One of the challenges associated with ADHD and ADD is “executive functioning”. I have talked about this before. This like so many other things is a confusing element to ADHD but one that I feel is really important to be aware of and necessary to understand the challenges of your child holistically. In fact, many experts in the field of ADHD/ADD are starting to suggest that ADHD be re-conceptualized as an “executive disorder” and deemphasize the focus on hyperactivity and attention. Problems with executive functioning are not limited, however, to only those with ADHD or ADD. Executive dysfunction sometimes is the only problem and sometimes is part of a larger problem.

The easiest way to think of executive functioning is that it is the administrative or managerial part of the human brain. Executive functioning has to do with organization, planning, self-control, and time management, for instance. Like anything else, any individual with executive functioning issues will have areas of strength and areas of weakness within the broad spectrum of executive functioning.
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One of the areas where I constantly struggle is helping our son find his areas of talents or what I like to call, his essence. Our children are like my husband and I. We are good at a lot of things but not outstanding at any one thing. We are good athletics, we enjoy music, we like books and politics, we enjoy giving back to the community and so forth. We are not the next Rembrandt, Tchaikovsky, Michael Jordan or Mother Teresa. Nothing is glaringly obvious.

Couple this with the fact that most of the time and effort with our son is currently focused on academics. He is absolutely exhausted when he comes home from school. He works hard, thank goodness, and cooperates with his teachers and, new this year, he actually LIKES school. I have so much to be thankful about. But some days when he gets home from school, he looks like he has been through a war.

We value play time and are mindful of balancing work with play time. But we have over an hour of homework each night and it is very difficult to fit everything in. He does play sports on Saturdays and seems to enjoy it but it is not clear to us that sports is his THING either.

Why do I worry about this so much? Our primary goal with our son with everything we are doing is to develop is self confidence and his self esteem. That is starting to develop academically because we are able to send him to a school when he can learn differently than the mainstream and be successful. I want him so much to experience success in something outside of school that he truly loves.

Getting him to try new things is not easy. He gets anxious and worried about new activities. Often when we start up a new sports season, he has trouble with the first few weeks of the activity – it is a transitioning issue.

Maybe this worry is more about me than him? I just want so badly for something to come easily to him that he truly truly loves … given that he has to work so hard in the other areas of his life.

So this blog post is not a Karen offering a suggestion blog post – it is one where I am reaching out to you for help. Do you have any suggestions or thoughts?

• How do we fit in the time for him to explore his interests?
• When is the right time to pursue drum lessons or karate or whatever else?
• Is maintaining a balance between play time and work time enough for laying the groundwork for future interests?
• Do I need to just chill out and believe that with self-confidence and academic “success”, he will figure it all out?

Would love to hear from you regarding how you enable the “essence” of your child to shine through all of the struggles!!!