I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder when I was 33-years-old. I took my youngest daughter in to see if she had ADD, and the facilitator ask if I would take the multitude of test with her to see how I fared. To my surprise she said I had ADD worst than my daughter and had dyslexia too. At first I was a bit upset, then I realized that my life started making sense. She gave me some tools to work with, to manage the disorder and I have used them ever since.
Because life was more challenging for me with the inability to to learn as quick, retain as much, and figure situations out at all, my self esteem took a beating. The overwhelm that I had was almost unbearable.
Being a teenager is hard enough without having challenges that make your life tougher. I mentor a couple of girls with ADD and I am giving them the tools they need to manage it, with or without drugs.
I find the biggest problem with teenage girls having ADD is that they feel abnormal. The one thing teenagers want to feel is the same as everyone else. This is why they dress like their peers, try to act the same as their peers and fall to peer pressure. Feeling different from your friends can damage their self esteem. So, the more they can maneuver through their life not looking different from the crowd, the better. I encourage girls to be unique, but having ADD isn’t the kind of unique that builds self esteem.
Here are some quick tips on how teens can mange ADD:
- Write down your scheduled events- including homework due dates. Anything that you might have to remember. Get it on paper and out of your head. This keeps your mind free of chaos and calms your ADD.
- Commit to doing homework- come home from school, grab a bite to eat, and invest at least 1 hour everyday to getting your homework done, before hanging out with friends. When things pile up, it Feeds your ADD.
- Don’t pack to much into your schedule- if you have a crazy busy schedule it will throw you into confusion more easily. Make sure you have time to relax and be calm.
- if you have your period (your Moon)- pay special attention to how you feel, and take extra special care of yourself. Take baths, read, relax to music to calm yourself.
- Ask for help from your teachers and parents-let them know that you are working with ADD and doing your best to manage it, but need help sometimes.
- Parents realize that things that are clear to you, may not be so clear to them. Be patient with your teens, making them feel stupid only lowers their self esteem and makes their ADD worse.
Our goal as parents is to strengthen our teens self esteem, so they can go out in the world empowered. Any tools we give them helps them develop their sense of self. Even teens without ADD should use these tools to help them become more organized and have less chaos in their life. Let me know what your teen does to manage their life.
