Why It's Good to Have ADD

We’re back up!

The good news is that this blog is back up. The bad news is that it was down for a week. Apparently there was some strange and obscure configuration item in PHP that was messing everything up. Thanks to Rich Westcott (He’s the guy who administers this server…YES we have our own server) who I am sorry for yelling at a lot this week and the wordpress experts we are up and running again.

Press Release from Warren Township (Illinois) Youth Services

NEWS
For immediate release
>From the Office of Adam Krieger, Warren Township Youth Services, (847)
244-1101 ext. 402
PARENTS AND TEACHERS CAN LEARN COACHING STRATEGIES TO HELP AD/HD CHILDREN
September 9, 2005
Warren Township Youth Services and Gurnee Counseling Center present a free
workshop called Coaching Strategies and Change: A New Approach to Help Your
AD/HD Child. This presentation is perfect for parents, teachers and
professionals who want a greater understanding of the gifts and challenges
of AD/HD, while learning some proven coaching strategies that have empowered
individuals and family members to create positive, self-initiated change.
The presenter, Ken Zaretzky, MCC, is a sought after speaker on ADD and
Coaching and has recently presented at Lutheran General Hospital, Illinois
Association of School Psychologist and C.H.A.D.D. National Conference.
CEU’s are available. The presentation is on Wednesday, October 5th from
7:00-8:30 pm at the Warren Township Center-New Town Hall located on 17801 W.
Washington Street, Gurnee. To register, please call 847/244-1101 ext. 401.

Gulf Coast Disaster

This whole thing is starting to be clearer to me. It’s the first time I have written about something that doesn’t directly have to do with ADD or with Coaching.

This may be the most significant disaster in the history of human kind. It is certainly one of them either way. I’ve heard people in other parts of the world say things about how the US deserved it and try to politicize it in different ways. This of course is absurd. This is no more a political situation than the tsunami was.

I’ve heard people talk about global warming. I don’t know if this it true or not (neither do they really) but I do wonder if it might be just a bit egotistical to believe that human beings can change for either the better or the worse cosmic forces like the climate or weather patterns of an entire planet.

Here is what I do know…….There are people suffering. There are displaced refugees in the United States. Thousands, maybe millions of them. I want to do something to help. Hopefully many other want to help also. I wasn’t sure how I could help.

I mean I’m a 49 year old fat guy who is pretty smart and coaches pretty well but I’m not going to be a lot of use in a rescue operation. I do however make a pretty good living.

Maybe the best thing I can do is throw money at the problem. That’s what I’m going to. The Salvation Army has one of the tiniest administrative expenses of most major charities. What I mean by that is they keep very little donation money for themselves. Almost all the money they get is used to help people.

So for the foreseeable future I will be donating ten percent of all coaching fees and appearance fees that I earn to the Salvation Army Hurricane Relief Fund. That’s the best way that I can think of to help. I hope you will help the best way you can too.

Speaking and Appearance Schedule for Fall 2005

I have gotten a number of e-mails from people asking where they can meet me or hear me speak. So here’s where I’ll be in the near future….

Sept 14, 2005 - Speaking and Exhibiting at 2005 National AD/HD Awareness Day Focus Fair, 4:00-8:30pm, Naperville 95th St. Public Library, 3015 Cedar Glade Dr., Naperville, IL 60564

Sept 17, 2005 - Attending and coaching (Coach with an MCC) at ICF-New York at the Holiday Inn Martinique on Broadway, 49 West 32nd Street, New York, NY 10001

Sept 19, 2005 -Speaking at ICF Greater Madison (Wisconsin) from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Noodles & Company at 3600 University Avenue. Madison Wisconsin.

