ADHD Super Powers: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

There are two significant problems with how our culture views ADHD. The first is that it is seen as a curse. People often equate encountering a person with ADHD with an exhausting experience of distractions and repeated statements of "please don't do that", "please don't climb on that" and "for heaven's sake please stop poking holes in that". What many don't realize (even those who have ADHD) is that an individual diagnosed with this condition has in fact been identified as an individual with super powers.

A part of their brain is not functioning as well as it should, the part of the brain which acts as a filter, deciding what items vying for the person's attention should be given highest priority so they can focus on one or two at a time. Because this filter is not fully active it allows all items asking for attention to pour in to the brain, all demanding equal attention at the same time. The person speaking to them, the fly buzzing in to the window, the view through the window of cars driving by in the background, the clinking of cutlery and the fork in their own hand all want the same amount of immediate attention. This can be overwhelming and confusing and frustrating at times, but no more so than Peter Parker learning how to use his web-swinging powers or Clark Kent learning how to fly and not accidentally fry holes in things with his heat vision. Do you have ADHD? Great! You are capable of taking in more information and accomplishing more tasks at the same time than boring regular mortals. It will take some time to adjust to using your powers, but you can get there.

Do you have multiple tasks that need to be accomplished in a short period of time? Ask someone with ADHD to take on the challenge. When they have learned to control their powers, they have the ability to keep track of multiple complex projects that would overwhelm others. Have you ever noticed that those with ADHD are often excellent at finding things? If you set something down and have no idea where you left it, but were traveling in the company of someone with ADHD, go ask them. Chances are they remember exactly where you put it if you set it down in their range of vision. Their brain deemed that high priority information (along with everything else that was happening at the time) and noted where the item was put.

Individuals with ADHD need mentors, individuals who will not try to teach them how to focus on one thing (their brain does not work that way), but will teach them how to take in all the information their brain accepts in a calm manner with the knowledge that they are not helpless and have a choice about how they respond to the input, they do not have to be overwhelmed or overpowered by it. They need mentors who can help them make constructive choices regarding what to do with their ability to multitask. An open line of communication should always be maintained with a family physician, but other role models and cheerleaders are needed to walk alongside the individual throughout life.

Rather than trying to teach an individual to sit still during class (which only results in them tapping their pen and kicking the chair in front of them while poking holes in their text book), maybe it's time to identify a subject they are passionate about and arrange for them to have a book on this subject in their desk which they can pull out at will, giving them the opportunity to learn from the teacher while also learning about something that has direct interest to them. Rather than trying to get an adult to sit through long meetings without being 'rude and fidgety' it's time to say they are welcome to work on another project that is not distracting to other people whether it is reading another report or even working on a craft. Many individuals with ADHD take to knitting and crocheting and have the ability to work on a scarf or blanket while at the same time taking in the quarterly report. Many hospitals accept donations of handmade blankets for premature infants which means not only is someone with ADHD able to make something creative, but they can use their gift to then care for a struggling newborn. Regular mortals would have to save the world in their spare time!

The fact that ADHD is often equated with being rude and fidgety is sad, and this is the second cultural perspective that needs to be addressed. ADHD does not make someone rude. The fidgeting is the result of an overwhelming desire to multitask which disappears when the person is given the opportunity to constructively do so and any rudeness or violation of social norms is the result of lack of boundaries and mentoring. Everyone has the propensity to be rude if they are not taught otherwise. Those with ADHD simply stand out more because they have more energy to dedicate to whatever it is they are doing and the propensity to pursue multiple violations in a short period of time.

Children are often misdiagnosed with ADHD because they are misbehaving with high energy at home or in a classroom. The problem is that when you look at the parenting technique or classroom management skills of the teacher, the source of the rudeness and social difficulty becomes much more clear. A child raised without boundaries, not taught to respect authority, and not instructed in how to constructively communicate with others including listening skills and eye contact will of course end up taking liberties in how they behave and come across as selfish, rude, or unpleasant to be around whether they have ADHD or not.

