From ADHD to “A’s”
In preparation for our segment of Jason’s “M.A.G.I.C. For Teens” program, (subtitled “From ADHD to A’s”). T and I are doing a core dump of the last 13 years with Jason, everything that happened, what we were told, the resources we sought, problems we face, and solutions we found. Then we have to boil it down to a structured program frazzled parents can follow.
I can promise you that the FIRST step will be that the parents themselves be practicing a body-mind program. It has to be the family culture. Then, they can bring the child into this program, with complete faith that with the proper resources, consistency, and the passage of time, your child will find and integrate the resources they need.
M.A.G.I.C. then would be:
Map/Model. We can supply a structure to investigate. But start with that daily ritual, and build the best circle of allies you can find. Know what your child's goals are even before THEY know.
Action. This is going to require daily action, probably for YEARS. Make your peace with it.
Gratitude. You need to control your emotions of fear, guilt, shame, anger…anything that is other than love and faith. Assume your child can read your mind. YOU CANNOT FAKE THIS. If YOU believe, you can "infect" your child with faith in themselves.
Intention. The goal must be clear, as well as the evidence procedures. I'd suggest an autonomous, happy, healthy, successful adult human being. As manifested by earning a solid living on their own, having a healthy loving bonded relationship, and having a healthy energetic body that would be attractive to THEM, according to their real values (NOT what they are "willing to settle for")
Courage and Conviction. You have to believe in your efforts. Your child needs DESPERATELY to believe that YOU believe. Yes, they are dealing with challenges. Everyone does. Show them their path in relation to other human journeys. Its just "chop wood, carry water." These are the things you will do every day. At first it might be medicine. But then it is just daily vitamins, nothing special.
The daily ritual is for the parents as much as the child (much like child therapy). So that's the context. Once that is established, it will be necessary to have a general notion of what you are looking for. I'd say behavioral shifts. Everything else is mind-reading. What do they DO? If they can do, spontaneously, the things that non-ADHD kids do, and are happy and healthy…is that the same as "cure"? I don't know, but I'd settle for it. Wouldn't you?
So we have to look into the question: "how do we change behaviors? How do we INFLUENCE people to change behaviors?"
If the parents themselves have unhealthy behaviors, in all likelihood THEY DON'T KNOW how to shift the beliefs, values, and emotional charges that created them. In other words…their kids are just smaller versions of the parents, and helping them change those behaviors demands that the parents learn techniques that will change their own.
This is tough, because our egoes will fight back against changing. I am suggesting that the best approach is to continue the child's behavior to be on a continuum with the parents. It is a FAMILY issue. And if you look deeply enough, I suspect you can find enough parallels to help you pass the Three Gates.
If the FAMILY is working on issues, then the child doesn't have to go into the "I'm broken" space that can and does lead to fear, anger, and disconnection: "I don’t care about anything I already know I cannot do."
As opposed to "I can't do this TODAY, but I can learn."
This does NOT preclude medication. You need to have medical professionals in your resource circle. But I have to admit that my position is that placebos work because our body-mind has FAR more power to heal itself than we ordinarily understand. My assumption is that any psychotropic is just goosing the brain to do things it can do anyway, given the right building blocks and stimulus. Eventually, we reached the point where I made a sober request to Tananarive that we take him off his medication so that we could actually see the issue clearly.
Then, I reasoned that I was looking at issues I saw in every coaching client I ever had, even if some were more severe. He was just human. And I reasoned that the same tools that helped strangers could help my boy, if I could be perceptive and persistent enough.
That meant to give him the BEST selection of body-mind tools I had, then motivate him to change, assuming that if HE wanted to change, and we were consistent, he would find the tools he needed. There would be a thousand false starts and dead ends, but if we had enough raw FAITH we'd just keep going and going, and going.
I told Jason not long ago that he was "doomed to succeed." That I would never give up, and that I was stronger and smarter than his demons. He ruefully shook his head and said "I’m starting to understand that."
Heh heh. I'm a warrior, and this is the battle I've trained for my entire life.
So…how do you change behaviors? I'll go into this more deeply, but the most important three steps of Cloe Madanes' "Persuasion Framework" are:
Achieve deep rapport with them. Respect and love them. This, by the way, is almost always the missing element in political arguments. You may be polite, but you are thinking "you idiot." And they can feel it.
Break their behavior pattern. "Kill the monster while it's small." If you observe that someone goes through a pattern of minor behavioral aberrations before they explode with rage (for instance) and you can make them laugh when they are just getting started, you can derail the entire blow-up. To do this, you have to shift their physiology, their focus, or the language they use. NOTE that this is EXACTLY what you are doing to yourself in the "Morning Ritual" and "Five Minute Miracle" activities. Starting to understand how this all fits together? Good.
Connect the new behavior to their own higher goals and values.
"But they don't have any goals!" you might say.
Yeah, they do. Certain goals are hard-wired into every animal, every mammal, every primate, every human being. If you don't understand this…just think a little more deeply about what would have to be, or tend to be, true of all your ancestors going back to the friggin' veldt.
Anyway…these are my morning thoughts, just core-dumping to understand the basic content, which will suggest the basic framework, some series of mnemonics to make it easy to remember.
We are so excited about this project. Its so damned necessary. And EVERY family has issues, more and more parents saying their kids are "on the spectrum" in one way or another. Really, I kinda think everyone is. It is, after all…a spectrum. And isn't everyone really just a little strange? Don't we all struggle with things that involve executive function, self-esteem, emotional control, clarity of perception and so on?
In other words, there is no "them." There is only "us." And as WE heal..so do our children. And so does the world.
More later
Namaste
Steve
