Stimulation
It is a difficult conversation that we have over and over again, my daughter and me. She doesn’t know what to do with herself and wants to be told, shown, and interacted with as she does it. I want her to depend less on me and more on herself – discover her talents, grab hold of an interest, enjoy learning without being spoon fed.
But she is empty. She doesn’t know what she enjoys, wants, needs and expects me to figure it out for her. She is a caterpillar in a chrysalis uncertain how to morph, and no comprehension of the butterfly she can become. She sees herself as a worm, less attractive than a caterpillar, and fears she will stay a worm or at the most, a moth.
In the book The Well-Trained Mind, the author (Susan Wise Bauer) complains that in early grade school years we are seeking children to express themselves, without first filling them with ideas, facts, and experiences to draw from. We are asking empty wells to be full before they tap into the underground spring.
This is the underlying conflict with my daughter. She has not had a variety of rich experiences from which to draw. Due to other constraints and conditions, her repertoire of interests are very limited. The only things she truly enjoys are swinging – which allows her to have a very rich imaginary life, and eating which attempts to fill her emotional hunger. This reminds me of another article I recently read, published on www.wrightslaw.com.
In the article by Thom Hartman called Reinventing Our Schools. He wrote concerning ADD and ADHD in schools. Consider: any parent will agree that ADHD kids have no problem learning video games. They have no problem concentrating on them. They have no problem paying attention to them. The same goes for skateboarding, dancing, hanging out with friends, and a thousand other things that kids do outside of the classroom. Or learning to walk, speak, which are highly complex activities, with multiple levels of structure. To use the analogy of food and eating, what if the problem is that our ADHD kids are always hungry? ….What if our kids are “getting fed” in all the things that they enjoy doing, but not “getting fed” in school? What if what we are looking at here is not a failure of self-control, but an over-intensity of hunger? ….The hunger for aliveness expressed by risk-takers as “When I do that, I feel the most totally and completely alive.” This is what I believe many of our school-misfit children are experiencing; the need for aliveness.
Understanding this tells us why the conventional wisdom of putting such kids into highly structured and very quiet, no-distraction “special classrooms” or “resource rooms” doesn’t work. In such an environment, they only become more hungry for the stimulation which evokes the feeling o f aliveness they crave. It explains why stimulant drugs – which chemically induce a stimulating experience that’s internally and neurologically similar to riding in a roller coaster – have the effect of calming these kids down. Their need for stimulation is met, albeit chemically.
It explains why kids who “can’t learn and can’t focus” can become experts a multi-level video games or complex skateboarding; those tasks are filled with stimulation, causing them to feel very much alive.
It explains why both types of ADD- the dreamy, inattentive form most often seen in the girls and the hyperactive form most often seen in boys – are identical in their root causes. …
It also explains a large part of why threats of expulsion, point systems, or resource rooms with one on one instruction do seem to work for a short period of time – they’re stimulating. They need stimulation to keep their brains awake and functioning.
It also explains the mechanism of the “on fire” principle: when a child is interested in something, he finds it stimulating, almost regardless of what it is. No point system, threats of expulsion, medication, or time-outs will ever come close to the power to capture a child’s interest that’s contained in these two simple concepts: “fire”(interest/enthusiasm) and stimulation.
SO...where do I go from here? Lot's to think about....howver, at the moment hungry tummies call and dinner needs to be on the table soon.
But she is empty. She doesn’t know what she enjoys, wants, needs and expects me to figure it out for her. She is a caterpillar in a chrysalis uncertain how to morph, and no comprehension of the butterfly she can become. She sees herself as a worm, less attractive than a caterpillar, and fears she will stay a worm or at the most, a moth.
In the book The Well-Trained Mind, the author (Susan Wise Bauer) complains that in early grade school years we are seeking children to express themselves, without first filling them with ideas, facts, and experiences to draw from. We are asking empty wells to be full before they tap into the underground spring.
This is the underlying conflict with my daughter. She has not had a variety of rich experiences from which to draw. Due to other constraints and conditions, her repertoire of interests are very limited. The only things she truly enjoys are swinging – which allows her to have a very rich imaginary life, and eating which attempts to fill her emotional hunger. This reminds me of another article I recently read, published on www.wrightslaw.com.
In the article by Thom Hartman called Reinventing Our Schools. He wrote concerning ADD and ADHD in schools. Consider: any parent will agree that ADHD kids have no problem learning video games. They have no problem concentrating on them. They have no problem paying attention to them. The same goes for skateboarding, dancing, hanging out with friends, and a thousand other things that kids do outside of the classroom. Or learning to walk, speak, which are highly complex activities, with multiple levels of structure. To use the analogy of food and eating, what if the problem is that our ADHD kids are always hungry? ….What if our kids are “getting fed” in all the things that they enjoy doing, but not “getting fed” in school? What if what we are looking at here is not a failure of self-control, but an over-intensity of hunger? ….The hunger for aliveness expressed by risk-takers as “When I do that, I feel the most totally and completely alive.” This is what I believe many of our school-misfit children are experiencing; the need for aliveness.
Understanding this tells us why the conventional wisdom of putting such kids into highly structured and very quiet, no-distraction “special classrooms” or “resource rooms” doesn’t work. In such an environment, they only become more hungry for the stimulation which evokes the feeling o f aliveness they crave. It explains why stimulant drugs – which chemically induce a stimulating experience that’s internally and neurologically similar to riding in a roller coaster – have the effect of calming these kids down. Their need for stimulation is met, albeit chemically.
It explains why kids who “can’t learn and can’t focus” can become experts a multi-level video games or complex skateboarding; those tasks are filled with stimulation, causing them to feel very much alive.
It explains why both types of ADD- the dreamy, inattentive form most often seen in the girls and the hyperactive form most often seen in boys – are identical in their root causes. …
It also explains a large part of why threats of expulsion, point systems, or resource rooms with one on one instruction do seem to work for a short period of time – they’re stimulating. They need stimulation to keep their brains awake and functioning.
It also explains the mechanism of the “on fire” principle: when a child is interested in something, he finds it stimulating, almost regardless of what it is. No point system, threats of expulsion, medication, or time-outs will ever come close to the power to capture a child’s interest that’s contained in these two simple concepts: “fire”(interest/enthusiasm) and stimulation.
SO...where do I go from here? Lot's to think about....howver, at the moment hungry tummies call and dinner needs to be on the table soon.
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