The most important concept my boys learned about math was the fact families. Go here to get a template for making fact family cards – with lots of activity ideas. At some point, our kids have to graduate from the rote memorization of math facts to understanding what the numbers and facts represent. A cool book to foster this understanding is The Grapes of Math. (I love the title!) In it, the author asks riddles that make kids use what they know in new ways.

Pictures – My mom taught third grade for years, and always used a book called “Grandma’s Math” to help her visual learners who were having trouble memorizing facts. I searched in vain for the book she used, but found another, Memorize in Minutes, that used the same principle: kids memorize a picture that has a story and rhyme to help with fact recall. You can also get your child to help you come up stories and pictures, which may prove be the extra boost your child needs.

Math Games and Apps Most kid will do anything that is a video game or apps. There are lots of free apps, too!

Practice – However your child learns, practice makes perfect. Create your own practice worksheets here. You can choose what kind of problems and how difficult they are. This is a wonderful resource that you can use over and over again.

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Anyhow, it’s a great title. There are many little ‘magical’ strategies that help improve focus. None of them work all of the time – nothing works all of the time for our kids! All of them work some of the time, and chances are one of the following will work for you today:

Limit the Viewing Area – Cut down on distractions by limiting what the eye can see – or what the ear can hear.

• When reading, use a plain 3×5 or 4×6 index card with a small area cut out in the center for lines of print to show when reading. This blocks out everything on the page except what is being read. Make your own, or purchase this Typoscope.
• Have your child do homework in an area that is visually plain. Limit things on the wall, on shelves, on the floor. Close the door, or block the view with a sheet. My office – which used to be study central – still has only one picture on the wall.

• Keep the television off – even if it’s in the next room. Our guys could hear – and pay attention to – the television if it were on downstairs and across the house. We had the unpopular rule of no television for anybody on school nights. I know, we’re strange.

Take It In Spurts Hooked on Phonics taught me this strategy – and boy does it work. Break things down into smaller bites, like a telephone number.

• Instead of giving your child one page with 20 math problems, copy the problems five at a time onto four sheets of paper. You can copy by hand or using a photocopier with an enlarger.

• When your child has material to read, change it up. Read the first section to your child, have her read the next section aloud to you, then read the third section silently. As always, make sure the material is understood.

• Make small goals/rewards for work. Section an orange, and say, write two definitions, then have a section. Do part one of the homework contract, and run out and get the mail.

Keep the Real Task in Mind – There are multiple skills at use for each task your child is given. It’s important to figure out the primary purpose of an exercise, and make sure that is where the major focus is placed. In order to do this, it’s okay to occasionally do some of the non-focus stuff for your kids. You should let the teacher know when (and why) you give extra help.

• If your child has problems in the math book, you copy them onto the paper. (It’s about math, not copying.)

• Occasionally, read social studies out loud to your child, instead of having him read it silently. (The important part is the content.)

• Gather everything needed for the homework session. (Work on organization tomorrow!)

For 100 ways to help your child pay attention, click below to get a copy of Focus Pocus, the book inspired by Ron’s status.

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You eat an elephant a bite at a time. A journey of 1000 miles begins with one step. These proverbs make big jobs sound easier, but in reality, they don’t make much difference to our kids who are slogging through a night of math and science and social studies and that stupid book called Charlotte’s Web that the teacher made them read. It’s just overwhelming for our kids, truly.

But what if you gave an incentive for each bite of the elephant – a small ‘something to look forward to’ for each milestone? What about these…

1. After every five math problems, give a sticker.
2. After each paragraph written, allow a ten minute exercise session.
3. When each subject is completed, a different ingredient is put on the pizza.

For most of our kids, you’ll need to change this up often.

What are good milestones for your child? What incentives have worked for you?

Get practical steps on making it through a night of homework in our book, “Waking Up from the Homework Nightmare“. Read more about it, here!

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The book Getting Schooled: 102 Practical Tips for Parents, Teachers, Counselors and Students about Living and Learning with ADHD, isn’t like that. Written by Margrit Crane, it’s a down to earth, you can do this today sort of guide that is easy to read and absolutely do-able.

Quotes from the book:

    • Parent’s section: “In this metaphor, the child is the CEO, and you are the executive assistant.” (I’d love to think the author had read my Sabrina analogy!)

    • Teacher’s section: “self-advocating – a buzz word in education today – is very difficult for people with ADHD.”

    • Counselor’s section: “Long projects need to be broken down…teachers need to be in charge of this.”

    • Student’s section: “Your parents or teachers may tell you that you spend too much time texting. Do you know how you can tell if this is true? Three ways…”

Note that there is a section for counselors, the ones who help write the 504/IEP’s. That’s unusual, and it’s particularly helpful. One piece of advice to counselors is that they make sure they pick the brains of teachers and parents of ADHD children.

