A.D.D. seems to run in my family. My brother has been diagnosed with it. It is clear that my mother has it. Two of my uncles probably do as well, and this is just to name a few. Sometimes, I wonder if I might have a mild form of A.D.D., since it does tend to run in families, and I realize that I have a tendency to be somewhat distracted at times. Many of the people in my family that very likely have A.D.D. are undiagnosed, unmedicated, and unaware of the tools, skills, and tricks that they can utilize to help manage at least some of their A.D.D. symptoms.
Over time, I learned some helpful techniques that seemed to work well to help the various members of my family with things they had great difficulty with. Here are a few of the things that helped them with skills like time management, and task completion.
A few of my relatives had extreme difficultly arriving on time to work, school, family gatherings, or anywhere else. One relative was notorious for arriving five hours late to family gatherings. My family started telling him incorrect information about when a family gathering was scheduled to start. For example, if the birthday party started at 3:00 in the afternoon, we would tell this relative that it going to start five hours earlier, at 10:00 in the morning. He ended up pleasantly surprised that he got there on time, and seemed much more relaxed while the family gathering was going on.
Other relatives found that moving the clock ahead by five or ten minutes was helpful. My mom, for example, would forget that the clock had been moved ahead. She would go about her usual morning routine, and get distracted along the way. Later, she would look at the time, panic about how late she was running, and dash out the door. She ended up arriving to work on time, which not only spared her the stress of trying to catch up after being late, but also gave her a few extra minutes to “settle in” before her day started. This technique stopped working eventually, when she would remember that the clock was not right.
I learned that the best way to get my brother to finish his homework was for me to sit next to him while I worked on my own homework, and gently redirect him when he got off task. Breaking down the task, and allowing time for short bursts of distraction helped. “You can tell me two things about that video game right after you finish four math problems”. This worked best when I was quiet while he told me the two things, and immediately redirected back to his homework as soon as he finished telling me the two things he selected.
Image by Narwee on Flickr