Our Children and ADD/ADHD

[Ululani76]

Within the last 10 years, there has been an increase in the popularity for the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in children and specifically Afrikan children in America. Afrikan boys often bear the brunt of it. Nevertheless, our children may be labeled at school or in other circles where adult supervision is in the hands of someone other than the parents. Parents may even feel concerned a bit about their child's behavior after complaints from such caregivers and teachers or simply due to the regular talk about ADD/ADHD these days as if it were like catching the common cold. These concerns lead to a trip to the primary care physician which may ultimately lead to an all-to-quick diagnosis and quick fix of a dangerous prescription for Ritalin or Adderall for the child. The short term and long term side effects of these drugs are nothing to sneeze at. The white world's immediate remedy for any maladies whether real or perceived is the prescription drug and the overuse of it and the misused experimentation of it. For the sake of our children, it is worth getting more than one or two opinions on concerns about our child's behavior. Now this does not mean that the child may not actually have a behavioral disorder, but as these are our future leaders and soldiers in the struggle we must be sure to protect their minds and bodies at all costs. This includes giving them the treatments that are appropriate and effective with the least amount of harm. Behavioural troubles could be caused by a myriad of things including learning challenges, diet and unknown food aversions, stressful home situations, etc. Below is a list that I find to be positive solutions:


50 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion (for detailed information about each way, see The Myth of the ADD Child)Order the book.

1. Provide a balanced breakfast.
2. Consider the Feingold diet
3. Limit television and video games
4. Teach self-talk skills.
5. Find out what interests your child.
6. Promote a strong physical education program in your child’s school.
7. Enroll your child in a martial arts program.
8. Discover your child’s multiple intelligences (link)
9. Use background music to focus and calm.
10. Use color to highlight information.
11. Teach your child to visualize.
12. Remove allergens from the diet.
13. Provide opportunities for physical movement.
14. Enhance your child’s self-esteem.
15. Find your child’s best times of alertness.
16. Give instructions in attention-grabbing ways.
17. Provide a variety of stimulating learning activities.
18. Consider biofeedback training.
19. Activate positive career aspirations.
20. Teach your child physical-relaxation techniques.
21. Use incidental learning to teach.
22. Support full inclusion of your child in a regular classroom.
23. Provide positive role models.
24. Consider alternative schooling options.
25. Channel creative energy into the arts.
26. Provide hands-on activities
27. Spend positive times together.
28. Provide appropriate spaces for learning.
29. Consider individual psychotherapy.
30. Use touch to soothe and calm.
31. Help your child with organizational skills.
32. Help your child appreciate the value of personal effort.
33. Take care of yourself.
34. Teach your child focusing techniques.
35. Provide immediate feedback.
36. Provide your child with access to a computer.
37. Consider family therapy.
38. Teach problem-solving skills.
39. Offer your child real-life tasks to do.
40. Use "time-out" in a positive way.
41. Help your child develop social skills.
42. Contract with your child.
43. Use effective communication skills.
44. Give your child choices.
45. Discover and treat the four types of misbehavior.
46. Establish consistent rules, routines, and transitions.
47. Hold family meetings.
48. Have your child teach a younger child.
49. Use natural and logical consequences.
50. Hold a positive image of your child.

Resources
Armstrong, Thomas. "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Children: One Consequence of the Rise of Technologies and Demise of Play?" in Sharna Olfman (ed.), All Work and No Play: How Educational Reforms are Harming Our Preschoolers. Westport CT: Praeger, 2003, pp. 161-176.
Armstrong, Thomas. The Myth of the ADD Child: 50 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion. New York: Plume, 1997.
Armstrong, Thomas. "To Empower, Not Control!: A Holistic Approach to ADD/ADHD," Reaching Today’s Youth, Winter, 1998.
Armstrong, Thomas, "ADD as a Social Invention," Education Week, October 18, 1995.
Armstrong, Thomas "ADD: Does It Really Exist?" Phi Delta Kappan, February, 1996.
Armstrong, Thomas. "Labels Can Last a Lifetime," Learning, May/June, 1996.
Armstrong, Thomas. "Why I Believe Attention Deficit Disorder is a Myth," Sydney’s Child [Australia], September, 1996.
Divoky, Diane and Peter Schrag. The Myth of the Hyperactive Child. New York: Pantheon, 1975.
Goodman, Gay, and Mary Jo Poillon. "ADD: Acronym for Any Dysfunction or Difficulty,"
Journal of Special Education, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1992.
Griss, Susan. Minds in Motion: A Kinesthetic Approach to Teaching Elementary Curriculum.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998.
Kohn, Alfie. "Suffer the Restless Children," Atlantic Monthly, November, 1989, pp. 90-100.
McGuinness, Diane. When Children Don't Learn. New York: Basic, 1985.
Merrow, John. " Attention Deficit Disorder: A Dubious Diagnosis," (Video). The Merrow Report, 588 Broadway, Suite 510, New York, NY 10012,212-941-8060; 212-941-8068 (fax).
Patterson, Marilyn Nikimaa. Every Body Can Learn: Engaging the Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence in the Everyday Classroom. Tucson, AZ: Zephyr Press, 1997.
Reid, Robert, John W. Maag, and Stanley F. Vasa, "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as a Disability Category: A Critique," Exceptional Children, Vol. 60, No. 3, pp. 198-214.

[Kikuyu_Ayinde_Osaze_]

This is so true, i will post my own personal experiences on this issue tomorrow, Inshallah, O' Afrika......for this is one of the topics that is plagueing our people......

