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 you just sit still and focus?!”
Your entire life, people have misunderstood you.
If you’ve followed traditional advice for improving your grades, you have probably taken meds and tried to force yourself to ‘just sit still and listen.’
Which makes sense...
...to people who don’t know what it’s really like to struggle with ADD / ADHD.
But you do know what it is like to actually have ADD / ADHD.
You know that the advice of well-intentioned family members and teachers doesn’t actually work for you.
Sure, you can take your pills to sit still and focus, but that’s far from a complete solution. It’s patchwork - it helps you function but it doesn’t help you thrive.
Here’s the reality...
You not only need to learn how to fit in with the expectations of other people, but to discover the strengths of your special abilities and how to use them to your 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 you to find what will work best for you.
It’s not that you’re “learning disabled” or stupid. It’s that you’ve been following the advice of people who don’t understand you. You’ve been trying to fit in instead of learning how you 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 everywhere around the world. So it must have an evolutionary advantage, or it would have died out. You just need to learn what that evolutionary advantage is and how to use it to your benefit.
Many of the things you’ve been told are wrong:
- Most people will tell you that you need to sit still in order to learn. But in fact, the opposite is true. You need to move in order to learn.
- Instead of getting distracted by sounds, you probably benefit from using noise cancelling headphones and playing white noise, music and nature sounds to increase your 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. You learn best in short bursts, and multitasking actually improves your focus!
Getting advice from people who don’t deeply understand ADD / ADHD is like bringing an airplane to a car mechanic. They aren’t going to know what to do with it, so they’ll change the oil and send you on your way.
Our specialist ADD / ADHD tutors are the airplane mechanics. We understand how you really are, so we can show you how to turn what others consider a disability into a superpower.
We aren’t here to teach you math, chemistry, or any specific subject. We’re here to teach you how you learn - and to adapt with you as your courses get progressively more difficult.
Once you learn to train that hyper focus on the things that are most important to you, you will not just keep up with your classmates, but excel.
Your entire life you’ve been told that your ADD / ADHD is a problem. Our specialist ADD / ADHD tutors will show you how to turn it into a superpower.
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
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.
