ADHD studies

I was happy to see an article in the New York Times on Tuesday, Nov. 13, that cited several studies showing bad behavior early in children's school careers doesn't doom they later in life. The studies . The studies found that children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder or ADHD have a delay in brain development rather than a deficit or flaw. That explains why many children "grow out of " ADHD as teen-agers.
One international study of 16,000 children found that disruptive or anti-social behavior in kindergarten doesn't lead to poor grades later in elementary school. The study is coming out in the Journal of Develolpmental Psychology.
A second study by the National Institute of Mental Health and McGill University http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/nov2007/nimh-12.html
used brain scans to show that the brains of children with ADHD developed more slowly than their peers and can be three years behind in some regions. The study is being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, explains why many children seem to "grow out of " ADHD as teenagers. Here's a good blog, the Knight Science Journalism Tracker ksjtracker.mit.edu/?p=4745.
Both my children have ADHD and have periodically struggled in school. My younger son was constantly getting in trouble in kindergarten and first grade. He stabbed a boy with a pencil and we thought maybe he was well on his way to being an ax murderer. He got taken out of Spanish for being silly and repeating the word "pineapple." And his kindergarten teacher just didn't think he was getting it.
Our older son who has the inattentive brand of ADHD never had behavior problems. But he did have a third grade teacher who also claimed he wasn't getting it, didn't have an "analytical mind" and should be left back. In our hearts, we knew it was she who wasn't getting it.
But it's comforting to think of ADHD as a developmental problem and certainly we've seen huge changes in both our children, partly due to medication but also due to their maturation. Our older son comes home and does his homework and practices the piano. We're not having daily battles that leave us both in tears. I take this as a great gift and I like the idea that it's simply a brain development problem. Although I would like to know when my brain is going to mature. Oh well.

In Princeton Township, N.J., there's an effort to become a sustainable town. That means we use up fewer resources, we try to come up with guidelines to be less wasteful and more environmentally friendly etc. I'm fully behind the idea and went to the first meeting with my own two cents. I advocated for sidewalks, so we could walk rather than use the car and I also advocated for banning plastic bags. It's still in the planning stages but they asked us to sign a sustainability pledge where we could opt to walk two more times a week, start a compose heap from our leaves and use five fluorescent light bulbs.
I pledged to do all that but we already walk to and from school most days, compost leaves and use lots of fluorescent light bulbs although I'm sure we could use more. (We're also not thrilled with the light but that's not another story).
Today though I feel like I'm no longer sustainable so I picked the kids up in the car. Oh well. My house isn't sustainable either. It needs to be recycled or something. I've reached that part of the year where I'm on a treadmill and I can't get off and I'm losing it. Literally. I lost my gradebook at my university, I've mixed up appointments and I got about five hours sleep last night, interrupted by the thought, "I have to bake muffins." Argh. Oh well. More on sustainability later I'm sure but here's the site: www.sustainableprinceton.org

I went to a cocktail party for Dress for Success yesterday,
http://www.dressforsuccess.org.
It's a group that provides suits for poor women who are going on job interviews and a whole week's worth of office clothes once they get the job, as well as job training and support. They just opened a new office in Mercer County, N.J. They showed a very touching video of women who have been helped by the group and they convinced me it's really a good way to help women. Some 20 percent of women in Mercer County, N.J. are poor so God knows anyone can offer help is doing something worthwhile. I don't know that it addresses the root causes of poverty but what organization does? Before we left, they asked us to donate or volunteer and I would like to do some volunteering and send some money although where I'll find the time or the money, I'm not sure.
But here I am at a cocktail party and I realized once again that I haven't been out in theworld much since having kids. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've never been to a cocktail party. I asked my friends if having margaritas at a local park counts but I'm pretty sure that doesn't qualify as a cocktail party. I also realized that I don't really have any power suits myself although I'm not sure I want them either. My friends and I huddled in a corner scarfing down horsdouevres and wine and chatting. We didn't network or work the room and we arrived back at home at 8 p.m. because we couldn't bring ourselves to go out late and I had more work to do. I ended up staying up late grading papers. I guess I'm not a party animal and I'm pretty sure I'm not a cocktail party animal.

Tap dancing as fast as I can

Just say no to tap dancing if you're already tap dancing too fast in life. That's what I did and it felt good although I had promised my friend I would dance my little heart out or at least give it a try. I'm already doing yoga and walking every morning and I have deadlines piling up and I'm volunteering for the school book fair and the silent auction for my choir. Yesterday, I felt my stress level rising and that old feeling of being overwhelmed returning and so I had to say no to tap dancing.
I know I'm getting stressed when I start losing things and forgetting things. I've been trying to schedule several interviews at once and I kept forgetting when they were and I rescheduled them and gave myself a lot mmore headaches. Then I left a folder in the parking lot and lost my parking ticket. I probably should have gone back to bed but I did some yoga and that helped a bit. It's the deep breathing that does it.
I also opted to not go to my choir performance tonight but instead go to a friend's cocktail party where she is launching the non-profit she is heading. To do that required several calls to a babysitter and a desperate search to drive my older son home from art. A cocktail party! Imagine! I don't think I've ever been to a cocktail party. I have asked my friends if margaritas in the park count but I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Not to sound like a girly girl but what do you wear to a cocktail party. Hmm.
Yesterday we bought the music book for Hair and my younger son and I sang together. It is such a genuine pleasure in my life and I'm glad they've been able to enjoy music with me. It's a great gift.
My older son asked me to proof his paper on Shakespeare yesterday only he spelled it Shakesphere and he said that someone was insuccessful. "It's not a word," I told him. "Yes it is," he insisted. "Look it up. I'll be you $10 it's not a word," I told him. "I don't have to look it up. I know it's a word," he said. Finally I exploded, "If you teach writing at a university, raise your hand. It's not a word." I'm pretty sure this is immature and insuccessful parenting and will lead to therapy later in life. Oh well.

I am a writer and a mom who writes a parenting column for the local newspaper and this is my first attempt at blogging. I have to admit that I'm skeptical about this new form of communicating with the world and I'm also skeptical that anyone would read this. It feels a little like throwing a message in a bottle and then tossing it out to sea.
I have two boys, ages 8 and 10, and I'm struggling with all the usual dilemmas: work versus parenting versus personal time versus sleeping time, worrying about just about everything from global warming to parent teacher conferences.
This week, I am recuperating from Halloween and still sneaking into my children's Halloween bags to steal their candy. My nightime eating habbits are definitely in conflict with my attempts to get healthy by walking and doing yoga. I'm also looking at a crazy schedule that seems destined to get crazier over the next month. My friend wants me to take tap dancing lessons with her. How do I tell her that I'm already tap dancing as hard as I can? I'm signed up to work at the PTO book fair at my sons' school but I've already had to move appointments around to do that. You get the picture.
I interrupted two moms on the schoolyard yesterday and one mom said to me, "We're talking about teenagers and sex. We're convinced all teenage girls are having sex." Yikes. I can't even go there.
On Saturday, we took the kids to see a local production of "Beauty and the Beast," and we discussed the meaning on the way home. We talked about how it's all about how Beauty fell in love with the Beast because she got to know him and she turned him back into a prince. "Is that what it was like for you and Daddy?" my younger son wanted to know. "No, your father was a prince," I said. "Then he turned into a beast after you got married," he said. We all roared with laughter.
My younger son says he wants to get married when he gets older because "I want someone to keep me company" and "I want to have children." I told him he should make sure he's in love and date a lot of girls first. He's only 8. He has some time.