Monthly Archives: December 2016

ADHD - Children, Christianity

Euphoria – A college Degree!

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college degree and cap
College

A couple of weeks ago I did my final presentation for the for college. I took my first college course in 1986 through SUNY Center for Distant Learning by mail. SNAIL mail. It was Introduction to Basic Programming. After I submitted my final project for that class, I received a phone call from the professor of the class. He said that he was sorry to have to ask, but where did I get the information for the programming functions that I used in my final project.
Remember, this was the 80’s. No internet to speak of, so anything you learned back then was from a book. I explained to the professor that I had acquired the first IBM PC that came out of the factory when I was in high school. I had sat down with a three-ring binder for DOS and another three-ring binder for BASIC programming and taught myself to program in basic. The class I was taking was just a formality.
So I am VERY proud do say that it only took me 30 years to get my 2 year degree!!! I know, I know. Hold the applause please.
Thirty years for an associate degree. WOW. But I see the path that God has led me down during that thirty years and I realized that I wouldn’t be who I am today if I had gotten that degree right out of high school. Now keep in mind, I am NOT advocating anyone to embark on that endeavor. But I am saying that for ME, that was the path that I needed to take. I have learned a lot of life lessons along the way and grown into a better person because of it.
Sometimes, we get impatient for things to happen in our lives. They don’t always work out the way we think they should. But if we are growing in our faith and as a person along that path that is longer than the one we had originally planned, then it wasn’t a waste of time.

ADHD - Children

What is ADD: To Sum it All Up “In a Nutshell”

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Understanding what ADD is all about

I was perusing Pinterest today, and came across this BuzzFeed post about what ADD actually is:

ADD Chart

This is only one of the illustrations found in the post, so be sure to visit the link “17 Illustrations That Are Incredibly Real For Anyone With ADD“, and take a look at the rest of them. I can’t tell you how spot-on these depictions are. Understanding  ADD/ADHD is the first step to coping with it.

As I have said before, the whole point is to understand the symptoms for the sole purpose of being able to find the right tools to cope with them and counter balance them.

Coaching

For those of you LIVING with someone else who has ADD/ADHD, please learn the art of empathy. Your loved one is beating him or herself up enough for the both of you. The best thing you can do is to be compassionate and offer solutions that are NOT belittling. The last thing they need is to feel like you are parenting them rather than partnering with them. Remember, you need to be a “coach” to the best of your ability rather than a boss or a manager. Take comfort in recognizing the positives in the illustrations from the post linked above and do what you can to HELP that person build on those positives.

Coping

For those of you who suffer with it, take comfort in relating to these illustrations and build on the positives. Don’t beat yourself up for the negatives. Recognize them and be fully aware of them at all times. Remain mindful of them so that you can avoid the pitfalls. So often, we are in a daze or a fog because we are on auto pilot instead of deliberately thinking about what we are doing. The more aware we are of what the issues are, the better equipped we will be to keep them under control and finally be able to conquer them.