The left hemisphere perceives the world in bits and pieces and loves to organize and categorize… It also gives readers “that little silent voice” inside the head while reading. Math also is a left hemisphere activity. In conclusion, the left side of the brain is the “try” side. When trying a new activity, it is the left hemisphere that comes into play.

Flipper hates to try new things.  He is not good at organizing.  He is conceptually good at math, but struggles with practical applications and basic things like remembering the times tables (though he has fully understood the concept of multiplication since he was 6 years old).

The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and is quite a bit different than the left side of the brain. The right hemisphere is responsible for movement, especially automatic movement. Many right-brain dominant students are in perpetual motion, especially when concentrating. Movement allows them to keep the right side busy so they can function in the left side. As previously mentioned, America’s modern schools are judging students primarily on left hemisphere activities. As the right-brain dominant student wiggles and tries to stay in the left side of the brain, he/she will often be misdiagnosed as hyperactive or having ADHD.

Hm, that’s a very interesting hypothesis.  I’ve certainly seen it mentioned in many sources that ADHD and SI kids wiggle when they’re trying to concentrate, and that we should allow them to (give them safe outlets for fidgeting) because it does actually help their concentration.

The right hemisphere likes rhythm and music. It is attracted to shapes, colors, and patterns. The right hemisphere makes pictures in the mind while reading. In addition, it is the emotional side of the brain. Many right-brain dominant people have a tendency to get “stuck” in their emotions. They may have temper problems or get their feelings hurt frequently.

Flipper has always been a natural at rhythm, and his music comes straight from his soul (disorganized though it may be heh).  He prefers art to writing.  He most definitely gets “stuck” in his emotions, with temper problems and hurt feelings!

As for “pictures in the mind while reading”, here’s an interesting anecdote.  I am reading Lord of the Rings to him for his bedtime routine.  We’ve spent over a week now at the Council of Elrond (those council guests sure do talk a lot!)  At one point, there was some comment made about seeing the waterfall and hearing the birds and Flipper said, “Wait, they’re outside???”

Well, yes, I said, and flipped back to the beginning of the chapter where it explained they were on a porch.  He had apparently missed that little detail, and believed it was indoors.

He had constructed an entire visual scene in his head, and described it to me.  “I thought it was in this big white room!”  Knowing now that it was outdoors, he said we needed to stop while he “fixed” his picture, he couldn’t continue until he had it sorted out.  Burying his head in his pillow, and scrunching up his eyes, he asked me question after question… “Are they sitting on chairs?  What kind of chairs?  Is there a table?”  Once his scene was reconstructed, we were able to continue.

Fascinating.

Anyway, I’m exploring their videos and “brain training” tools.  Many things are free.  I’m wondering if anyone reading this has any experience with this system (or something similar).  Did you actually get positive results?  Is it worth a try?  Is it just a big scam?

I am, in general, highly opposed to medicating our kids for the terrible sin of acting like kids.  Ritalin (and similar drugs) are highly over-prescribed, not because the kids have anything ‘wrong’ with them, but because the school system is ‘wrong’ for these kids.  They’re still bright, creative kids who just have an abundance of energy.

I also strongly believe that many cases of over-hyper kids are caused by specific, remediable problems, such as the school system and pressures, or food allergies, or nutritional deficiencies.

But, I do also believe that there is a legitimate brain disorder that some people have, and that medication is probably the right treatment for some people.  Just not as many (or for the same reasons) as is generally common these days.

Just as I do believe that anti-depressant drugs, while generally a Not Good Thing, are a necessary life-saver in certain situations.  When someone is at the end of their rope and not even willing to try to climb up, the right drug to “artificially” spur them to WANT to recover, to get to the place where they can begin to manage their recovery themselves, that’s a Good Thing.  It’s like a crutch, a cane, not in the negative sense, but in the sense of a helpful tool for someone to lean on while learning to walk again.

When nothing else works, perhaps Ritalin is the right thing to do.  The problem is… how to know that for sure.

Flipper has always been hyper.  But since he has always been homeschooled, many of the typical symptoms of ADHD have been either non-existent or irrelevant.  He’s never been expected to sit quietly at a desk for hours and hours doing boring worksheet.  We’ve been able to tailor his education to his learning styles.  It hasn’t always been easy, but we manage.  He shows no signs of learning disabilities whatsoever, he’s bright and creative and learns well.  He has a sharp, keen memory and is willing to do his work.  He wasn’t always, but we’ve found a routine and method that works for him, he’s happy to go along with it.

