How Do You Know If Your Child Has ADHD?

This question has been occupying our minds for some time now.  One thing we love about Anna is her boundless enthusiasm and energy. But at some point, we've noticed that she seems to have a LOT of energy, and restlessness as well. Like way more than that of an average preschooler.

One reason we've probably seen this increase is that, at our pediatrician's recommendation, we've started giving her melatonin at bedtime to help her relax. It's been a true godsend to have drastically shortened the bedtime routine and made it way easier. But the flip side is that, now that Anna's getting a full night's sleep on a consistent basis, we are seeing her at maximum energy capacity during the day. And it's simply astounding.

But we're not just talking about energy. It's also the ease with which she becomes distracted, the length of time it takes her to finish a meal because she's constantly up and down from the table, her rapid movement from activity to activity without finishing prior activities, her incredible restlessness even when she IS focused on a task....you get the picture.

Teach Your Children

Returning to our series about researchers’ most important skill areas for parents, we come to #5 on the list, education and learning.  It’s probably obvious to everyone that it’s important to “promote and model learning” and to “provide educational opportunities” for our kids.  What is interesting to me here is the variety of views out there about how best to go about accomplishing this.

One debate revolves around whether flash cards are useful or not. I will save thorough discussion of that for another post, but I will say that even though hands-on learning is best, I do think flash cards have their place too. Anna really enjoys them and has gotten quite good at connecting pictures with letters.