Every Child Deserves to Feel Successful!

As a former educator and school counselor, I struggled with students who acted out, causing major disruptions in the classroom. Now I can better empathize with students demonstrating the behavioral symptoms of an attention deficit child. Recently I attended a week-long workshop presented by Dr. Don Blackerby, author of the book, Rediscover the Joy of Learning. In a particular exercise we were given an opportunity to gain a better understanding of these youngsters. As I stood in the center, three people poked me in the back listing some information I was supposed to retain. Another waved his hand in front of my face to distract me from my task. The most disconcerting was a teacher/parent reprimanding me for not paying attention and not putting any effort into my work. It was enough to make some physically sick. I was mentally drained and wanted everyone to STOP! Over-stimulation is a challenge that some youngsters are presented with on a daily basis.

Dr. Blackerby, who has a dream of every child feeling successful, has created specific tools to overcome negative belief patterns and to teach students how to learn. He contends those labeled with Attention Deficit Disorder have a mind of a genius and are capable of being multitasked. This information definitely got my attention because I knew these students were bright, but I didn't know how to effectively help them.

For those who are not familiar with the symptoms of attention deficit disorder, it may manifest in the following symptoms:

• Hyperactivity: constant movement, fidgeting, climbing

• Impulsiveness: acting before “thinking”, changing the direction of their activities

• Distractibility: unable to focus on a task, easily disrupted by extra stimuli

• Disorganization: unable to do complex tasks or prioritize

• Forgetfulness: do not complete tasks, are not remembering instructions

• Procrastination: constantly put things off as they cannot “get started”

The internal experiences that interact to influence the behavior of a person with attention deficit is:

• They are perceiving multiple internal images, many simultaneously.
• The images are moving rapidly and often seem to disappear.
• There is a strong kinesthetic ( body and/or emotional) response to the images.
• These internal images cannot be controlled.

Dr. Blackerby shares that students with attention deficit have many common responses about these internal experiences. Because they respond to everything in their internal pictures, they get frustrated and just “give-up.” Thus they become hyperactive or passive and apathetic. It is a feeling of being out of control and not being able to manage their internal or external world. This creates a feeling of being overwhelmed and terrified of the consequences of this lack of control. Slowly they begin to believe that they are “different” or “weird” and fear rejection and abandonment from those around them. Much of the feedback they receive from parents, teachers and peers often confirm these feelings! The intensity of their acting out behavior seems to be directly reflected by the feedback they receive from others. Suppressed anger or rage becomes common because of the perceived injustices they suffer.

Don believes that the symptoms of ADD seemed to be caused by a loss of control of the processing mind. Imagine you are watching a multiple slide show where three to five projectors are projecting images on a screen. Now imagine having to report on what you are seeing. Now imagine they are speeding up, maybe even starting to fly around and flash! Sense the feelings of overwhelm, confusion, frustration, anger and more. We get upset and lose patience with these kids who can't focus! They don't know there is another way!

According to the studies of Dr. Blackerby, the symptoms of ADD are generated by the perception that the mind is out of control. This out of control mind can be initially caused by any one or any combination of the following:

• High stress and anxiety
• Emotional trauma- past and present
• Candida Albicans ( The Yeast Syndrome can be helpful.)
• Attitude
• Communication gaps
• Physical reaction to large amounts of sugar or junk food or food allergies

Some students are misdiagnosed with the label of ADD. The behavioral symptoms fit many children who are highly stressed, suffer from trauma, are bored or acting out other behavioral problems. Don has witnessed that many times teaching a child how to focus, how to set priorities, how to organize and how to have a better attitude in school causes the symptoms to go away. Feeling out of control is terrifying! The first thing these youngsters need to learn is HOW to control their minds and to believe that they can.

Students who learn visually tend to be more interested and learn quickly and easily. The visual strategy is significantly faster than auditory or kinesthetic learning. Dr. Blackerby teaches a spelling strategy which blew our class away. After dividing a word into syllables, look at the word and REMEMBER WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. From one's internal image, spell the word backwards by scrolling it across. Spelling has always come easy for me, so a part of me thought this was just stupid to spell backwards. What's the point?! The point is that once you have created this visual image, there is no trick to spelling backwards.

Some of the participants were taking this workshop for themselves so that they could learn how to learn. Most had experienced trauma in school. One of these “failures” realized that she could actually spell backwards once she learned to hold the picture. When she spelled supracallafragalisticespyaladoshas backwards, we clapped wildly! I am just learning to learn visually. I can spell backwards a word of six letters or less. I am learning to train my mind! It is an exciting new challenge.