For most kids labeled ADHD, “schoolwork” is their #1 problem.  Parents might not have a problem with their kids’ high energy levels, they just want them to be able to attend to their schoolwork.  “Schoolwork” is not our problem.

Things clarified for me quite a bit more a couple years ago when I learned about Sensory Processing Disorder, or Sensory Integration Dysfunction.  Flipper is most definitely a “sensory seeker”, always needing more sensory input than what normal life gives him.  He is always moving, fidgeting, fiddling.  He literally is unable to stay still for more than a few seconds, he just does not have control of his own body.  He puts his shirts, his blankets, his pencils and his fingers in his mouth all the time.   He stomps and crashes and bangs into things.

He breaks things.  Unintentionally, most of the time, just from not paying attention.  Other times, it’s intentional.  He doesn’t think about what he’s doing.  He is utterly impulsive.  If he gets the idea to break something, he just does it, without thinking about consequences.  He is at heart, kind and caring.  But because he does not think and consider his actions, he can be thoughtless, reckless, even cruel.  Not out of meanness, but out of simple selfish unthinking.

And he utterly lacks motivation.  He claims that he wants to do well at things, but shows absolutely no evidence of this in his actions.  He is content to flail about randomly through life.

He really does seem like he’s not completely ‘here’… like he is not connected to reality, like he is trapped behind something.

He had been doing better lately.  I blogged about his “Change of Attitude”, where his tantrums had drastically abated.  This is still fairly true.  But his overall behaviour has deteriorated back to the way it was.  He’s less angry, but he’s just as unmotivated, careless, and thoughtless.

Tonight, his gymnastics coach talked to me about it.  He noticed a quite drastic change for the worse about two weeks ago, just about when I started noticing it too.  He has talent, but he just doesn’t try.  He throws himself around in goofy flailing fits.  And he’s disrupting the rest of the class.

The coach isn’t upset with Flipper.  We’ve talked before about his issues, and he knows about young boys.  He tries to make eye contact, he tries to keep him engaged, he was really just wondering if there was anything more he should be doing that I could tell him about, to help my son stay focussed in class.

This isn’t like school class.  This is his gymnastics training.  This is, by his own account, his favourite activity outside of video games.  He has won medals and is preparing for the Provincials.  This is no mere hobby.  He talks about someday coaching.

And yet, in class, he just doesn’t care to even try to do his best.

It’s this utter lack of motivation that scares me the most.  I can live with fidgeting.  It drives me crazy, but if that were the worst of it, I could live with it.  But his inner drive is non-existent.  Even if we resort to ‘bribes’ and ultimatums, it won’t work.   He just doesn’t seem to care.

After the chat with the coach tonight, I started to wonder if we’ve hit that point where the drugs are worth considering.

Nothing here has changed since he was doing ‘better’ a few weeks ago.

We have tried diet, looking for allergies and sensitivities.  We have tried vitamins, fatty acids, minerals, herbs and homeopathy.  We have tried SPD treatments like weighted blankets.  We have improved his sleep.  I don’t know what else we can do.

Reading up on Ritalin and how it’s believed to work, I learned about dopamine.  ADHD kids seem to have an imbalance with their dopamine, either not making enough or not ‘reading’ what they have.  So it would make sense that they are constantly seeking stimulation, since they are not getting the ‘feeling’ from dopamine that normal life usually gives.

Also… and this was MOST interesting to me… dopamine is believed to be essential to motivation.  Humans learn patterns of behaviour based on anticipation of reward.  You do something, you have a good result.  The reward can be something concrete like a tasty treat or something more esoteric, like the ‘feeling of a job well done’.  While life is not ruled entirely by behaviourism, of course, it does play a large role in forming our sense of self-motivation.

Studies have shown that low dopamine is associated with a low ‘recall’ of reward.  Motivation is lacking because the sense of anticipation of the reward does not exist.  They still enjoy an activity, but are unmotivated to DO it.

Wow, does that sound familiar.

So I don’t know.  We’ve tried all the ‘alternatives’.  We’re not interested in medicating him for ‘school’.  We’re not looking to turn him into a zombie, I’m happy with him being high-energy.  I’m concerned about the destructive side of his energy, and with his lack of motivation and lack of connection with himself.  The utter impulsivity and lack of any degree of self-control.  Even when he wants to control himself, he fails.