In order to be officially diagnosed with ADHD the symptoms of distraction and hyperactivity (not rudeness) have to be present in three different environments (ex. home, school, work, sports team, extended family, etc). If the distracted and hyperactive behavior is limited to one or two environments while the person is focused and calm elsewhere, it is the environment that needs reviewing to figure out why the person is responding the way they are or feeling they have the liberty to behave in the way they are. Children need guidance in how to navigate the world, and adults who struggle with social norms and life skills such as attentiveness and patience may be children who simply never had a mentor intervene to help them before they grew up. Even adults benefit from a caring individual offering guidance in how to navigate life with greater success.

Whether you have ADHD yourself or are connected to such an individual, please remember that ADHD is a gift when we remember to treat it as such, not a curse. Peter Parker could have seen himself as cursed, and Clark Kent could have thought the same, but they had people in their lives who helped them to see their potential and fulfill it. With great power comes great responsibility, and incredible things happen when we all step up to play our part.

Raise the Bar, Come to Life

The following article written by Lindsay Walton, Lead Facilitator of Open Door Development, was published in this month's Parallel Lines, the newsletter of the Association for Challenge Course Technology (ACCT).

We live in a society where the bar has been set pretty low. Life has itʼs challenges, hard hits and tough times, but in the sense of having something to strive for, a higher goal or standard to push for, the challenge it seems has been set to the side in favor of self-indulgence.

Many have forgotten how to fight for things, have forgotten how to persevere or be patient with themselves and others while mistakes are made and lessons learned. Many have settled for being entertained rather than being stretched, have settled for convenience rather than accomplishment, have settled for having their own way at the expense of the health and strength of their broader community.

It is a great thing to celebrate a teamʼs success and there is a sense of comfort for a facilitator in knowing that their clients are happy, enjoying their time and feeling good about themselves. A happy client is one who will hopefully return and pay for the experience again in the future. It makes for a more straightforward and stressless day as the person running the program. However, if all of your clients are happy and smiling throughout their experiences, I would like to suggest that something is not quite right. There is an Opportunity being missed. I would like to offer a life clue, one that if you grab hold of it may alter how you approach facilitation, business, and life.

Human beings at their very core desire challenge. That desire is built in to the human body. When we examine physical fitness it is a general principle that the more you sit the more you are going to want to sit. The more you sleep, the more you will want to sleep. However the more you are active, the more you will want to be in motion. The more you are challenged and see the pay-off, the more you want to push yourself. As we move forward and increase our activity we gain more ability to enjoy and engage in life. Increased range of motion, reduced pain, improved health, higher self-confidence and more. What is fascinating about this principle is that it is not confined to our physical selves.

Our inner beings, something deep in our core, responds the same way. The more we are indulged the more we demand to be handed to us. The more we focus on our wants and needs the more angry we get with others who we perceive arenʼt letting us have it. But the more we work for things, the more we push our character and see ourselves grow and strengthen, the more we want to push on and to be pushed.

Did you know that to challenge someone is to say “I care about you”? When offered out of a sincere desire to see someone grow and be healthy, independent and strong enough to face lifeʼs storms, humans perceive challenge as a sign of love. This is most obvious in young children who thrive when their parents challenge them by laying out boundaries, saying no, and disciplining them when they sink in to dishonesty, selfishness, greed, apathy or other qualities that will not serve them well in life. While making for some very hard days, weeks, months or years at times for the parents, their children display higher levels of self-confidence and ability to navigate life as a healthy and independent adult because somebody loved them enough to push them rather than indulge them. This is a gift from our parents we often donʼt learn to be grateful for until
much later in life.