October 5, 2005 -Speaking at Warren Township Center, “Coaching Your ADD Child To Change A New Approach to Help Your Child”
-New Town Hall, 17801 W. Washington Street, Gurnee, Illinois 7:00-8:30 pm

October 27-29, 2005 - Speaking at C.H.A.D.D. National Conference, Hyatt Regency Downtown Dallas Hotel, 300 Reunion Boulevard, Dallas, Texas 75207

November 14, 2005 - Speaking at CCF (ICF-Chicago Chapter) American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, Rosemont, IL 4:00 PM 7:30 PM

Other events will be added as they are confirmed. I hope to see/meet you there!

***
To get more information about Ken Zaretzky, MCC as a speaker click here

It’s Just a Tool

There is a man stuck in a tiny clearing in the middle of an impassible jungle. If he stays in the clearing there is no doubt that he will either die a horrible death as a result of starvation or of being eaten by a tiger or other wild animal. There is no way he can escape because the jungle is so thick that he can’t even walk through it.

Suddenly he finds a machete in the ground near the edge of the vegetation. Is this good or bad?

Many people would say that it is good because he can use the machete to chop his way to safety.

On the other hand, what if he believes that he will either die a horrible death as a result of starvation or of being eaten by a tiger or other wild animal and uses the machete to slit his own throat?

Was finding the machete a good thing or a bad thing? The answer to that question is yes. It was a good thing or a bad thing based on what perspective he chose to take. The machete was just a tool. He chose how to use it.

I see Attention Deficit Disorder in a very similar light. It’s a tool. If you choose to you can cause it to debilitate you OR you can choose to use it to do wonderful things. To become like Ben Franklin or like John Lennon or like Thomas Edison…

There are whole corporations who give their employees “thinking outside the box” awards. Trying to get them to see solutions or different than “standard” ways to do things. Then there are people like us who hear about that and say “what box?”. Outside the box is where we live, we’ve never been in it, we don’t even know what it is…

Having ADD is just like the machete…It’s good or bad, depending on what perspective you elect to see it from.

Ken Zaretzky, MCC

So why IS it good to have ADD anyway?

What special gifts has having ADD given you?

For starters, I can stay up working late at night like I am now. How many ADDers out there tend to do their best work late at night? I think lots do.

When my youngest daughter was a baby, my family and I were at some family function and I was mentioning that she had just started sleeping through the night and my father said “Well, you and your brother NEVER slept through the night” I still haven’t!

But I sure can be productive late in the evening. I can also speak in public pretty well. I enjoy doing that! I’ve experienced that many ADDers have a lot of charisma and tend to speak well in public. In general I think people with ADD are funnier. I can be pretty funny. But all the funniest people I know have ADD. It seems to go along with having ADHD for a lot of people.

I can also do two or four or three-hundred-six things at once. I like that I can do that. But I can hyperfocus too. I am very focused with my clients. Also an ADD gift I think.

I also seem to be able to get to the meat of the matter quite easily. I can generally see the core of complicated issues and make them simple.

I’m talking about me but I believe that everyone who has ADD also has a bunch of special abilities that go along with it. I want to try to get people out of their comfort zone. I want you to look for and find the reasons why you’re glad you have ADD.

I hope people will comment a lot on this. I’ve heard ADD (Sorry, I can’t get used to the term “ADHD”) described as “an island of disability in a sea of abilities”. I think that is a great metaphor!

So think hard……What special gifts has having ADD given you?

Ken Zaretzky, MCC

New Online ADD Test

I just launched a new Online ADD Test. It isn’t meant to be a diagnostic test but rather a screening. Of course people should be diagnosed by a physician or other mental health profesional. This test is based on the DSM-IV criteria and will give the taker the likelihood of whether or not they may have ADD/ADHD and suggests that they contact someone qualified to make the diagnosis.

What sets this specific test aside from the very few others on the internet are two things:

1. It isn’t a list or guidelines. The test is actually scored by computer online and gives results right away.

2. It isn’t based on what came out of somebody’s mind. It is quite faithful to the DSM-IV criteria (To the letter) so someone can go to thier physician or mental health professional and be pretty certain that they will be using the same diagnostic criteria.