Getting Schooled is available in hard copy and for Kindle at Amazon. As of the publication, it’s available for free through Amazon Unlimited. I highly recommend that you grab your copy today!

Getting Schooled: 102 Practical Tips for Parents, Teachers, Counselors and Students about Living and Learning with ADHD

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But since we have a feeling your list is a bit longer than that…here are a few more of the wishes – er – suggestions we got! We were surprised at how many things fell in the non-toy department.

Games. We love Spot It for the fast pace, but also because it really requires focus! It’s a challenge for kids and adults. In fact…kids are better at it than I am! Other good game ideas are Eclipse Sugar Free Gum, Peppermint, 18 Piece Packages (Pack of 8), Spirograph, and Rory’s Story Cubes.

Fidgets. Twiddle Fiddle Toy, Magnetic Marbles, and this fun Wood Fidget Puzzle.

Tools. My boys pretty much don’t leave home without a Leatherman Multi-Tool, and they say it’s a must for everyone’s stocking. A Flashlight is also high on their list of good ideas.. Someone has also asked me for a good pair of Scissors (01-004244J).

School Supplies. One of our guys famously said, ADHD is being able to lose something without moving. Extra pens, sharpies, USB cords, and water bottles are frequently lost, so extras are appreciated. And don’t forget the perpetually needed notecards, sticky notes, markers, and crayons. And does your ADHD family have a seriously good Stapler?

Really?!. Socks and underwear sound cliched, but what about fun Animal Socks or underwear? Or towels? One of ours actually asked for new towels.

AND Lego’s. Apparently noone can have enough Lego’s.

So what’s on your list? Let us know if you have anything that our kids have left out!

PS Need more ideas? Here’s a list of stocking stuffers for ADHD kids…

The post Gifts for ADHD Kids appeared first on ADHD Inattentive.

So why didn’t he want the medication? The bottom line was that they made him feel ‘weird’. We’d tried several types, combinations, dosages, and they would work for a while, but Joe felt that they all altered the way he felt. They altered his personality, his appetite, and he hated the whole hassle. Yes, we could have forced him to keep taking them. But we didn’t.

My husband and I discussed this at length, and realized that the moment that Joe left home, he was going to quit taking ADHD meds. At that point, although we did have a 504 in place, we were really leaning heavily on the medicine to help Joe focus.

For us – and that’s just for us – we decided that we would take him off the medication totally, and try to teach him to focus and pay attention and remember his homework and track shoes and bus stop without the help of anything else. Our rationale was that if he wasn’t going to continue to take medication, we were doing him a disservice by not teaching him to manage his symptoms in other ways.

As a side note, we had already gone through the same thing with Ron, but Ron’s ADHD symptoms weren’t so pronounced. And interestingly enough, Ron went back on medication in college. So did Mike, for that matter.

In any event, our last years in high school for all the boys were spent without the tool of medication. (And that’s when I finally wrote Focus, Pocus.) Is that right for you? Only you can decide.

Read more about Joe – a success story.
Read my thoughts about medication.

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At the beginning of the school year, one of our readers was concerned that the school wasn’t providing Occupational Therapy for her daughter as was written into her IEP. They asked the teacher about it, and discovered the problem – the district hadn’t hired a OT for the school. The school was every bit as concerned about it as the parents.

Tugging on Superman’s Cape. So at the fall IEP meeting, the parents used their legal leverage as parents to bring pressure onto the representatives from the central office to make the hire. “You do realize that this is in the IEP. It is legally mandated that Sally have this therapy. It’s not an option.”

Up, Up, and Away! Although no threat was made, the phrase ‘legally mandated’ meant that the battle was already won. The school district knew that it truly had no choice but to provide the OT that was needed. And…the Occupational Therapist was indeed hired – a huge win for all the children involved as well as the school.

My Hero. An additional win was that the parent/school alliance was strengthened. The parents did the nagging; they were the bad guy. This was one less thing that the school had to fight central office for. They were grateful that someone else fought this battle for them.

As the parents and the school worked as a team – as allies – to get what was needed for the child, it set the stage for better in-school teamwork later on.

Makes for a good movie plot, too – don’t you think?

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Joe was the most inattentive of our inattentive bunch. He was the reason we heard about the inattentive type of ADHD. His teacher told us that she suspected he had ADHD and we laughed at her. But after researching it, we discovered she was spot on.

Fast forward to high school, when Joe looked at me one night and said, “What will I do without you in college?” And then he enlisted in the Navy. His high ASVAB score landed him in a program that gave him over a year of training. And he did very, very well.

