hyperactivity

Children with symptoms of ADHD often need less sugar, more time climbing trees, digging, running, and playing with Legos. They often need more B vitamins, more fish oil, more compassion, more dancing or jumping, more citrus, less screen time and less time in a seat or desk. These solutions usually help a lot!

It’s hard to parent a Hyper-Active child! I could have NEVER sent Anna to school–she got our family “kicked” out of two churches. But I trusted that she should be free to be who she was, and not try to force change.

Now that she is older she is funneling all that amazing acrobatic energy into bold, productive and amazing efforts. I am so glad I never tried to make her adapt or be someone I could manage better. She was very very very hard to handle as a 2 – 10 year old. Now that she is grown and I see who she is becoming I am so thankful for the wisdom that was shared with me by a few wise women, who encouraged me to trust my heart, and let Anna be Anna. If it weren’t for Anna there would be no Dyslexia Games or Thinking Tree – All my books and methods are the result of never giving up when faced with the challenges of raising and homeschooling a Hyper-Active Dyslexic.

I talk about Anna a lot. She is the one who has created many of your favorite Fun-Schooling Books!

One thing to pay attention to is what your child loves. Kids who seem to have attention disorders can often focus for long periods of time on the things that fascinate them or tap into their talents. Our Fun-Schooling Journals are a good match for your child’s talents and interests. The Journals are organized to keep kids from having to sit still for long periods of time. Children should move around with their Journals – taking them to different parts of the house and outside for nature study everyday.

School Teachers (and in our case Sunday School Teachers) can’t deal with the kind of energy and talent bottled up in these active children. They take up so much of the teachers efforts just to try to get them to sit still and be quiet. Hyper-Active kids can not be part of a group of 30 children their own age, managed by one poor woman. Kids labeled with ADHD are more than most teachers can handle because they can’t fit in. Medication is often the only way to keep the teacher sane – so either the teacher will go on anti-depressants or the children will be medicated to keep the class under control.

When Anna was 8 or 9 I watched this a Ted Talk by Sir Ken Robinson – I realized that Anna was an artist – and I needed to set her free to be who she was meant to be… so I did! Enjoy these videos for some inspiration…

Animal School (My Favorite YouTube Video!)

Do you have a child who can’t sit still and be quiet? GOOD! This may be a problem at school, but not in the real world. In today’s world you need a little ADHD just to get by.We must NEVER judge a child by his ability to be passive. Passive children often turn into passive adults, and that is a problem. Did you know that classrooms and desks were invented for the convenience of teachers, not for the best interests of the child?

Every child development specialist (and wise parent) knows that children need lots of time to play, imagine and invent. Children NEED to learn about the world around them by asking questions and experimenting. Children are naturally ACTIVE, ENERGETIC, IMAGINATIVE, CREATIVE, and NOISY. They were NEVER meant to sit still for hours on end and be passive. Why train up a generation of couch potatoes? Children were designed to learn through PLAY, DISCOVERY and by IMITATING their parents and the people around them. Do you realize that your child was smart enough to figure out how to walk, sing, turn on the computer, and learn a language by age two-and-a-half? With NO lessons! He wanted to be like you, so he figured it out on his own. How is it that we live in a society where passive children are rewarded, but creative and active children are punished. Real life does not work this way. Not anymore.

Contemporary schooling is all about controlling the child and training him to be a good student. A good student is expected to be silent, to stop asking questions, and to stop being active. The highest praise goes to the students who can follow a teacher’s instructions… instead of their own hearts. The applause goes to the child who can fill in the blank and memorize facts, not to the child who would prefer to explore his own interests.

Why? Because schools are designed to train people for institutional jobs. Schools were invented during the industrial revolution, at a time when the best job you could get was in a factory. Schools follow a model that require individuals to let go of all of their individuality. The child is trained from a young age to be a good employee who will work for the boss, no questions asked. The goal is to train them to complete assignments and be dependent on an authority figure to control the their time and activities.

During the 20th century almost all parents expected children to get a good education and a good job. The good education was expected to be the golden ticket to a good job. All the parent had to do was put the kid on the big yellow bus, no worries. The government would take care of everything, mom and dad could go to work, junior would spend all day in a nice school and get educated for free. The world has changed. People who want to live the “good life” are no longer finding good jobs. Many highly educated people are living on unemployment or living with their parents at age 35. Many people who own businesses are no longer looking for employees. Taxes are high, risk is high, minimum wage is more than they want to pay, minimum wage is less than an educated person is willing to work for anyway. (click Page 2 below to continue reading)