The test is located at

http://ADDTESTOnline.com

Ken Zaretzky, MCC

Why are we STILL discussing if it’s real?…

I was watching the Cal Thomas show for a bit last night and the discussion turned to whether or not ADD was a real thing or something made up so therapists can make a few dollars on it.

I was in shock! Of course ADD is real. How else do you explain me? Not just me, but zillions of other people.

Of course some therapists make money treating ADD. I make money on ADD too. So what? Who makes money on it isn’t the issue. Whether it is a real thing or not isn’t even discussable by intelligent people or at least it shouldn’t be. Of course ADD is real. These TV guys just don’t get what it is. They are thinking of it in the same terms as major depression or other forms of mental illness. I don’t think it falls in that catagory at all.

A guest on the show said “If Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were alive today they’d be diagnosed with ADD”. You know, I agree with that since the two of them did (especially Tom) did appear to have some qualities that people with ADD also have. I’d have no problem with that forensic diagnosis except for the fact that Tom and Huck never existed at all. They wouldn’t be alive today because they never were alive. They are fictional characters who came out of the brilliant, creative and wildly imaginative mind of Samuel Clemens who became Mark Twain when he signed his name that way on some travel papers. The guy faked his name as a joke! Jeeze, I’ve done that!
He was also so imaginative that he invented a couple of guys who some people believe actually existed. So I looked into Sam a bit. This is the very first thing I found:

“Growing up in the unusual rivertown of 2000 inhabitants, Twain was a mischievous boy, the prototype of his own character, Tom Sawyer. Though he was plagued by poor health at an early age, by the age of nine he learned to smoke and headed a small band of pranksters, and most of all, he detested school…..

On his way to Nevada twelve years after the Gold Rush, Twain’s primary intentions were to travel and strike it rich mining for silver and gold. But after being unsuccessful and with resources diminishing, Twain once again picked up his pen and began to write….”

The guy wrote at least 14 books, did at least 20 different things for a living, got bored easily. It seems to me like it is quite likely Mark Twain had ADD. He sounds like a hunter to me!

Thom Hartmann’s theory is that people with ADD are the prehistoric hunters who evolved over millions of years to do something good and useful which helped assure the survival of the human race. The other people are farmers. They do good and useful things too. I have believed Thom’s theory since I first heard it. I still do!

I just wish these idiots on TV would start thinking about how the bizarre statements they make effect people. Now there will be people with ADD who will have to defend themselves again
because some idiot made authoritative statements about something they knew nothing about while portraying characters who never existed as real people.

Aren’t these the same guys who just got 16 people murdered by making up a story about the US military throwing copies of the Koran in the toilet at Guantanamo? I believe in a free press as much, if not more than the next guy. I’ve fought for it and was once part of it. My baby brother has been a newspaper reporter with the New Haven Register for 25 years. By the same token I also believe that the press has an obligation to be responsible. Cal Thomas and his guest were quite cavalier in the way they made these statements of “fact” . Thats my “opinion” anyway.

But it is still amazing that they gave us yet another example of what an especially brilliant ADD mind can do. I’m not saying that we are all that brilliant but some of us are. Mark Twain has people believing that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were real people and that Samuel Clemens never existed (he did), but that Mark Twain (Just a made up name) did exist. Not bad for a guy who’s been dead for 95 years.

source of quotation: http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Authors/About_Mark_Twain.html

Ken Zaretzky, MCC

I added a link to “Focused Distractions”…..

I added a link in the sidebar today to Terry Matlen’s blog which is called “Focused Distractions”. Terry is a therapist who I consider to be expert on ADD. She is on the board of directors of ADDA (Attention Deficit Disorder Association) and plays guitar and sings real well.

I like Terry. I like her blog. It has a lot of good information.

Ken Zaretzky, MCC

To medicate or not to medicate…

What do you think? Should people with ADD take medication or should they not?
I have heard, and could make a pretty good case for either side.

I’d like to see what sort of opinions on medication and ADD people have.

Ken Zaretzky, MCC