A Must Read for Parents with Children Labeled as ADD or ADHD
Parents, if you suspect your child has ADD or ADHD, or if he’s already been diagnosed, a must read is the book Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World by Jeffrey Freed, M.A.T., and Laurie Parsons. Just drop into your local bookstore and at least read the preface and intro. See if you can find your child described in those pages and see the wonderful hope extended to you if you do find your child described.
What caught my attention immediately was this statement:
“Freed related that all children who are labeled as ADD are right-brained and have a visual learning style. Instead of focusing on the deficits of these kids, which our schools and doctors are all too quick to do, Freed emphasizes their many strengths.
These children are creative, can do difficult math problems in their heads, and are excellent speed readers. They tend to do poorly in school because educators tend to be left-brained: detail-oriented, auditory processors who view visual learners as 'flawed.' Freed says that what these children need isn’t a prescription for pills but a prescription for a different teaching method. For the first time I was hearing something about this mysterious thing called ADD that made sense.” (p. 13). Laurie Parsons speaking.
And:
“Through more than a decade of working one-on-one, first with gifted and then with ADD children, I’ve had the framework to make a startling discovery: Most gifted and virtually all children with ADD share the same learning style. Simply put, they are all highly visual, nonsequential processors who learn by remembering the way things look and by taking words and turning them into mental pictures....
While our schools have been harping on the deficits of children with ADD, I’ve had the pleasure of unearthing their many gifts." (p. 17) Jeffrey Freed speaking.
So why do they do so poorly in school?
"Our educational system hammers at visual learners’ weaknesses rather than utilizing their greatest strength: an uncanny visual memory. The cost of such rigidity is incalculable, and the lost potential is astronomical.” (p. 18)
So go get the book already, and read it.