“Flexiture” is a unique combination of flexibility and structure that empowers parents and teachers to solve big and small problems faced by consistently inconsistent children and students who struggle with ADD/ADHD and related executive functions.
ADHD is one of the most researched and most misunderstood medical disorders. Much of the confusion occurs because the terms “attention deficit” and “hyperactivity” describe only the surface features of this challenge: these difficulties are just the tip of the iceberg: the problems of the child or teen with ADHD are much broader and deeper than this. Internationally recognized expert, Russell A. Barkley, Ph.D. suggests that the core challenge is actually the inability to stop and think before acting; even problems focusing involve inhibiting one’s response to other things going on around him or her. In chapter one, we’ll explore some surprising aspects of these three surface features of the ADHD iceberg.
Even more misunderstandings occur because ADD/ADHD symptoms are quite often different in boys and girls and men and women: we’ll discover these differences in chapter two.
Although at first glance, they add more confusion to an already confusing situation, understanding your child’s executive functioning strengths and weaknesses can actually shed some light on the size of the ADHD iceberg (and challenges) hidden beneath the surface. In turn, this understanding can help you how to best help your child. We’ll undertake this extremely enlightening information in chapter three.
Once parents better understand the true breadth of their child’s challenges, their next logical question is, “Why does my child have to struggle so?” In chapter four, I attempt to help you change your “why’s” into “what’s.” Once you conquer this question, the next one is, “What can we do?” In chapters five and six, we tackle the tough questions, “What is flexiture?” and “How can it help?”
Over the years, ADD/ADHD has been seen as a behavior disorder and although we are learning that it really involves more than just behavior, parents and teachers still struggle with how to help their children and students stop misbehaving. We take up behavior and discipline in chapters seven and eight.
The confusion is further exacerbated by language and learning weaknesses commonly seen in children, teens, and adults with ADD/ADHD. In chapter nine, you will learn why your child or teen with ADHD struggles with learning and why ADHD is not a learning disorder. Strategies, scaffolding, and structure designed to help parents and educators help the child or teen with their learning struggles are detailed in chapter ten, time-tested classroom accommodations are outlined in chapter eleven, and proven active learning strategies are provided in chapter twelve.
Parents and teachers often report that their teens with ADD/ADHD struggle with poor self-esteem: in chapter thirteen, we take up this topic and how to improve and maintain your child or student’s self-worth.
In chapter fourteen, you will learn how to apply a number of flexibly structured strategies designed to help the child or teen with ADHD be more successful socially on the playground, and in life.
Parents often complain that there are so many treatment options out there they don’t know what to do. We discuss the pros and cons of proven and unproven treatment in chapter fifteen.
Finally, in chapter sixteen, I ask you to consider your impossible and impulsive child or student in a new light. Chapter seventeen is a list of resources for you and your child or student.
(c) 2009-2012, flexiture, monte w. davenport, ph.d.