The studying was one subject at a time. They started in the morning, and did one thing all day long. There was a lot of hands on. There was a lot of computer based learning. There was a lot of practice, and if you didn’t do well, there was enforced study hall. It had Joe’s name on it, seriously.

When you first join the Navy, you don’t pay rent, buy groceries, or – in our son’s case – even have a vehicle. The Navy tells you where to go, what to do, when to study, what to study…essentially every move to make. And then you get on a ship, and your every move is even more regimented. It’s a way more restrictive life than he had with us! I mean – we were pushing him to juggle and focus and prepare for ‘the real world’. The Navy did none of that, but in doing none of that, it must of given his brain a rest in many areas, so that the exective function part of his brain had time to catch up.

Joe still has trouble paying attention. He’s been out of the Navy for two years now, and he lives in ‘the real world’. And he’s succeeding far past our wildest dreams. He has a great job, he gets there on time. He pays his bills. He cooks. He maintains a car. He has zero debt and a retirement account.

When Joe was young, Joe used to have trouble knowing what to do next. He’d miss the bus, and really, truly, have trouble walking to the office or borrowing a phone to call us to come and get him. (Yes, before cell phones!)

The other day, Joe’s car broke down on the way to work. He pulled over, called AAA, and called his boss to let him know he would be late. Then he got a ride to a rental company, rented a car, and went to work.

In short, he’s doing it. All those nights when we struggled, all those years of frustration, all the times we said “think about the next thing to do”, “problem solve”, “you’re wonderful and you can do this”, and (yes) “I’m going to throttle you if you don’t pay attention!” – they paid off.

So on this Veteran’s Day we are not only grateful to Joe for his service, we are also grateful to his teachers and the schools that poured themselves into our son so that he could succeed and become a Veteran!

And by word of encouragement – hang in there, parents. We know – we really know that it’s so very, very hard. In the end, through, they do grow up, and with your love and support and instruction, they will make it.

Happy Veteran’s Day, Joe. We’re grateful.

Read more about Joe’s Navy journey.

Read more ADHD Success stories.

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There are two types of paper – intermediate and beginner – with different sizes of lines. The packs come with 100 sheets. You can also buy notebooks, journal paper, handwriting practice sheets, and letter tracing pages.

The paper is a bit pricey, and I still like using graph paper for any kind of math. But I can totally see using this paper for lots and lots of things!

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There’s been a long debate about whether or not Omega-3 fatty acids have an effect on ADHD symptoms. Last month, a brief was released that once again suggested that they absolutely do. In the study, researchers gave a daily dose of 650 mg of EPA/DHA or a placebo to 79 boys, half with ADHD, and half without. In a nutshell, the results indicated that attention was improved for both groups.

So what does this mean? Hang on for some geekiness…Studies have shown that ADHD kids have lower than normal levels of Omega 3’s. Omega-3 acids are something that are essential for cell membranes, and to make the brain work better. Omega 3’s also reduce inflammation, which is the root of a lot of medical problems. Our bodies can’t make Omega-3 acids; it gets it from food. There are three kinds of Omega-3 acids: ALA, EPA, and DHA. EPA and DHA are found in oily fish like salmon, mackarel, and tuna. ALA comes from nuts, seeds, and leafy vegetables.

It’s no secret that diet has a huge effect on our health. I got my basic understanding of the whole Omega-3 story from the book The LCP Solution. After reading it, we put our boys on a supplement. Three children does not a study make, but we saw improvement in our boys when they took Neuro-MRM, which was recommended in the book, but has sadly been discontinued. (Another MRM supplement recommended in the book is MRM’s Attend! Available from Amazon through that affiliate link.)

The bottom line is this. It’s something to consider for your family. You can start incorporating more Omega 3’s in your diet, and if you and your doctor agree, Omega 3 supplements may be in order.

It’s just another tool that you can try in the quest to get your children to focus more and pay attention!

Omega-3 Menu
Baked Salmon

1. Dry salmon with a paper towel.
2. Coat it in oil.
3. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Place the fish skin side up in a hot cast iron skillet and let it cook until it stops sticking to the pan – about 4 minutes. (Did you know cast iron adds iron to your food?)
5. Turn fish over, and put into a 375 degree oven for about 7 minutes, or until it’s almost as done as you want.

Spinach/Romaine Salad with Walnuts

Add your favorite salad veggies or fruit, and top with a simple lemon/olive oil/garlic dressing.

Baked Cauliflower

Slice into florets, toss in olive, add sea salt and bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes. Sprinkle with lemon juice. This is one of our favorites!

*See Reduced Symptoms of Inattention after Dietary Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplementation in Boys with and without Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder published on the National Institute of Health website.

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