Are attention and hyperactivity problems making it hard for your child to succeed in school? Is your child angry, frustrated and acting out because he can’t learn and focus the way other kids do? I’m Dr. Robert Myers. I’m a child psychologist who’s worked with children with ADHD for 25 years. I also raised a son with ADHD. My son, Greg, was diagnosed at age 10. I understand how painful it is to watch your child struggle with attention and hyperactivity problems and fall behind in school because it happened to my son. I also know that kids with ADHD are bright, creative and highly talented. And with the right training and support, these children can succeed and excel in school and in life. That’s why I’m pleased to offer you a free 30–day trial of Total Focus™, the program I’ve developed with Legacy Publishing Company, the people behind The Total Transformation Program. In Total Focus, I give you the techniques I’ve used in my practice-and in my family–to help improve attention, concentration and self–control in children.

Homework nightmares? I’ll give you dozens of simple techniques to help improve your child’s ability to focus on classroom work and homework. The First-Time Club... How to get a child with ADHD to follow directions in school and at home, and do what he’s asked the first time. Slow Down and Think... One–on–one lessons designed to help hyperactive children calm down and curb impulsive behavior. Frustration Busters... Tools to help a child get rid of anger and negative attitudes to improve performance. 14 ways to stop outbursts and tantrums during high–stress times at school and at home. “In first grade, my daughter was having problems in school following the teacher, paying attention and sitting still. I was getting complaints from the teacher about these issues. She was diagnosed with mild ADD. That’s when I began to use Dr. Myers’ program, Total Focus. When her teacher used the program with her, it worked wonders. There was a big change in her behavior. I didn’t get the complaints from the teacher anymore. I also used it when she was in second grade. You could see a real difference in her report card. She went from having bad behavior to superior behavior.” ––Sylvia G., Long Beach, CA "Don’t let inattention and hyperactivity keep your child from the success he deserves. I consider my son’s success in life my greatest achievement. I’d like to help your child... I’ll teach you and your child in one-on-one lessons that are fun, fast and easy!" ––Dr. Robert Myers Try "Total Focus" free for 30 days

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ADD - The Concentration Problem
ADD (without Hyperactivity) sufferers often go unhelped and undiagnosed. They may be very intelligent people, but because of their concentration and memory problems they perform poorly at school or college and seldom reach their full potential. An over-aroused right brain, perhaps caused by stress and anxiety, can make it hard to focus and see through a sequence of actions (left-brain functions) - so it is a kind of dyslexia. ADD sufferers often feel listless and can lack motivation and energy because of their constant struggle to concentrate and focus on their work. Sometimes they can even develop depression, because of their inability to achieve and due to negative feedback from those around them.

According to one of the leading pioneers of the concept of sensory integration, Dr. Jean Ayres, all our senses have to work in concert. In other words, our senses of touch, smell, taste, sight and sound, as well as our physical movement and body awareness, they all have to work in harmony. The senses send the information they gather to the brain, where it is interpreted and organized. That process is called sensory integration. When one of our senses doesn't function properly, our learning process and our quality of living are diminished. For some children, sensory integration develops effortlessly during the course of ordinary play and childhood activities. For others, though, sensory integration develops in a disordered manner, causing a number of problems in learning, development or behavior. By helping to integrate the senses, the Tomatis Method has helped many people with ADD/ADHD, dyslexia and autistic symptoms.

The A.D.D. Audio Coach workbook provides a much needed path out of the snarl of chaos and confusion that is a way of life for most adults with ADD. It is presented in clear, simple step-by-step language so that the reader/listener is not overwhelmed by detail and engages the senses in such a way so that the user does not get distracted and is kept interested and focused on the tasks at hand. The tips and the upbeat tone of the book make it user friendly and it is easily referred to when needed. It is also useful as a tool for professionals to guide their ADD/ADHD clients. The book contains fantastic check lists for taking control of your time, your home environment and finances, and it has an easy to use layout. The audio CD's are professional, empowering, relevant and on target - great for different learning styles!

The importance of exercise
CBC news (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) put out a very interesting story about City Park High School in Saskatoon, that put treadmills and exercise bikes into a math classroom, and before doing any math, the kids strapped on their heart-rate monitors and did 20 minutes of moderate intensity cardiovascular exercise. This is an alternative school for those with learning difficulties, and over half the students have ADHD. They couldn't sit still, many had behavioral problems, and they couldn't learn. Well, the cardio equipment went in the classroom in February, and by June, pretty much all the kids had jumped a full grade in reading, writing and math. After doing the exercise the kids were suddenly able to sit still and focus on what they were learning, and they were able to understand what they were being taught. The exercise altered their brain chemistry enough to make learning possible, and it greatly improved their behavior. Read more about this project in Vreni Gurd's article, Exercise and Learning.

A busy doctor may simply prescribe a drug like Ritalin for a person exhibiting ADHD symptoms without considering the range of alternative factors that may possibly be involved; other psychological and behavioral problems that may be connected with the person's difficulties may be overlooked, as well as possible nutritional causes.

Deficiency in EFAs (Essential Fatty Acids) - especially Omega 3 as in fish oils - is a common cause of mental problems such as irritability and depression. In addition, a high-glycemic diet of junk food, Coke, etc, gives rapid rises and falls in blood sugar, reducing the ability to concentrate for long, and poor diets with processed foods containing additives may cause allergic reactions, including irritability and lack of energy.

