Is Embracing your ADHD kind like Embracing your Inner Child?

ADD, Mental Health, children, family, parenting, relationships — By charlesshinaver on July 29, 2009 at 2:23 am

This clip gives you an idea of what adult ADHD is all about; check it out! Simply cut and paste the web address into a new window.

Yes, I have heard this phrase, “embracing my ADHD.”

Embracing yourself is good – even excellent. Understanding your ADHD, how to manage it and more potently, learning what you can do about it is much more effective than simply ‘embracing it.’

I tell you what if you go talk to the kids who are diagnosed with ADHD, their parents, or their teachers you will not find people who are ecstatic and happy that they are diagnosed with ADHD.

However, you may, sometimes, find people who were relieved to discover what the problem is. Because they have had this sneaking suspicion or this glaringly bright neon light flashing in their minds indicating that something is awry here. Something is different about this kid.

On the simple level of awareness of this distinctness, all you had to do was watch this kid in comparison the other kids. Of course, this is not the same as diagnosing ADHD. YES, no need to belabor that point we discussed that two weeks ago. ‘Embracing your ADHD’ doesn’t help you to study longer. It doesn’t help you to become more attentive. It doesn’t help you to manage your behavior.

Furthermore, people make even more outrageous claims, albeit with good intentions,
that geniuses, and particularly creative geniuses, were in reality people with ADHD. Not only that, but that geniuses and yes, creative geniuses are more common among the ranks of those with ADD and ADHD.

Well, there is one problem with these well-intentioned claims, the facts.

I have reviewed the research literature on kids who have a gifted IQs and kids with ADHD. I did not find that all the kids with a gifted IQ have ADHD. Nor were they more commonly represented among the ranks of those with ADHD or ADD.

There is a similar confusion with creativity. Having ADHD does not necessarily make a person more creative. I am not aware of any evidence that those with ADHD have a higher frequency of creativity than the rest of the population.

So ADHD in itself doesn’t make a person more creative or more likely to be a genius or creative genius, it simply makes them inattentive, distractible and/or hyperactive. On a social level this may be more fun, sometimes. But it can get old too, very old. The research on giftedness, creativity and ADHD shows that there simply is no truth to the idea that having ADHD either makes you more gifted intellectually or more creative. The facts just don’t support those conclusions.

However, if what one means to ‘embrace their ADHD’ that they accept themselves with their ADHD that is good. However, aren’t there some things you can do to address ADHD? We will explore that next week.

Charles Shinaver, Ph. D.

Tweet This Post

Tags: ADD, ADHD, ADHD drugs, ADHD medications, Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Charles Shinaver, Dr. Charles Shinaver, family, father son, Inhibition and ADHD, parenting

2 Comments

Info About Adhd says:

March 8, 2010 at 11:05 am

I have lived with both ADHD/Dyslexia for my whole life. (“AD” abbreviated below).

I have noted that there are three things that operate on (or to) people with AD. 1) the AD itself, 2) the outside people’s reaction to it, and 3) the impact that the outside people”s reaction has on the person with AD.

By far, the most problems I have had with AD is how other people react to it. As a child I had no internal strengths to deal with the judgment, the disappointment, the pronouncements about my being stupid, etc. That was the problem, not the AD itself.

I am now older and I do have the inner-strengths needed to handle outer negative-stuff-coming-in.

I will offer this: AD is not a “problem.” It is a different way the brain is organized. Were other people to stop trying to get you to be “normal” you would not know you have a “problem” and you could work to strengthen yourself using the broad range of benefits that come with AD.

The primary skill that someone has to build is Self-Trust. And having lots of psychologists, school counselors, teachers, and parents insisting that you are “broken” destroys that self-trust or inhibits its growth. They are not helpful.

It is on the foundation of self-trust that each person can then investigate the benefits of AD, what its strengths are, how to use those strengths to one’s advantage, etc. When someone keeps telling you that you are “broken” the self-trust gets “broken too.”

You said in your movie (above) and demonstrated thumping one’s fingers on the table showing how nervous an AD person is. So? Chess is boring to AD people and they show it. So what?

I get bored easily. And, I have noticed that that is not a problem. I have learned to stop wasting time on boring people and boring activities. Then I do not get bored. And, I do not mean that in a judgmental way at all. But, the emotion of boredom is not a problem. It is an indicator that I have to create something new for me… I cannot expect others to do it for me. And THAT demand to be creative is really powerful. That is how I deal with boredom… I start something new, I create something new… again and again and again.

Not completing things??? Again… so? I start lots of things that I do not complete. (And I would add that AD people are not the only ones who do that.) If it gets boring, I drop it and move on.

And, that means I have a full table of, what are to me, creative things I have done. “HAVE DONE” in my world is “STARTED” and in your world is “COMPLETED.” But in my world “started” is just fine. You see my point?

I start things. I am OK with just starting them. As I have worked as a senior officer in some big corporations, I see that ability to START THINGS as a h-u-g-e benefit and skill. Most people cannot start anything. They can, however, complete them – they are not “starters.”

I am attempting to show you that AD has benefits. To find those benefits and work with them for the person with AD is a skill that actually comes in-wired with AD. Except, you need self-trust to get at them.

The therapy, if there is one, is: 1) stop destroying someone else’s self-trust because they are different, and, 2) accept the difference and help them to find the benefits. There are lots of them, and 3) stop insisting that AD is disability and learn from it. It is actually a great foundational impetus toward creativity and fun stuff.
charlesshinaver says:

April 26, 2010 at 1:46 pm

Yes and no. You can accept the reality that ADHD is an issue for you, but you can also do something about it. See my blog http://www.clarity4health.com for more on what you can do.