Q - My daughter (age 7) has days where she gets a serious ATITOOD (worse than an attitude) problem...she gets VERY stubborn and no matter what I do, I just can't get her to comply with what she needs to get done (this morning, it was brushing her teeth, doing her inhalers, eating breakfast (she refused normal breakfast fare and substituted a huge pumpkin shaped frosted sugar cookie which i couldn't talk her out of eating in exchange for something healthier), and saying "good- bye" to her grandma)...instead she ate the cookie, never really said "good-bye," only brushed half of her teeth, and decided to cry her head off and kick water (from a rain puddle) at the kid in the next line on the playground for NO REASON...We’ve tried begging, ordering, asking nice, yelling, setting the timer, spanking (very rare), telling her she'd be late for school (which won't work next year cuz we'll be homeschooling her), taking away privileges (TV/video/puter/etc)....is there anything I can do on days like these to get her to do what she needs to without it turning into a screaming match or having her lash out at innocent bystanders????

Jennifer in Chicago Ill.

Dear Jennifer:

First off, don’t confuse the age with the disorder. At 7 years old they often forget about kissing grandma, or feel it’s "embarrassing" or they may skip brushing their teeth simply because they don’t want to do it. I find it a bit funny because my 15-year-old teenager (NON-ADD/ADHD) daughter also forgets about her grandma (who drove all the way to town to watch her volleyball game) or tries to make everything easier -so she skimps and skips chores and steps to certain projects. I don’t necessarily think it’s an ADD/ADHD thing - it’s more of an affliction of childhood.

What we have learned to do is to Remind, Renegotiate, Reprimand and Reward. It’s the only clear way to get through to the kids. Remind with notes, verbal reminders and calendars - all stating what needs to be done and when. Renegotiate your house rules. If the timer doesn’t work, keep trying to find a solution - until you actually find one. Reprimand by stating what the consequences will be, if they do not listen to you, and then FOLLOW THROUGH! If you say they will be grounded - then ground them. (My favorite form of punishment for older kids - an essay.) Lastly, use Rewards. If she kisses her grandma, verbally tell her how much her grandma appreciates it. If she finishes her homework - give her a "great job" yell. And if she eats cereal for breakfast, tell her she can then have a cookie. Afterall, even I want cookies for breakfast. I hope this helps! ---->>> Terri

Q - My name is Aftab, I have two kids , both male aged 14 and 15. Now I have one problem with elder son with his school work. It is with the memorizing of the lessons. If my younger son take 15 minutes to understand and memorize certain lesson than my elder would take one hour to do the same and even after that much effort he is not in a position to bring that much good marks, although he had worked much harder, what is this phenomenon ? Is it Dyslexia ? Is it IQ matter? or any thing else. This is very depressing state as he is not getting reward for his effort, He says that his distractions are enormous while he is concentrating, he may start thinking some thing else while learning his lesson. One thing I have noted as I am involved in partial home schooling is that he brings good marks in objective type ( fill in the blanks type) that proves that information he tried to put into his brain is in his brain but he is not able to present it into good language his sentence construction is weak. He is in 8 grade and we live here in Karachi Pakistan. One thing that worries me is future career for him , that is in which career he would fit in.

Dear Aftab,

I would suggest that you do have your child tested for a particular kind of learning disability that prevents short-term memory retention.

Unfortunately, our minds need short term memory retention in order to bridge the area from actual learning to long term retention. An analysis might turn up that there is a specific area where he is unable to perform. However, in all likelihood, your son's problem is related to poor memory management skills. After the analysis is performed, you should be able to discover if your son is a visual or auditory learner.

If he is a visual learner, then certain memory strategies such as flash cards, rewriting sections of text, taking notes, connecting notes to visual images such as pictures, making word games will enhance performance. If he is a strongly auditory learner, you will have a more difficult time. All schools have access to books on tape. Get them for him. Until you get them, read aloud to him any assignment that he has.

Strictly auditory learners have a more difficult time in the standard school system since large amounts of work are given in a visual manner such as textbooks. You might also try shorter periods of study, say fifteen minutes a time, only repeat the study time many times over the course of an evening. It is a sad fact that the human brain will easily retain the first and last thing that it is fed. Therefore, in order to assist memory, it is advantageous to create as many first and last benchmarks as possible in a given study session. There are several excellent resources for this. There is a video available called "Where There is a Will, There is an A". It's a rather long tape with miscellaneous information on it, but it does have a few kernels that are excellent. I recommend it.

Sincerely, Marcia Colpan

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