He’s almost 11 years old, we have waited to see if he would ‘mature’ out of his behaviours, we didn’t leap on a diagnosis when he was barely school-aged.  And some problems have improved.  But the more disturbing ones, if anything, have gotten worse.

We’re going to revamp his sleep again, I think we’ve drifted off a bit from where we had it a few weeks ago, I think that’s not helping.  And I think we’ll try upping his B6, magnesium, and zinc… who knows.  But if this doesn’t help… I don’t know.  All the potential problems scare me to death.  But maybe it’s the right thing to do.

I don’t know.

I try to do what I can to avoid trigger situations, but sometimes it just seems unavoidable.  Once he’s “in a mood”, nothing will get him out of it, he’s completely disconnected, like his brain is disengaged… except letting him go through it and come out the other end, back to himself.

This afternoon, while doing today’s math lesson, we had a most interesting experience.  I thought we were headed towards a meltdown… but he brought himself around.  It was near-miraculous.

At issue, was some calculating involving fractions.  Basically, he had to figure out 38-3/8 minus 1-7/8.  He had written the answer 36, rather than 36-1/2.  Here’s roughly the conversation that got me worried we were headed for a meltdown:

“Oh, that’s close, but not quite.  Let’s try it again.”
“No!  It’s 36!  It has to be!”
“Well, let’s try it again anyway.  So we start by subtracting one, which gets us to 37-3/8, right?”
“Duh!  That’s what I DID!”
“So now we have to take away the 7/8… we start with the 3/8, giving us 37, so how much is left to take away?”
“HUH?  We take away 7/8!!”
“Yes, but we start with the 3/8, and how much is left?”
“YOU’RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE!”
“I’ll try to explain better… Let’s see… ”
“I already figured it out!!  7 and 3 is 10, so 10/8 makes one, so you take away one more, that’s 36!!!!”
“Wait… 10/8 makes one?”
“YES!!!  10/8 is one, it’s always one, that’s what you TOLD me, that’s how we always DID IT!!!!”

Normally at this point, that would be the end of it.  He KNOWS that 10/8 is not one, but he will stubbornly dig in and refuse to admit it.  I will start off being patient, attempting to rationally show him his error, or even to just suggest we take a break and come back to it later… but it’s too late.  He’ll explode, start crying, throw his pencil, flail about.  He’s “stuck” and only time will unstick him.

Today, it was different.  I not-so-patiently (sigh, I try, but I’m only human) asked him how many 8ths are in one, and he actually calmly (though begrudgingly) replied, “8″.  So if you have 10/8, it’s more than one, right?  ” … right…”

Whoa.  Progress.

We tried the question again, and this time he interrupted my explanations: “wait… wait… I think I got it… 3/8 take away the 7/8… would leave… ONE HALF!  It should be 36-1/2!”

“YES!  You got it!!  Alright, buddy!!!”

I want to clarify here… the astonishing thing is not that he was able to figure out this math problem.  This is math he knows how to do.  It’s not a breakthrough in his comprehension of fractions.  We could have been working on anything… The breakthrough was the fact that he brought himself back from the brink of a meltdown, admitted an error, tried again, WORKED at it, and solved it… and was HAPPY about it!

And it didn’t end there!

Next we were converting fractions into percents.  We struggled a bit to find that 1/8 was 12.5% — but he went quickly from “THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE” to “ooohhh… cool!”

Then from there, “so can you figure out 3/8?”  “NO!  That’s too HAAARD!… oh… wait… uh… 12… 24… 25… uh… I can do this, I can do this…uh… 37-1/2!!!!”

“Great!!! How about 5/8?”  “Uh… I can do this, I can do this… 25… 36… 49… 50… uh.. 50, 50, 50… I can do this… 62… 62-1/2!!!”

“Yup!  What about 7/8?”  “Okay, okay… uh… 62… uh… 80…  86-1/2!”

“86?”

“I mean 87!!! 87-1/2!!!”

And he was GRINNING through all this.

I’ve never seen the like of it.  He was accepting a challenge and plugging away at it, rather than giving up.  He was motivating himself, encouraging himself.  I’ve never heard him say “I can do this, I can do this…” before.  Ever.  EVER.  This was something totally new and different.