The toxic effects of vaccination, certain vitamin and mineral deficiencies, excessive TV watching or video game playing, sleep deprivation, lack of sensory integration and repressed emotional upsets are further factors that may lead to the inability to pay attention, as described above.

Further, because it's all too easy, he may not have learned the skills of concentration and the skills of studying that the other kids need to learn in order to be able to do the introductory studies. He tends to have a glib approach and later on in his studies he may therefore get out of his depth, since concentration and study skills have become necessary, even for a person of his intelligence, and he has missed out on acquiring these, unlike the other school children to whom it did not all come so easily.

Also he may be frustrated that the subjects are not of interest to him or taught at too basic a level. Hyperactivity behavior (as opposed to that resulting from pathological ADHD) may be a result of the frustration he feels, since he has no outlet for the energy other kids would need to put into their studies. Parents should ask him how he feels about what goes on at school and listen non-judgmentally so that he feels understood.

A remedy is for the parents to spend the time after school to make resources available for learning about those subjects that he is genuinely and personally interested in, and encourage him to study these in considerable depth, so he perceives the need for concentration and study skills, and so begins to acquire them. To help him acquire these skills, it would be best for the parents to learn these skills too, so they can demonstrate these to the child.

All of this applies to adults too. We need to be very much in touch with our heart, with our feelings, but still to remain intelligent about it - to remain in control, not driven by our emotions. We need a balance of left and right brain - rational mind and emotional mind, logic and feelings, intellect and intuition. This is where mindfulness and wisdom is found.

Mindfulness
We tend to be too cut off from our feelings, in order to suppress painful ones - and this becomes a habit. Academic education reinforces this imbalance. And then we lose a lot of our creative and intuitional ability. At the same time, however, when those emotions 'escape' we tend to be driven by them, and think and act impulsively, without wisdom.

You see this often with kids who act without thinking first, can't wait their turn in line or in a game, blurt out answers in class, speak when they're supposed to be quiet, maybe show aggressive behaviors, are often a little too loud, sometimes fight, and so on... they often get labeled with ADD. They impulsively say the wrong thing at the wrong time and then think, "Why did I say that?" The other kids are asking, "Who is this guy?" and often begin to avoid him. Impulsive people are not learning from past mistakes, and they're not listening. They haven't picked up on those subtle social cues that everybody else has learned, and so they're socially awkward and often don't know why. And this applies to adults too of course.

Korzybski said that most people are to some degree impulsive, therefore there is a compulsion to act or break out in speech and this limits their intelligence. His advice - when you feel this coming on - is to stop for a count of ten to let your much slower cortex (thinking brain) catch up with the emotional limbic system, before you act or speak. He went on to say that many people have an under-aroused cortex and an over-aroused limbic system: they guess rather than work out the solution to a problem, or when they are making a decision they don't work through a list of alternatives. A person in that state seeks immediate closure and cannot reject an immediate reward (immediate gratification) for a larger reward in the future, because he or she is acting impulsively - not being conscious of their choices. Acting in a more considered and intelligent way, on the other hand, will be much more true to the person's real needs and purposes, and therefore to their heart.

Mindfulness has to do with the ability to accept, in a non-evaluative and nonjudgmental fashion, both oneself and the current situation - and how one feels about it. Acceptance of reality is not necessarily approval of reality; it is simply not being blind to it, not resisting nor distorting it. Then we can see the truth.

Fixed beliefs are always a limitation and unnecessary - they cause all the types of harm that occurs in the world, especially when they are rigidly identified with or attached to, so that one cannot tolerate another having different beliefs or it is felt to be a threat if they do. Provisional beliefs are necessary, as one needs to make a map of the world, but they must always be open to revision. Be open to the opinions of another that provoke a new view of things, or that seem to conflict with what you already know. It makes it easier to see the middle path, the shades of grey between the black and white of opposing viewpoints.

So, if you feel an impulsive reaction coming on - and you feel you are being driven rather than being the driver - then take a pause, breathe deeply for several seconds and look at your options, the pros and cons - BEFORE you say or do something that isn't really congruent with your inner truth.

Intuition is not subjective truth or inner knowing if it is based on a reactive emotional response, whether a painful feeling or even a good one. How do you know if it's reaction or a fast input? Heart intelligence is about understanding emotions, not just accepting that whatever raises your heartbeat must be the way to go. Emotions always follow an interpretation. Reality testing is necessary, to see if there's more to it and you need to look deeper, or if it's an answer but in the wrong direction perhaps with thought distortions, or if it's somebody else's subjective truth rather than your own.

For most people, their mind moves rapidly from one thought to another, like a playful kitten, in constant motion. Learning mindfulness involves bringing the mind back to some detail of the present moment, acknowledging it, and accepting it. So ground yourself in the present and let your mind become still, by noticing everything you are perceiving, through all your senses. Practicing this regularly - in times of meditation and in times of stress - can help you keep your focus more and more in the present moment.

Over the course of many years, techniques have been developed for helping individuals to achieve their potential mental capacity. A useful method to help achieve the mindful state is the application of appropriate brain-wave entrainment through audio stimuli. The OptiMINDzation CD is one such tool, and works very well to stimulate the Beta frequencies of alert cognition. It's helpful for all those of us who often find our attention wandering - or disappearing altogether - when we should be focusing on the job in hand. It is important to combine such a method, however, with active learning and practice of cognitive skills, as offered by the Mind Development courses. What you don't use, you lose.

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