Brain Warm-up Exercises: Summer is the Ideal Time to Begin

We have written about exercises to warm-up your ADHD child’s brain in the recent past and we want to encourage you to use the summer vacation months to learn these routines so that they will be “routine” by the time school begins again in the fall. Like athletes in the off-season, our children with learning challenges need to use their time wisely in the summer to prepare for the fall.

The exercises that we recommend have been gathered from a variety of sources, including my friends in education and baseball, my years in private practice, and from the book Brain Gym. They are simple to do, but like any exercise routine you actually have to do them, not just think about doing them. Read more of the article...

Thoughts for This Summer

School is almost out and summer vacation is nearly upon us. How will you spend the time wisely to prepare your child for success in the next school year? How will you use the time to improve your child’s ADHD symptoms?

We have several suggestions for you, and here is merely the first. ADHD Diet : Summer's the Time to Try It!

Since summer usually brings a bit more flexibility it is a good time to give an ADHD Diet a serious try. We have our own eating program for ADHD here, and there are other good programs available online to consider. Any good eating program will take about four weeks to assess whether or not any positive changes are coming from using it. Read more of the article...

Clonicel. Sciele Pharma, a Shionogi Company based in Atlanta, GA, and Addrenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., of Durham, SC, are working together to bring a long-acting version of Clonidine to the ADHD treatment regime. They have collaborated on the development of Clonicel, which is in Phase III clinical trials and has shown positive benefits in treating certain symptoms of ADHD, especially when combined with stimulant medications such as Ritalin. Read more of the article...

CHARACTERISTICS OF HEALTHY FAMILIES AND STRONG MARRIAGES

There have been a number of studies done that have looked for the common traits or characteristics of “healthy families,” and we believe that putting your efforts into making these traits characteristic of your marriage and family will help to strengthen your ADHD marriage. Here are some of the traits that have been consistently identified in these studies:

Healthy families and strong marriages are characterized by supportive, encouraging, and honest communication. They practice the ancient advice of St. Paul in Ephesians 4:29, which says, “Don’t let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful, for building others up, according to their needs, so it may benefit those who listen.” Read more of the article...

Just like a pitcher goes through a series of exercises and a routine of throwing in the bullpen to warm up for pitching in a game, your child will benefit from “warming up his brain” through a series of simple exercises. Have your ADHD child “warm up” prior to doing his homework, or when possible prior to taking a test at school. It won’t hurt, and may just help your child a lot!

The exercises described below are collected from a variety of sources, including my years in private practice, seasons as a pitching coach, from my friend and professional educator Brian McFarland, and from resources such as the Brain Gym book. The exercises below are fairly simple and the “warm up” can take range from just a few minutes to about fifteen minutes, depending on your schedule. Read more of the article...

When the Detroit Tigers placed pitcher Dontrelle Willis on the disabled list last Sunday (3/29/2009) with the diagnosis of "anxiety disorder" it was very interesting to me for two reasons:

First, because my nephew Casey Fien was trying to make the Tigers as a pitcher and we had just recently returned from a trip to spring training to follow the Tigers and watch Casey pitch (Casey was just assigned to AAA Toledo a few days ago), and we have started following the Tigers very closely; and

Secondly, because of the reports that although Willis had not reported any symptoms of an anxiety disorder, he was diagnosed solely through the results of a blood test, according to news reports. Read more of the article...

If your child has ADHD, talking to his teacher may be the most important thing you can do to help him function more effectively at school in spite of his ADHD, and maybe even because of the ADHD.

Most teachers want to help their students, and most teachers have had ADHD kids in their classes before, if they've been teaching long. In general, teachers want to understand ADHD and the ADHD child and in particular they want to understand your child, their student. Read more of the article...

A recently published study on children, ADHD, and sleep, gives parents good reasons to make sure that their ADHD kids develop good bed-time habits and are in bed as early as possible.

The study was just published on March 1, 2009 in the journal SLEEP. It confirms what many parents already know about their ADHD children or teens, that they simply are not getting enough sleep at night, and that they often wake up tired and sluggish in the morning, which causes other problems all through the day. Read more of the article...

OK, I have to admit that I didn't see this coming.

Whenever I have heard people comparing Ritalin to Cocaine I have just turned them off as either over-reacting, or uninformed. Yes, both are psychostimulants. Yes, both impact the brain's performance. But other than that, why not compare caffeine to cocaine, as both are stimulants and impact the brain.

I had worked in a psychiatric hospital for a few years, and had seen people who had come because of their cocaine addiction, and they didn't look anything like the kids I saw with ADHD who were benefiting from the use of Ritalin or other stimulants (and I had worked with nearly 1,000 kids who had benefited from treatment with stimulants). Read more of the article...