Margo Fourman
Despite working in education and being a teacher her entire life, Margo struggled with severe dyslexia and dyspraxia for most of her life. At age 50 she finally discovered how to turn her disability into a superpower. She now supports students around the world in doing the same for themselves.
“Why can’t they just sit still and focus?!”
As you know all too well, your child with ADD / ADHD can be a handful. They just can’t seem to sit still and stay focused.
Other parents judge you without understanding what you’re dealing with.
You’ve followed the traditional, well-intentioned advice for improving their behavior. “Take your pills, sit still, and listen.”
Which makes sense...
...to people who don’t know what it’s really like to have ADD / ADHD.
Your child is just as frustrated as you are. Nobody seems to understand them. They are fighting to get good grades, fit in, and “be normal”, but it just doesn’t work like that.
It’s not your fault - you’ve been doing all you can to help them.
Sure, they can take the pills to sit still and focus, but that’s far from a complete solution. It’s patchwork - it helps them function, but it doesn’t help them thrive.
Here’s the reality...
They not only need to learn how to fit in with the expectations of other people, but to discover the strengths of their special abilities and how to use them to their advantage.
And the only way to achieve this is to get personal guidance from a specialist ADD / ADHD tutor who actually understands what ADD / ADHD is, how to manage it, and most importantly, how to work with your child to find what will work best for them.
It’s not that they are “learning disabled” or defiant. It’s that you’ve been trying to follow the advice of “experts” who tell you to force your child to fit in, instead of showing them how they learn.
For those with ADD / ADHD, there are specific secrets to succeeding in school... and in life.
Think about it. ADD / ADHD is a genetic trait that has evolved over millions of years and appears in every country around the world. So it must have an evolutionary advantage, or it would have died out. Your child just needs to learn what that evolutionary advantage is and how to use it to their benefit.
Many of the things you’ve been told are wrong:
- Most people will tell you that you need to force them to sit still in order to learn. But in fact, the opposite is true. They need to move in order to learn.
- Instead of getting distracted by sounds, they would probably benefit from using noise cancelling headphones or playing white noise, music and nature sounds to increase their focus.
- Perhaps the biggest myth of all, ADD / ADHD is not actually a lack of attention, but in fact a need and ability to take things in quickly and move on. They learn best in short bursts, and multitasking actually improves their focus!
Getting advice from people who don’t deeply understand ADD / ADHD is like bringing an airplane to a car mechanic. They are not going to know what to do with it, so they’ll change the oil and send your child on their way.
Our specialist ADD / ADHD tutors are the airplane mechanics. We understand how your child really learns, so we can show them how to turn what others consider a disability into a superpower.
We aren’t here to teach math, chemistry, or any specific subject. We’re here to teach your child how they learn - and to adapt with them as they progress through school and their courses get progressively more difficult.
Once they learn to train their hyper focus on the things that are most important to them, they will not just keep up with their classmates, but excel. As you both start to see the improvement, the tension in your family will dissolve and be replaced by hope, understanding… and achievement.
Through working with Oxford Specialist Tutors, I’ve learned a lot about how my ADHD - Hyperfocus brain works, and how to harness it to my best advantage.
In the mornings, I sometimes wake up in hyperfocus mode, in which case I get straight to work.
But most mornings, I wake up in full-on ADD mode. My brain is filled with a thousand thoughts and ideas, and flits from topic to topic in rapid fire. I cannot focus on one thing, but I am having useful thoughts about everything that’s on my mind. And there are a LOT of things on my mind!
When that happens, I used to try to force myself to focus, but it never worked. And I’d get really stressed in the process.
Now, instead, I let my brain flit around for as long as it needs to - while I take a walk, drink a coffee, or just gaze out of the window.
Once my brain is ready to settle, only then do I bring my focus down to just one thing.
When my brain is ready, that’s really easy to do, and I get into a hyper focused state of extreme productivity. “In the zone” as some people call it.
I’ve also learned that I need time to switch from one focus to another. If I try to switch too fast, again I get stressed out and cannot focus.
So instead, I always take a break between different topics of focus.
Overall, understanding how my brain works, and how to manage my ADD and hyperfocus has made my life a lot less stressful, and a lot more productive.
David
ADHD - Hyperfocus
All their life, they have been told that their ADD / ADHD is a problem. We’ll show them how to turn it into a superpower.
If you would like to talk with one of our experts to discuss what would be the best approach to support your child with ADD / ADHD, book a free consultation today.
