hyperactivity

Do You Need a Roll?

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I love my child’s high energy, enthusiasm, and joyful spirit.  I don’t even mind that I will never have any family secrets, ever, because this innocent child will share our business with anyone within earshot and think nothing of it.  Her openness reflects her optimism and her tendency to believe the best about others.  This is another reason for clean living, because if you don’t have anything to hide then having a child spill the beans is no big deal.

My daughter’s activity level has often left me in open-mouthed amazement.  To burn off energy, she will run up and down the stairs multiple times.  She also likes to sprint around the block, and when we have inclement weather she will clear a pathway in the house so she can take off running and then slide across the floor in her socks.  Like many individuals diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) she needs to find outlets for her strong need for physical activity.  Also true of many with ADHD, my daughter has had sleep difficulties and struggles to calm her body and mind so she can fall asleep.

Most of the time I not only accept my daughter’s differences, I delight in them.  Over time I discovered that not all adults shared my appreciation for my wonderfully-spirited child.  At homeschool group classes, I began to hear complaints about my daughter’s non-stop chattering and apparent inability to stop talking even when the teacher was attempting to give instructions.  She was not deliberately rude or disrespectful, just uninhibited in sharing her thoughts.  Every single one of them.  This continual verbal stream was one of the ways her hyperactivity manifested, as if the words just built up inside her and had to come out or she would pop.

My daughter was also wigglier than most children her age, something I could easily accommodate during our homeschool day.  It became problematic when we were out in public and she couldn’t sit still at a restaurant or stand quietly beside me during homeschool field trips.  I remember a very patient AWANA instructor chuckling as he described how my daughter would slide back and forth on a bench while reciting her memorized verses.  She moved around while she was learning the verses, and she moved around while recalling them.  She was consistent, and fortunately had a leader who was able to enjoy having her in his group.

My daughter’s sensory processing difficulties along with her ADHD impulsivity made it a struggle for her to regulate herself to maintain the calm yet alert state that is optimal for learning.  At one homeschool group gathering, I could see that she was talking continually and was starting to elicit clearly unappreciative glances from nearby adults.  Not wanting to squelch her ebullience, I sought a way to help her quickly and unobtrusively so she would not be embarrassed.  Scanning the table laden with potluck offerings, my gaze fell on a basket of dinner rolls.  I quickly snatched one up and extended it to my daughter, asking if she needed a roll.  I figured if she was chewing a roll it would give her a few seconds to take a break and maybe relax and slow down a little bit.  I think it would have worked if my daughter had gone along with my plan, but instead she blurted out, “Hey!  Are you just trying to get me to be quiet?”  So much for subtlety.

At home my daughter could wiggle away as long as she was getting her schoolwork done.  It’s distracting, though, when a child is in constant motion in a group setting.  Have you ever noticed how distractible children always seem to find each other in a crowd, and then escalate the other’s behaviors?  This happened often while we participated in homeschool group activities.  One strategy I used to help my girl was our “meatball hug”.  She would sit on my lap and pull her knees to her chin, and I would wrap my arms around her and gently squish her while rocking back and forth.  She loved this, and it didn’t draw negative attention to her.  Once she outgrew my lap, the meatball hug had to be more of a roll.  Her father or I would give her arms and legs little squeezes as if we were kneading dough, or capture her between us to roll back and forth like a squeeze machine.

The need to calm down was not always apparent to my daughter, but she recognized our family code, “Do you need a roll?” as a signal to try and tone things down.  Your family might find a different code and use other strategies to support your child.  I personally will never hear the question “Do you need a roll?” without thinking of my wonderfully vibrant daughter who did, in fact, need some rolls now and then.

 

Energetic, Impulsive, and Distractible

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My daughter, Beckie, is an amazing girl. She has worked through most of her sensory processing and auditory processing difficulties. She is funny, kind, and is doing well at her part-time job teaching martial arts. Beckie also has a diagnosis of ADHD, combined type. Girls are less likely than boys to be considered hyperactive, but my Beckie has that component with a capital H. I love her energy! Even now that she is an older teen, her hyperactivity is still apparent. Beckie has learned strategies to help her focus over the years, and she knows ways to help burn up her excess energy. She teaches martial arts for several hours each week. She rides her bike or walks to neighborhood destinations. When she was younger, Beckie used to race cars from our house to the end of the block, running barefoot down the sidewalk just for the pure joy of it. At home these days she listens to music on her iPod and paces or runs through the house. Our first floor is structured in such a way that Beckie can basically run laps around it. Since we have hardwood floors, she can also get a running start and go for a nice slide across the floor. It’s kind of hard on her socks, but that energy has to be expended somehow and the sliding across the floor is relatively tame. We laugh together about the time I asked her if her hair dryer had stopped working, because she was running around the house with her hair only halfway dried. Beckie explained to me that her long hair takes several minutes to dry and she had to take a break from the monotony of drying her hair so she could move around a bit. Her attention span is short, but intense. She studies very hard, but not for hours on end. After concentrating for a period of in-depth studying, Beckie tells me her brain needs to take a break and do something different for awhile. I’m actually glad that she recognizes what she needs and finds strategies that work for her. Is she distractible with a short attention span? Yes, but she can focus and sustain her attention when needed. Is she hyperactive? Absolutely, but her extra energy is often a plus. There are times when Beckie acts impulsively. For example, she walks into a room, sees me there, and grabs me for a hug. Sometimes she will spontaneously start giving me a back rub as she is going by, and it is the best 10-second back rub I’ve ever had! True, it only lasts a few seconds before she is on her way, but I do enjoy those brief moments. Beckie faces challenges from being so energetic, impulsive, and distractible. But it’s not all bad. There’s something wonderful about Beckie’s ability to spontaneously show affection and respond with enthusiasm to so many different things. She is growing as the individual she is meant to be, without the burden of trying to completely change her natural inclinations.

It’s So Obvious (to our kids)

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Have your kids ever given you an incredulous look because the answer to your question is so obvious – to them? I’m pretty sure I’ve given that kind of look to my children many times, even though I know they are outside the box kind of thinkers. In fact, I’m not sure they know there even is a “box”. Some things just seem so apparent to me that it’s hard to remember that my kids don’t approach life in the same way I do. Our kids can feel that same kind of frustration if we don’t immediately understand their way of thinking when something seems very obvious to them. A few days ago I was preparing to do some school work with my Beckie, and she was flitting around the house burning up some excess energy. I called her in to the dining room, and she came right away. I turned my back to take our books off the shelf, and when I turned around she was gone. I arranged the books for the first subject of the day and called Beckie back into the dining room. She popped right over, but when I leaned over to clear some space on the table for our globe, she darted off again. This yo-yo action in and out of the room happened several times within a couple of minutes. I called her back, and asked her why she kept leaving the room when she knew it was time to do school. That’s when I got the look that said, “Why are you asking me a question when the answer is so obvious?” I waited for her reply, truly not knowing the answer, and she simply sighed and said, “To dance!” She said it in that way kids have of letting you know you should have known the answer but they will try to patiently explain it for you. I think that’s a good reason and a way for hyperactivity to be expressed in an acceptable way, though it explains in part why school sometimes takes us longer than I expect it too. In fact, if we didn’t actually have to get anything done, I might have joined her in dancing.