[Kamau_Kambon]

After the 1954 supreme court (they are not supreme-they dominate
by the use of trickery, deceit and guns) decison to "integrate" public
education, white people huddled together to THINK of clever
ways to get around complying with the court decision.
So, white people agreed to "integrate" the schools and then
decided, SECRETLY, that, "WE'LL LET YOU BLACK CHILDREN INTO THE
SCHOOLS, (COMPLYING WITH THE "LAW") AND THEN
SEPARATE YOU FROM our wHITE CHILDREN!
How were they going to separate Black children from
white children, AND GET AWAY WITH IT?

First: a.) the white people administered "Intelligence tests" -
the "results" of which clearly showed Black children
"less intelligent" than white children-
This,
b.) then, justified white people creating
the racket called "TRACKING" OR HOMOGENEOUS
GROUPING- GROUP ALL THOSE WITH SIMILAR
SCORES TOGETHER-CODE FOR LET'S SEPERATE
THE BLACK CHILDREN INTO DUMB CLASSES
AND PUT ALL THE white children in "ADVANCED CLASSES"
c.) finally, in this area, white "colleges and universities "trained"
ignorant white female "teachers" and implanted in
them the notion of Black inferiority or a self-fulfilling prophesy
that said Black children CAN'T LEARN and these elements, taken
together, are a recipe for sho' 'nuff Black failure in schools

Fact: intelligence tests are INVALID- that means they
DO NOT MEASURE WHAT THEY ARE INTENDED TO
MEASURE- INTELLIGENCE TESTS MEASURE VOCABULARY
AND A CHILD'S (TRAVEL) EXPERIENCE

NOTE THIS: wHITE PEOPLE CREATED AN INDUSTRY OFF OF
IDENTIFYING BLACK CHILDREN WITH ALL OF THESE
LABELS: WHO ARE THE BENEFICIARIES OF THIS "INDUSTRY"?
IN OTHER WORDS, WHO MAKES MONEY OFF OF THIS MESS?
white doctors, white nurses, white psychologists, white
therapists, white counselors, white psychiatrists, white book
writers, white television news, white radio shows, white talk
shows, white newspapers, white hospitals, those whites who
want to "remedy" the situation, white lawyers, white
prisons, white foster care, white SPECIAL ED teachers, white special
education textbook writers, white special education test makers and many more-

Second: When that wasn't sufficient to get all the Black
children, then the white people created
THE ALPHABET SOUP CALLED ADHD, LEARNING
DISABLED, SLOW LEARNERS, mentally retarded,
mildly retarded, ETC.
FACT: ALL THESE LABELS ARE A BUNCH OF CRAP THAT WERE
CON-COCTED THEN TO DESTROY BLACK CHILDREN!

Third: Dovetailing this development, unfortunately for Afrikans,
was the emergence in our communities of FAST FOOD
JOINTS and the letting into our homes the deadly
devise known as TELEVISION.

FACT: BOTH OUR CONSUMPTION OF FAST DEATH FOODS AND DEATH
TELEVISION (AND DEATH MU-SICK) SHORT CIRCUITED
THE NERVOUS SYSTEMS, AND BRAINS, OF OUR CHILDREN.
As a consequence, MOST OF our children CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING
THAT DEALS WITH BEING AFRIKAN, LOGICAL CONCLUSIONS,
OR ANYTHING THAT MAKES SENSE WHICH, IN AND OF ITSELF,
IS COUNTER TO white MIND CONTROL.

Fourth: As pointed out in, "You Should Be Ashamed of Your
Nice, But Duped, Parents, Part II,
NEVER, EVER, LET A white PSYCHOLOGIST OR a white
psychiatrist TEST YOUR CHILD-PERIOD!!!!!

Fifth: As always, I do not like to reference white people, but
since they are in the system and have access to information
that we do not have access to, I here refer you to
the Commission on Human Rights- a group of psychiatrists
that asserts that drugs, like ritalin, are part of an
elaborate scheme by psychiatrists to drug the whole
population of school children, and most adults, and make
huge sums of money by declaring that everyone has some
sort of MENTAL PROBLEM.

Sixth: We can talk about many aspects that can help enhance
a child's ability to learn, BUT THE MAIN THINGS PARENTS
MUST DO, IF A PARENT WANTS TO SAVE HER/HIS CHILD
IS: *TAKE YOUR CHILD OUT OF SCHOOL (PUBLIC OR PRIVATE)
*CHANGE YOUR CHILD'S DIET, COMPLETELY
* DESTROY ALL white s/heroes you may have put
into the child's mind- Give your child BLACK HEROES-
THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE NEGRO SINGERS, NEGRO
ACTORS/ACTRESSES, NEGRO ATHLETES, OR NEGRO
SAMBOS. GIVE YOUR CHILD REVOLUTIONARY S/HEROES

Assignment: a) Think of FIVE other CREATIVE WAYS TO SAVE BLACK
CHILDREN-from ignorant parents, from schools, from cops
b.) Define "education"
c.) After learning to read, write, compute and comprehend,
what other purpose should a Black education serve?
d.) what is the difference between being intelligent and
smart?
e.) identify and list 5 things that prove white people are
not as intelligent as they lead most negroes to believe.

[Asantewa]

Hahaha Sorry to sound like I'm laughing about this sorry crap! An interesting irony is that some years ago a Jamaican bro' who had been living in the united snakes of amerikkka brought his six year old son with him on a longish visit to Afrika (Zimbabwe) because of the boy being unable to learn anything in amerikkka due to having the abovementioned condition... Our education system was still completely british colonial! However, the boy did a year here and gave his Afrikan teachers HELL with his hyperactivity BUT they acknowledged the GREAT (but hidden) intelligence he possessed and persevered with Afrikan love and a couple of Afrikan spankings when he was totally out of order. He passed his grade at the end of the year with flying colours and went back to amerikkka - where he had previously been pronounced 'unteachable' - and skipped to two grades AHEAD in the amerkkkan school system... What do y'all think of THAT!!?