Superparenting for ADD: An Innovative Approach to Raising Your Distracted Child »

Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., was an instructor at Harvard Medical School for twenty years and is now the director of the Hallowell Centers for Cognitive and Emotional Health in Sudbury, Massachusetts, and New York City. He is the co-author of Delivered from Distraction and Driven to Distraction as well as the author of CrazyBusy, The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness, and Worry, among other titles. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts, with his wife and their three children.

www.DrHallowell.com


Peter S. Jensen, M.D., is a world-renowned child psychiatrist, the author of more than 200 scientific articles, and the CEO of the REACH (REsource for Advancing Children’s Health) Institute. Dr. Jensen was the founding director of the Center for the Advancement of Children’s Mental Health at Columbia University and the associate director of Child and Adolescent Research at NIMH, where he served from 1989 to 2000. In 1999 he received the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from NAMI (the National Alliance for the Mental Ill) and was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. He lives in New York.

With decades of experience working with ADD children, Dr. Edward Hallowell has long argued that ADD is too often misunderstood, mistreated, and mislabeled as a “disability.” Now he teams up with top academic ADD researcher Peter S. Jensen, M.D., to bring you an invaluable new approach to helping your ADD child. Superparenting for ADD offers a specific game plan including
 
• UNCONDITIONAL LOVE Tune out the diagnosticians and simply nourish the spirit of your child for who he is.

• VIEWING THE MIRROR TRAITS Recognize the positive sides of the negative symptoms associated with ADD: stubbornness = persistence; impulsiveness = creativity; intrusiveness = eagerness.

• THE CYCLE OF EXCELLENCE Nurture an environment in which a child can safely take risks, reserve time to let a child dabble as a way to learn, encourage playful practice, support mastery of a skill, and then recognize a child’s accomplishments.

Introduction

1 Love: The Essential Strength 3

2 Loving Your Child in the Face of Opposition 21

3 Developing Empathy: What It's Like to Be a Kid with ADD 29

4 The Right Kind of Help 37

5 From Moral to Deficit-Based to Strength-Based Thinking 49

6 Emphasizing the Positive - in Action 65

7 Mirror Traits: What's Good in What's Bad 73

8 The Cycle of Excellence: A Method for Unwrapping Gifts 85

9 Conation: A New Way of Tapping into Every Child's Strengths 99

10 The Kolbe Model in Action 119

11 What Should You Tell the School? 129

12 Schools That Get It Right 137

13 Making a Diagnosis and Composing a Treatment Plan, Including New, Alternative Approaches 147

14 A Collaboration Convened - Please Join! 165

App. A Using Behavioral Strategies 175

App. B School System Information and Resources 181

Resources 185

Index 203