He even seemed to be having FUN.  And he was so PLEASED when he came up with the answer.  Normally, he could care less…  He likes information-gathering kinds of learning (reading about dolphins, for instance), but not information-processing or manipulating.  He’s not interested in FIGURING THINGS OUT for himself.

What was different about today?  Beats me.  If I knew, I’d bottle it and market it.  Is it his new bedtime routine?  New vitamins?  Just maturing?  Is it because he had eaten a certain something, or not eaten something else?  Is it just that he likes this particular math program?  I haven’t a clue.

I only know that this was a completely new experience for us today.  And I can only hope that it’s a sign of things to come.  If anything worries me about him, it’s his self-destructive lack of motivation, his complete absence of desire to do better, to improve, to TRY.  Math, shmath, grammar, shmammar… those are just subjects.  I worry about his life.  His attitude issues are all-encompassing, not only about ‘academics’.

If this is a sign that he IS going to be able to pull himself up, to find self-direction and purpose and the inherent joy in sticking through a difficult task and achieving something…

Just, wow.

Any parent of a ‘normal’ child reading this is probably thinking… what’s the big deal?  But parents of ADHD and SPD kids, I think, know exactly what I’m talking about.  “I can do this, I can do this…”

He spent most of the day trying to take over the TV so he could play video games.  “But I haven’t played ALL DAAAAAAAAAAAY!!”  Like it’s somehow unfair that occasionally has to actually wait for his turn, like it’s abuse if he doesn’t get on the games by 10am.

He got a note from the House Fairy today, she’s not impressed with how he hasn’t been cleaning his room.  So much for the “magic” of the House Fairy.  It worked for about two days.  He didn’t even mention to me that he got the note.

He played outside most of the day, his friend next door is finally off school.  That was great for him, the snow is deep and fluffy and apparently they made 43 forts.

But when he got inside, he was tired and fuzzy… fidgety and out of it.  I probably shouldn’t have insisted we do math then.  But it seemed like a good idea at the time, and he was willing.

Battles ensue.  He knows this stuff, it was review.  “But I don’t know HOW to divide, I haven’t done it in like THREE MONTHS!”  “Six divided by one is three.  It’s three!!!  See, I TOLD you I didn’t know how to divide!!”  “Where’d my pencil go?  YOU STOLE MY PENCIL!!”  (He was sitting on his pencil) “You TOLD me to write it that way!!” (said after writing his numbers very large, or invisibly small, or digging into the paper)  “Seven times seven is 48!  It’s logic!  See, 42 plus 7 is 48!   42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48…. 49.   Like I said, it’s 49!!  I never wrote 48 there, you’re LYING!”

Argh, that’s one of the most frustrating things… when he makes a mistake then insists that he never did, and that I am the one who is wrong, or lying, or hates him, or thinks he’s stupid.

He ended up in tears and yelling at me.  We had a long talk about how it’s okay to ask for help when you don’t understand something, rather than pretending to know the answer.  “But that will make me look STUPID!”  Uh, no.  The guy who doesn’t ask for help but pretends to understand, will continue to not understand and will actually BE stupid.  The guy who asks for help may momentarily look foolish, but he’s the one who will actually learn and therefore will be smart.

He seemed to understand this, he agreed with the explanation.  But… it’s not the first time we’ve had this talk.

Oh, and even more frustrating?  When he DOES know the right answer, but stubbornly insists that the wrong answer is still correct, or that he has no idea how to figure it out.  “You have a six and a one, what operation could you do to have the answer be six?”  This question not five minutes after he himself had smilingly informed me that anything times one is itself, a fact he has known literally for years.  “I don’t KNOW!  Nothing works!  I can’t ADD one, that doesn’t WORK!!”  “Remember, don’t limit yourself to + and – … “  “But I don’t know HOW to divide!!!”  “You don’t have to.  What’s left?”  “I can’t ADD one, that doesn’t WORK!!”

Oy vey.

“So where does 1/2 go on this number line?”  He places it perfectly.  “Great!  Now what about 1/4?”  “I can’t do 1/4!  It would go off the page!  There’s no four here!!!”  …. “Um, okay, a half means one divided into 2 pieces, right?  So a fourth means…. “  “What?  You’re not making any SENSE!!”  He eventually “remembers” what a fourth means and makes dividing lines on the number line, then labels 1/4 at the 3/4 line.  After that is corrected, he’s asked to label 3/4, which he does by writing 1/3.  Then fixes it to 3/1.

