ADD and Coming of Age: A Mother’s Dilemma

“I feel so successful!”

My tall daughter held her shorn head high and beamed at me, thrusting her chest out as I fixed supper. “I’ve reached my four key goals—I’ve accomplished everything,” she bragged. She began counting on her fingers.

“One, I turned 18 and I’m an adult. Two, I have a car and a cell phone. Three, I’m earning my own money. And four, I got into college!”

To other adults, this might not sound like a big deal. Simone did not make dean’s list, and she is not a student council president. But she has fought hard to get where she is. Simone has Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Her battles, and mine, linger in my mind as frustrated memories.

“Simone, please sit down, honey. We eat dinner sitting down. Simone! Sit down!” My seven-year-old circled her chair, chewing meat loaf and talking animatedly at the same time. Repeated efforts to seat her lasted only seconds before she resumed her circle dance.

“Mrs. Reister, did you know Simone never turns in homework? I think she does it, but it’s never turned in!” The lenient third grade teacher smiled while showing concern at the same time. Astounded, I wondered why she waited until the end of the year to tell me?

Middle school was worse.

“Simone, your room looks like a cyclone hit it! No wonder you can’t find your algebra papers. By the way, where are your shoes? You lost what? Your calculator? But Simone, that’s the second calculator this year. You are not going anywhere until you clean this room!” Fortunately at this point, Simone’s algebra teacher bragged on Simone’s ability to do math, only she needed extra time—sometimes an extra hour or more for a test.

Simone’s room and lost papers were only the tip of the iceberg. Simone had no ability to plan. “MOM! I need eight costumes for tomorrow…I’m the costume designer for the play.”

In high school, the number of lost possessions and ungraded papers escalated. Extra time for tests became a requirement for all of her subjects.

“Simone, that was a $70 backpack. You’ll have to do without or buy another yourself. What happened to your coat? You lost it too? Well, why did you get a ‘D’ in Latin when you did so well on your test? You lost your essay and your homework paper?”

A failure to attend; restlessness; distractions and inability to focus, complete, or remember: At first, a parent thinks an ADD child doesn’t mind.

“No, you can’t play football when you have two exams tomorrow.”

ADD runs in families. My dad had ADD, although we didn’t know it at the time. His brilliant career ended the day his secretary died: Miss Frankie took her ability to focus my father on priorities to her grave.

An ADD brain looks and functions differently from normal brains. ADD people have to develop strategies to remember the simplest daily chores. Changing classes, schedules, or teachers causes panic and anxiety. Keeping track of time and possessions sends an ADD person into overwhelm. ADD often robs its carrier of sleep. Medication helps with focus in the daytime, but it is a thief, robbing the patient of appetite and contributing a wired, alert sensation regardless of how little the person has slept.

“Simone, it’s midnight. Now GO TO BED. I can’t help it if you can’t sleep—you never sleep—just lie there til morning.”

And yet, ADD people possess special abilities. Called “hunters” by one psychologist, an ADD person can zero in on a small target within a large field, like a hawk circling over a forest with a tiny field mouse under speculation. Simone is a champion marksman. She has won countless medals and three tall, shiny trophies for hitting a tiny dot of a target with an ROTC air gun.

The college acceptance letter reflects triumph for Simone. While I revel in her pride, I shake with fear at what lies ahead. My role as life manager has diminished. Simone is almost on her own; will her mind win over her brain? Or will she succumb to last-minute study attempts, lost books, and missing papers? Whatever her choice of behavior, this is the time for me to practice my own discipline…the discipline of letting go.