. Forcing a child into beta brain waves can be a short term solution for attention and learning issues, but in the long term it may cause more problems. Gifted children often can easily access alpha brain waves, which can open the way to a high level of creative intelligence.
The question we must ask ourselves is, “are we suppressing some of our most brilliant and creative kids with discipline and prescription medications?” If so, this will ultimately hinder their development.
With a slow changing educational system to contend with, parents are being put in the position of finding ways to help their kids fit in with a system that doesn’t cater to the learning styles of gifted children.
In learning how to help a child with ADHD, some researchers have found that anxiety often is an underlying issue with gifted attention deficit disorder and ADHD children.
When these kids with learning disabilities experience anxiety and tension, they may perceive these feelings to be boredom which interferes with their ability to focus attention.
There are a a number of reasons children may feel anxious; peer and parental pressure, genetic predisposition, emotional crises, etc. One important element that determines the level of anxiety a child feels is security. This is something parents can become more aware of and have more control over.
Anxiety seems to be a natural byproduct of how the human brain has evolved. The mind didn’t necessarily evolve to make us feel good, but to ensure our survival. We all have to learn to modulate our “fight or flight” conditioning, and this conditioning affects some people more than others.
Some ideas about how to help a child with ADHD using non-medication related tactics are brainwave biofeedback (neurofeedback), herbal and homeopathic remedies and diet adjustments. These can be used together in different combinations, depending on a person’s specific symptoms, for an effective plan to accelerate progress.