Now if I were reading this, I’d be thinking, “this is obviously a child who is being forced to do math which is way beyond him.  They should ease off and do something more basic, follow his needs.”  Or I’d be thinking, this is a 7-year-old.

Flipper is 10.  And he has understood multiplication since he was 6, and fractions since, oh, age 7 or 8, at least the basics.  And he has successfully completed a grade 6 math program, successfully meaning over 90% average.  This math is so very not beyond him.

Sometimes, I think he’s being stubborn — he makes an initial mistake, then refuses to admit it even after he’s realized what the right answer would be.  He thinks he’s saving face by never admitting he could possibly ever by wrong.  He thinks somehow he’ll make it right by insisting it’s right.

Sometimes, I think he’s deliberately sabotaging himself.  That on some level, he believes he is stupid and wants to fulfill the idea.  Or that he wants me to believe he is stupid and therefore insists on nonsense.  Maybe he thinks that if we all just accept that he’s stupid, he’ll be allowed to play video games all day.

Other times, I think his brain is somehow “stuck”, that he gets fixated on a particular answer, or on the notion that he doesn’t know how to solve something, and he just won’t budge from there.  He cannot settle down and logically reason an effective way to proceed.  He cannot think.

Neither scenario is a pleasant one, and I confess, many days I feel utterly helpless.  I’m frustrated and don’t know how to help him.

Other days, he’s fine… he’s sharp, on the ball, cooperative, giggles over his goofs and corrects them without the theatrics.  I just wish I knew how to turn days like today into days like that.

I guess first of all, I should come up with cute nicknames for my kids… I have observed that most ‘family’ bloggers refer to their kids as “Little Fish” or “Peanut” or “Pumpkin”, in order to maintain a certain sense of privacy.   Let’s see…

My 10-year-old son is energetic, hyperactive, distractible.  He’s quick to temper and prone to selfishness.  Yet he’s also a gentle soul who likes soft and cuddly things, he’s gregarious and kind to his friends, always laughing and full of jokes.  We think he has sensory issues and he has trouble sleeping.  He’s moderately gifted, but lazy.  He can build the most astonishing Lego creations, he will draw amazing pictures endlessly, he loves to read.  He loves the blues, idolizes Stevie Ray Vaughn, and is a master of Guitar Hero.  He has a junior black belt in karate and is now in Tae Kwon Do.  He’s a competitive gymnast.  He’s never been to school and has no interest right now in ever going.  He asks hard questions about life and fairness, and seems to alternate between the maturity of a grownup and a 4-year-old.  He has two main goals in life — to be a guitarist in a band, and to be a marine biologist.  He especially adores whales and dolphins, but is already an expert on anything under the sea.   Even his bedroom has an undersea theme, and he won’t eat fish because it makes him sad.

So then… he is “Flipper”.

Now my daughter is quite a different creature.  She will be two years old next week.  Her favourite things to talk about are shoes, cats, fish, dogs, cars, and colours.  She’s viciously independent, insists on doing things by herself, and insists on ‘helping’ mommy in the kitchen, with cooking, doing dishes, as well as other chores like doing the laundry and taking out the garbage.  She can be very loud and cantankerous, like any toddler, but on the whole, she’s actually fairly reserved, quiet, calm, and serious.  She was never “diaper-trained” and is now a “graduate”, virtually potty-independent.  She did “baby-led solids” and her favourite food is spicy Indian curry.  And potato chips.  Apples and bananas and pomegranates.  And, of course, mommy milk!  She is the most beautiful baby you’ve ever seen, she looks like a porcelain doll.  She’s surprisingly petite given her parents… She’s the apple of her daddy’s eye.  Hm.  And her favourite undies are the ones with the apple on them, which she calls “apple bum”.

Maybe she can be “Apple”.  Not to be confused with Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow’s cute little girl of the same name…  No, even better.  She’ll be “Pomme”, like her yummy pomegranates (the word means “seeded apple,” by the way), and since I’m bilingual and we’re trying to work on French… and it just seems a wee bit classier.

So there we have it.  My bouncy, friendly, confusing Flipper, and my rosy, sweet and colourful Pomme.