Family Matters

Martin (not his real name) came with his mom to an assessment with me. He stood at my door, the cutest redheaded 5-year-old, with a cheeky smile. He looked down, but whenever he lifted his head, I could see that his eyes were smiling.

We sat at the table and I gave him a matching game and what do you know, I met another MacGyver, but this one was the first and unique in his kind - MacGyver Pro.

When I sit in my car, driving the kids to school or just on my way to the supermarket, I like watching people in their cars. Some funny people talk to themselves. Yes, I know it may look like they are on the phone, but I am talking about the crazy people that actually talk to themselves.

I call these people “MacGyvers”. Do you remember the TV series with this guy who was narrating the whole time? We heard his thoughts all the time wherever he went.

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) is very trendy. If you search on Google, you will see that there are 34,800,000 hits for it (this is today, but I am sure tomorrow it there will be more, if only because I am adding this post…). It is amazing that as the years goes by, the percentage of kids and people with ADHD goes up. Do you have an explanation to this?

In this post, let me try to give you some explanation to this inflation in the diagnosis of ADHD.

Auditory kids pay the most attention to sounds. To them, voices, tones, pitches and rhythms provide a wealth of information and carry emotions that other kids simply ignore. They have superior abilities to “record” and “play back” TV shows, skits, songs and conversations. On the other hand, they are sequential thinkers and must be able to focus on one thing at a time.
Here are some ideas that will help auditory kids learn better, be happier and love learning.

The ways in which we can support children with learning difficulties and gifted children depends on time, much like there is a difference in treating any medical condition. When diagnosed late, the treatment is very much reactive. When diagnosed early, development is very much proactive. A proactive approach allows planning, good use of the preschool space, more time and better child-teacher ratio, added bonus of parent involvement and maybe the most important part is taking advantage of our ability to provide success experiences at a critical time and provide children with a solid foundation for years to come.