I was perusing the Internet a few days ago for ADHD information and experiences as I so often do and I ran across Thom Hartmann. At first, I was excited because his book, The Edison Gene, shows how ADHD traits can be gifts. It is hard to find many people who believe this as I do and so I was ecstatic.
As I read more and more on his web site, www.thomhartmann.com, I began to get my feathers ruffled (my husband would say that's not hard to do). While Mr. Hartmann believes that so many of the ADHD symptoms that cause ADHD children to flounder in school are actually positive personality traits, he feels strongly against medication to treat ADHD. The troubling thing about that is that the medications don't prohibit the positives. He asks us to imagine if Thomas Edison and other great inventors believed to have been ADHD would have been medicated. He believes we wouldn't have the light bulb or a myriad of their other great inventions as the medication would have squelched their erratic tendencies and that it's those tendencies that led them to great inventions. I believe it's just the opposite and I've seen proof of it in my own son. If they had been medicated to help slow down a bit and think things through, maybe they could have generated twice as many significant inventions.
For Luke, ADHD medication controls his "symptoms" enough to allow his creativity and inventiveness to rise to the surface. Before diagnosis and medication to treat his ADHD, Luke loved Legos but he couldn't spend enough time on it to build anything of substance. He probably didn't use more than 15-20 Legos (not a lot in Legos) to build any one object. he might have spent 10 minutes putting something together. Now he can sit for hours and build all kinds of vehicles (his favorite creations) or open the instructions and build an 8+ year old kit (he's 6) from the instructions without frustration, asking for help, or quitting.
Before diagnosis and ADHD medication you couldn't force him to draw, color or write. It is so difficult for him that he would avoid it at all costs. I must have 15+ coloring books I bought for him when he was smaller that he never colored in. Now, because of the ADHD medications, he has two backpacks full of journals, markers and pencils he put together all n his own last week and he is obsessed with drawing pictures and writing about them. Granted, his work is pre-k level at best, but he has the desire to create. Sunday Luke and I were baking muffins for the week. He decided that he wanted to capture the recipes in his journal just in case I lost the recipe book at some point. Instead of measuring and stirring, he wrote down every single ingredient in his notebook and drew a picture of what the bowls looked like at every step (he filled an entire notebook). Luke's creativity and ingenuity is shining through BECAUSE of the medication.
I strongly believe in everyone being entitled to their opinion and being free to share their opinion. I also believe that a treatment that is right for one ADHD child can be completely wrong for another ADHD child. And I applaud Mr. Hartmann for telling the world that ADHD can be a gift. I just wish someone with his education, experience, and clout on the subject would accept that there's no one right treatment and that ADHD medication can do wonders for some children.
Mr. Hartmann, my son is now successful in school, creative, and, most importantly, happy because we turned to ADHD medication when behavior modification wasn't enough. Please, for the benefit of myself and so many other parents out there who are led to feel guilty for giving our children ADHD medications, validate that medication can be a great treatment for some ADHD children!
Penny Williams is the creator and editor of {a mom's view of ADHD}. She is also a freelance writer, real estate broker, wife, and mother of two living in Asheville, N.C. She has published several pieces in ADDitude Magazine, the #1 national publication dedicated to ADHD, and has also been quoted in Parenting.com's Family Health Guide on ADHD and The High Desert Pulse article, When Ritalin Works. When not writing, she can usually be found behind a camera.