Survival Strategies for Parenting Your ADD Child: Dealing with Obsessions, Compulsions, Depression, Explosive Behavior & Rage

By George T. Lynn, M.A.., C.M.H.C.

Reviewed by Janie Bowman

Don't let the title fool you; this book isn't exclusive to severe ADD. If you're a parent of a child with Tourette Syndrome or Bipolar Mood Disorder, you've come to the right place. Are you looking for strategies for dealing with a myriad of behaviors like obsessions, compulsions, and explosive behavior? Welcome home. In "Survival Strategies." you'll find information to help you unravel the complexities of how these children feel and think, including numerous tips, diagrams and charts to help you get out of the loop and into the problem-solving mode.

Though Mr. Lynn is a counselor, you won't find "disorder" or "pathological" expertise. Lynn gives the reader solid reasons for celebrating the precious gifts these children have, while strengthening and empowering the family. Children with these attention different diagnoses are not easy to live with, and he doesn't view them as "problem" kids, but uniquely different. George Lynn takes you into their world to see the "why" of their behavior, instead of medicating the answer away. As a result, he uses attention difference (A.D.), instead of "disorder," defines common stressors, skips over medication and leads us to practical problem-solving techniques.

Astonishing in his depth and compassion, Lynn, married with a pre-teen child diagnosed with ADHD and Tourettes, shares his family's experiences openly and honestly.

In seventeen chapters divided into three parts, the introduction acquaints us with a mother who describes all people as being plants in a garden, each with different needs. In accordance, Lynn chooses the word "Eustress" as his premise. Eustress, a word coined by stress researcher Dr. Has Selye, means "good" in Latin. In other words, we can lie down, curl up our toes and let stress overcome us, or we can look squarely at our children, count their strengths and resources, and meet the challenge head-on in a positive way (Eustress).

Part I, Understand the Nature of the Challenge, shows how your child views his world and the resulting pressures, describes how you can help him and shares ways you can help yourself in order to help him.

Part II, Strategies for Successful Management of Individual Problems, relates methods that help children manage their own attention differences. Among the behaviors Lynn covers are oppositionality, emotional wildness, dangerous behavior and obsessions.

Part III, Strategies for Changing Family Distress Cycles to Family Eustress Cycles, discusses family patterns and how to change them. He has chapters on grief, single parenting and blended families. Chapter fifteen, one of his largest chapters, deals with a major stressor universal among special needs families: school.

For readers interested in a diet/behavior relationship to attention differences, George Lynn includes an interesting article in the Appendix, "Nutritional Alternatives to Ritalin - Treating the Causes as Well as the Symptoms" by Walter J. Crinnion, N.D., an authority in environmental toxicity.

At the conclusion, the author returns us to the mother and her garden metaphor:

"You and I are the ones who parent the strangest little plants in the garden. Culture would make all children corn stalks in a row, but some plants are hardier than this and have a job to do on the windswept outskirts of the garden. This is where our kids live. Those who enjoy the symmetry of corn fields define our kids are "weird" and we all know what that label means: dysfunctional, crazy, repugnant, different.

"But strong cross-cultural wisdom argues the opposite view: that our A.D. children are a precious resource, an enormous cultural asset. .

"It makes sense that at this time in our evolution when all the conventional answers seem to be failing that we would see the emergence of so many Attention Different kids with their strange abilities and excesses of character. Just as A.D. kids have "little anarchist" temperament challenges, they also possess rare gifts in their weirdness - we need them as a culture to renew ourselves and avoid stagnation."

The old methods of "behavior modification" may work for the plants sitting row-by-row in the middle of the cornfield. But families like ours are searching for new and innovative ways to deal with our "weird" children. First, however, we have to redefine the behaviors, and the only way to do that is to see things the way our children see things. This requires a radical paradigm shift. George Lynn gives us this shift, step-by-step.

"Survival Strategies." will grab your attention and endure as a reference book when you've reached your "Wit's End."

George Lynn is a Certified Mental Health Counselor in Bellevue, Washington, and parent of a child with Tourette Syndrome and ADD. Please visit his Web site.
http://childspirit.com