ADHD – A Different Ability
By Peggy Gomula, PCI Certified Parent Coach
An unknown author once said, “ADHD - It is not a disability, it is a different ability”.
Raising a child with ADHD is not always easy, but it certainly is never boring! It takes patience, the ability to always stay calm, and the ability to not take everything so seriously. I am very lucky that my children taught me all of these traits as they were growing up!
Since both my husband and I have ADHD, I don’t think that we ever really dealt with the fact that our children had ADHD until they were heading into their teens. For us, they were just regular kids. They had a lot of energy, were creative, and were eager to learn new things. I suppose that they were not really strong at keeping their rooms neat and tidy, they were pretty good procrastinators, their energy was exhausting, and they did not always get the best grades in school. To us, that felt pretty “normal”. I definitely never considered that they might have a “disorder” or a “disability”. I still don’t.
Our family never looked at ADHD as a disorder. Disorder sounds so ominous, and there was nothing ominous about the way any of us felt. The girls did have difficulties in school, but through time and patience, we were able to figure out what worked best for them. They knew that having ADHD was not an excuse to get out of doing their schoolwork; it just meant that they might have to work a bit harder or that we had to find different ways to help them understand certain lessons. There was nothing “wrong” with them; they just had abilities and brains that were different from the other children in their classes.
Those “different abilities” were what made them all so unique, special, lively, and fun. People with ADHD see and think differently than those without it, and different is good; different is what we need. We need people who can think outside of the box. We need children who have ADHD, so they can grow up to be the inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs that the world needs. They might not be the round peg that fits into the round hole that their school may seem to want them to be, but someday their way of thinking will be an asset for them.
So don’t look at ADHD as a disorder or disability; look down the road and see your child as an adult using their gift of ADHD to change the world.
Have some fun today!
As a PCI Certified Parent Coach, Peggy provides one-on-one guidance to parents raising children with ADHD.