With decades of experience working with ADD children, Dr. Edward Hallowell - a pediatric psychiatric clinician, father of two ADD children, and himself an adult with ADD - understands how easily the gifts of this condition are lost on a child amid negative comments from doctors, teachers, and even loving but frustrated parents. Hallowell has long argued that ADD is too often misunderstood, mistreated, and mislabeled as a "disability." Now he teams up with top academic ADD researcher Peter S. Jensen, M.D., who is himself a father of an ADD child, to bring you an upbeat and encouraging new approach to living with and helping your ADD child. The practical strength-based techniques Drs. Hallowell and Jensen present put the talents, charms, and positive essence of your child ahead of any presumed shortcomings. Clearly outlined and organized, Superparenting for ADD offers a specific game plan that includes

• UNCONDITIONAL LOVE Tune out the diagnosticians and labelers and simply notice and nourish the spirit of your child for who he is. Providing this unshakable base of support will set the tone for all interactions to come.

• VIEWING THE MIRROR TRAITS There are positive sides of the negative symptoms associated with ADD: stubbornness = persistence; impulsiveness = creativity; intrusiveness = eagerness. By recognizing the mirror traits, you avoid the ravages of shame and fear.

• THE CYCLE OF EXCELLENCE Use this critical 5-step process to help a child develop self- and social awareness. Nurture an environment in which a child can safely take risks, reserve time to let a child dabble as a way to learn, encourage playful practice, support mastery of a skill (whatever the skill may be), and then recognize a child's accomplishments.

• IDENTIFYING AND TAPPING THE SOURCE Pinpoint your child's inner, conative strengths, which drive what he naturally and spontaneously does, as opposed to what he is told to do or feels he must do. Your child will do his best when allowed to use these conative strengths.

Drs. Hallowell and Jensen fully understand the real and everyday challenges - both at home and at school - facing parents of an ADD child. Now this important book shows you how to unwrap the wonderful, surprising gifts of ADD and turn what is too often labeled a lifelong disability into a lifelong blessing.

Childhood is about unwrapping the gifts you're born with. Every child is horn with certain gifts, some easy to unwrap, some difficult. Children who have the fascinating trait called ADD (or ADHD, the term that the official diagnostic system used across much of the world) possess extraordinary gifts, hut these gifts are unusual in that they can he hidden, and even once found they can he quite difficult to unwrap. In this book, we offer you instructions on how to find and unwrap them.

We do not intend this hook to be a comprehensive guide to the treatment of ADD in children. We have both already written our own versions of that. Peter Jensen's include the academically oriented volume entitled Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: State of the Science, Best Practices as well as his comprehensive guide to help parents find the help they need for their children, entitled Making the System Work for Your Child with ADHD. Mine include the series I wrote with John Ratey, Driven to Distraction; Answers to Distraction; and Delivered front Distraction, as well as the book I wrote with Catherine Corman, Positively ADD.

We don't want to repeat what's in those books, so we refer you to them for material not presented in this book, such as a detailed discussion of medications, a critical appraisal of alternative and complementary treatments, details of a proper diagnostic workup, an in-depth discussion of family problems that typically arise when a child or parent (or both) has ADD, a discussion of the biological and genetic bases of ADD, speculation on the influence of media and environment in the causation of ADD and ADD-like syndromes, advice on the classroom management of ADD, a discussion of the role of brain scans in diagnosing ADD, an in-depth discussion of the role of coaching and tutoring, and various other topics not presented in great depth, if at all, in this volume.

If all of that isn't in here, what is in here? What is in here is what you need most as a parent (or teacher, or any concerned person) to bring out the best in your child if your child has ADD. I've written in my other books about the need to focus on strengths when dealing with adults who have ADD. Adults can handle this shift in emphasis, but I continue to hear from parents of kids with ADD that they need a more-detailed plan. They want to know what a strength-based model looks like day in and day out. They ask me, "What do we do?" It is largely in response to that question that Peter Jensen and I offer this book.

Based on a conviction derived from our combined half century of experience in working with children who have ADD, we know that they possess enormous - if often hidden - talents. So this book describes a method by which children who have ADD can do far more than just get by. They can thrive. They can soar beyond where they, their teachers, and even their parents might have thought they ever could. By identifying and developing children's interests and inborn abilities, this method draws out the often-camouflaged talents and strengths of these remarkable children, children who, without the proper kind of help, often languish and lead lives of chronic dissatisfaction, frustration, and under-achievement. But it positively doesn't have to be that way! To the contrary, these kids can achieve at the very highest levels, and lead lives of tremendous success and joy. We emphasize what you need to know to fully unwrap the gifts embedded in those who have ADD. We follow a strength-based approach, which means that we start by looking for talents and only secondarily do we look at what's getting in the way of the development of those talents. This is not commonly emphasized with ADD, and it ought to be. We present a positive, hopeful approach, because our experience as child psychiatrists and as parents of children with ADD, along with Peter's perspective as a scientist studying ADD, has convinced us that this brings far and away the best results.

Copyright © 2008 by Edward Hallowell.

Tags: ADD and ADHD: Attention Deficit Disorder, Special Needs Children, Child Psychology

About the Author

Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., is an instructor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health in Sudbury, Massachusetts, an outpatient treatment center serving children and adults with a wide range of emotional and learning problems. He is the co-author of Driven to Distraction and the author of The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness, and Worry, among other titles. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children. He welcomes hearing from readers, and can be reached through his website at www.DrHallowell.com.

About the Author

Peter S. Jensen, M.D., is a world-renowned child psychiatrist, the author of more than 200 scientific articles, and the CEO of the REACH (REsource for Advancing Children's Health) Institute. Dr. Jensen was the founding director of the Center for the Advancement of Children's Mental Health at Columbia University and the associate director of Child and Adolescent Research at NIMH, where he served from 1989 to 2000. In 1999 he received the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from NAMI (the National Alliance for the Mental Ill) and was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. He lives in New York.