And if we want to understand how and why that happens, we have to look at the interaction of biological and environmental factors. In other words, we have to look at the development of children within families and societies.

He covers how ADD develops, how it changes or doesn't change, in adulthood, how it can be helped and healed, and how we can adjust to prevent it from occurring.he introduces concepts like 'counter will' and 'unconditional positive resolve', which provide great insight and aid in the process of self-understanding and self-healing from the symptoms of ADD. Never at rest the mind of the ADHD adult flits about like some deranged bird that can light here or there for a while but is perched no-where long enough to make a home.” While Dr. Mate does give some credence to the genetics of ADD, he pretty much leaves the implications of this behind as he goes into a long description of failed or inadequate parental attachments being the primary reason for ADD symptomatology (as if the parents of ADD kids didn't feel guilty enough about passing on a genetic inheritance they most likely didn't know they had). Even if this was not the doctor's intent, it is so pervasive in this book that one cannot help but feel that if a child or an adult exhibits ADD symptoms, that there is "someone" to blame, not just for the genetic inheritance but for bad parenting." This book was an eye-opener for me as I realized that my children needed my husband and me to invite them into a relationship with us by inviting them to spend time with us. When children (especially kids with ADHD) beg and plead with their parents to spend time with them, it does not count in their eyes. Explains that in ADD, circuits in the brain whose job is emotional self-regulation and attention control fail to develop in infancy – and whySo Maté's book interested me. His thesis: genetics and childhood attachment both play a part in ADHD. Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1944, he is a survivor of the Nazi genocide. His maternal grandparents were killed in Auschwitz when he was five months old, his aunt disappeared during the war, and his father endured forced labour at the hands of the Nazis. This book is amazing and really changed my thinking about ADD/ADHD. Maté describes in detail how ADHD is not genetic, but how a genetically sensitive brain protects itself with ADD behaviors. I've become a bit of an evangelist about this book, since I see things so differently now. Things to learn in this book: Unconditional Positive Regard, Counterwill, Wooing the Child, Unfinished Business.

A brother of mine who had terrible ADHD who is much much better after marrying a wonderful woman. He graduated with a 4-year college degree, holds down a solid job, has a career path planned, and manages several hefty side-responsibilities. And, yes, that is the only thing that changed. Medicine,” the Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich wrote, “tells us as much about the meaningful performance of healing, suffering, and dying as chemical analysis tells us about the aesthetic value of pottery.”Remembering that temper in the AHDH context is an automatic anxiety response. It is the reaction of a person who cannot tolerate the feelings of anxiety. If we sooth the anxiety the temper should calm. Whatever its form, inattentiveness causes considerable practical hardships. Kids who can’t focus fall behind in school; adults with the same issue make silly mistakes at work and miss out on promotions. Young or old, people with ADD are constantly being chastised for failing to do things they forgot about the moment they agreed to do them. Although Maté doesn’t explicitly go this far, I believe his work has consequential implications for politics, economics, and social justice. When it comes to harm reduction and symptom control, much of Maté’s advice boils down to something like: “First, parents need to be loving, respectful, mutually supportive, and emotionally mature with each other and other adults. Second, they’ve got to spend time with their kids and devote a lot of conscious attention to them, striving always to model compassionate curiosity and patience.” Adults with ADD, of course, also benefit from these behaviors. At my next therapy session, my therapist asked if I had read the book and I said yes, and that it had resonated with me. She asked what resonated, and I said, "Well, if I do have ADD, it would explain my entire life. It would fill in all the blanks and areas that my history with depression and anxiety don't account for, that I always tried to make them fit into to explain something that didn't make sense." Something that didn't make sense because, without the missing piece of ADD, it quite literally couldn't make sense. Then we discussed why, etc, blah blah. At the end of the appointment I promised her I would talk to my physician about a diagnosis.

Inattentiveness is rarely total, though. In fact, doctors sometimes miss ADD diagnoses because their patients are capable of hyperattentive focus. For example, a child who is inattentive at school may happily spend hours poring over maps in the evening. The thing is, the ADD mind can muster enough focus and motivation to complete tasks if those tasks are intrinsically interesting. A child with ADD who finds geography fascinating will have no problems focusing on studying maps. But that focus doesn’t carry over to other tasks that don’t interest her – science class, say, or tidying her room. Also, hyper-attentiveness often involves shutting out the rest of the world to engage in a single absorbing activity. That, too, is a feature of poor attention regulation. At this point, we can return to ADD. Focus, attention, and impulse control are also part of a complex neurological circuit located in the prefrontal cortex. No one is born with, say, fully developed impulse control, so this circuit must develop after birth. But can we identify environmental inputs which affect its development, too?

Unless their parents (or primarycaregiverss) ask the child to spend time together when the child is not whining and pleading for time with the parent, children chalk up time spent together as something they received because they finally begged and pleaded enough.