What is critical to understand is that the need to be challenged doesnʼt fade away as we grow older. As adults, we are still drawn to people who call us to something higher. People who empower us, sometimes by sharing insight so that we know how to move forward and other times by making us work for it so that we figure it out ourselves. Either way, this person who we find so attractive usually accepted us as we were at the time, but didnʼt allow us to stay that way. They called us to face the challenge and empowered us in some way by pushing us, and we are attracted to that. People are attracted to Life and challenge is so very much a part of that. It is in being challenged that we truly learn how to persevere and not give up. It is in being challenged that we truly learn what it means to practice honesty, to be a person of integrity. It is in being challenged that we learn our strengths and identify our areas for growth, and develop hope that we can always move forward and always have the ability to be the change we want to see in the world around us.

I place the challenge to you as a facilitator to allow your participants to be stretched. Call them to something higher, something greater, and allow them to be frustrated while they figure it out. Examine yourself and identify when you are handing a group a clue to a challenge because they have earned it versus when you are handing out clues to relieve your sense of discomfort with their frustration. Examine yourself and identify when you are modifying challenges or letting participants get away with things not because it is better for them, but because you feel safer when everyone likes you as the facilitator who entertained them. Push yourself as a facilitator and know that there will be a payoff. You will grow as a professional, able to handle more difficult and complex team and community issues as they present themselves. Your business will grow because in the long-run people are more attracted to challenges that made them think than to entertainment which allowed their brains to turn off.

And because we know that participantsʼ experiences with us in our programs do have the ability to impact their broader lives, take inspiration and motivation from this thought. Your challenge to persevere may save a marriage. Your challenge to participate rather than sit on the sidelines may lead a parent to take a more active role in their childʼs life. Your challenge to stop taking shortcuts or looking for the easy way out may save someone from a criminal record. Your challenge to encourage others and point out their strengths may prevent a suicide.

If you are facing difficult life challenges and are being given the advice to listen to your feelings because then youʼll know what to do, ignore it. If you are giving this advice, quit it. Our feelings and emotions are clues, not an answer. It is what we know about hope, integrity, honesty, perseverance and more that will guide us through tough times and lead us to take actions that we will be proud of and that will give us peace in retrospect.

Allow yourself to be challenged. Challenge yourself. Challenge others. And Live.

Lindsay Walton is the Lead Facilitator of Open Door Development, a company that exists to build strong teams and healthy communities through team building, conflict resolution training, leadership development and more. You can contact her at info@opendoordevelopment.ca.

What New Services Would You Like To See? Join the Conversation!

In response to insight and requests from clients we are exploring adding two new workshops to our curriculum:  Anger Management, and Healthy Sexuality.

Many of our clients confess to struggling with anger issues and they are looking for solutions. Course participants also share on a regular basis stories of how their choices regarding their sexuality have impacted their lives painfully. Consequences have included unexpected pregnancies, being cheated on or abandoned, having their heart broken when a significant relationship involving their sexuality came to an end, or contracting a disease.

What makes us excited about offering these courses is that we have the knowledge and training to be able to equip participants with Anger Reduction training which would not focus on how to manage your anger, but on how to address it at its roots so that it begins to go away.

We also have the ability to create a Healthy Sexuality workshop that focuses on the value of the individuals and empowers them with the facts about their bodies and internal emotional workings that truly equips them to make informed decisions about their sexuality. This content is not covered in health class!

In order to provide the best service to you, whether a current client or a potential future client, we are looking for your feedback and insight. Please take the time to provide your comments below with answers to any or all of the following questions:

1. If Open Door Development were to offer Anger Reduction ("Management") training and a Healthy Sexuality workshop would either of these services hold interest for you?
2. What information would you like to see covered in the curriculum? What questions would you like to see answered?
3. What is the ideal time frame or length of training that would best fit your schedule when you are looking for any kind of training? 1 hour? 3 hours? Full day? Multiple days?
4. Knowing that Open Door Development exists "To build strong teams and healthy communities", are there any other courses or workshops that you would like to see offered that we do not currently advertise?

If you are unfamiliar with all of our program options please visit our website at www.opendoordevelopment.ca! Thank you for your time and insight. You are a part of helping Open Door Development grow!