Parental ADHD Advocacy

Children diagnosed with ADHD face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. First, an ADHD diagnosis conjures unflattering stigmas. The labels are detestable, but a regular part of an ADHD child's life. Second, special accommodations in the classroom cause deep resentment in peers and the teachers responsible for implementing the accommodations. Most important, children diagnosed with ADHD rarely have an advocate who looks after their best interests.
ADHD advocacy is a nascent trend in the mental health industry. For years, children struggled without advocacy support while trying to cope in social environments and in the classroom. ADHD clinicians began to heed the call for advocacy, but their role was limited to medical education for parents and education personnel. National ADHD advocacy organizations have been effective in lobbying politicians for ADHD laws, especially in the areas of education and the workplace. National organizations have a macro sphere of influence, not the micro attention to detail that is parental ADHD advocacy.
Parents are the only true advocate for ADHD children. Their sphere of influence ranges from medications to ensuring education equity. While researching ADHD is a positive first step in becoming an advocate, knowledge of the condition is not enough to make an impact on an ADHD child's life. Parents must become involved and make the commitment to advocate for their child. Here are some important areas that demand parental ADHD advocacy:
Recognizing the signs
ADHD education begins with recognizing the complicated signs of the condition. By complicated, I mean that some symptoms of ADHD mirror other disorders like anxiety and depression.
The best place to research ADHD symptoms is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). The manual provides a general list of 18 symptoms and the requisite criteria for making an ADHD diagnosis. Dr. Daniel Amen breaks down the 18 symptoms further by providing a detailed list of symptoms in checklist form.
Parental ADHD advocacy is ineffective if parents do not understand the basic symptoms of the condition.
ADHD clinician testing and evaluation
An ADHD diagnosis is a two-step process. Parents must make it a three-step process by carefully scrutinizing a list of clinician candidates. I recommend choosing a clinician based on your friends or family practitioner referral.
Parental ADHD advocacy involves creating a list of questions for each clinician candidate. Questions should include:

• How do you make a diagnosis?
• Do you have references?
• What is your position on ADHD medications?

Parents are usually involved in the second step of the diagnosis process, which entails the attendance of a significant other. Parents should also participate in the first step of the process. The first step is a series of psychological tests that determine if a second consultation is warranted. Parental ADHD advocacy during this step is observing how the clinician conducts the tests. Moreover, parents must eliminate any clinician who aggressively pushes ADHD medications during the first step.
ADHD Medications
The purest form of parental ADHD advocacy is understanding one fact: ADHD medications do not cure ADHD. The medications are prescribed to mitigate the symptoms. They are not a panacea, and there are other options that help children manage ADHD. The same concern for illicit drug use should be applied to the prescription of a stimulant narcotic for an underdeveloped human being.
If parents decide that ADHD medications are the best course of action, they must be vigilant when it comes to monitoring their child's prescription. Side effects occur when a child takes the wrong dosage during the wrong time of day. This usually happens at school, so parents must clearly communicate their child's ADHD medication regimen with a school nurse and administrators. They must also ensure that the medication does not fall into the hands of other children who are looking for a stimulant "high."
Above all, parental ADHD advocacy means promoting the alternative treatments for the symptoms. This may entail banging heads with the clinician. Banging heads is a good thing when your child' health is involved.
Exercise
The physical and mental benefits of a regular exercise routine far outweigh ADHD medications. Exercise is a long-term solution for rampant hyperactivity. ADHD medications are a quick fix that introduces potent chemicals into a child's system.
Parental ADHD advocacy for exercise is more about changing a child's sedentary lifestyle. Parents should encourage their children to refrain from playing video and computer games. The encouragement needs to start at a young age, when unhealthy habits are easier to change.
The ADHD establishment continually dispels the theory that too much television causes ADHD. While television does not directly cause ADHD, lying around without significant periods of exercise exacerbates the condition's symptoms. Parents are the first line of defense to prevent a sedentary lifestyle from firmly taking root in a child's lifestyle.
Diet and Nutrition
Sugar was once considered a contributor to ADHD symptoms. Once again, ADHD science seems to dispel the sugar attribution as myth. Nonetheless, a healthy diet based on nutritional components is, like exercise, an integral part of maintaining a healthy body and mind.
Parents may not have a stronger advocacy role for their ADHD children than the decisions they make about sustenance. Fast food is out. Fruits, vegetables, and fish rich in Omega fatty acids are in.
Competitive Sports
Many parents operate under the false assumption that sports participation curtails impulsiveness and hyperactivity. The energy released during a sport competition will calm an ADHD child. The problem, however, is distraction is a characteristic that ruins athletic performance.
Enrolling an ADHD child in sporting leagues is an excellent strategy to circumvent the mind numbing games played in front of television and computer screens. True parental ADHD advocacy means thoroughly explaining to the child's coach what exactly constitutes the condition known as ADHD. Most coaches are amenable to adapting their coaching style in order to promote an ADHD child's strengths.
Advocacy also means not pushing your child into a sport that he or she does not enjoy. Find the right sport and encourage the child to participate in it until they reach a level of superior performance or lose interest all together.
Education
A child's ADHD diagnosis is often the result of school performance. Teacher and administrators notice the child's distraction and hyperactivity, and bring the behavior to the attention of the parents. Parental ADHD advocacy for a child's education achievement is irrefutably mandatory.
Pay attention to how the school system makes changes to enhance your child's learning capability. Knowing ADHD laws is a start, but constant monitoring of your child's performance and persistent insistence that the school adheres to ADHD laws strengthens parental ADHD advocacy. Part of Mark Norris`s work consists of developing a strong partnership between parents and academic professionals. With the parents consent, he organizes school meetings and follow ups with them, their child and the academic team involved in the child's success. An objective and detailed portrait of the child's strengths and challenges is presented and when necessary, classroom accommodations are established.
Parents can also provide a nurturing environment at home, where one-on-one tutoring complements the instruction given in school. The ultimate strategy in parental ADHD advocacy is to instruct your child in a home school environment.
Political System
Political advocacy means becoming involved in ADHD organizations that push legislators to write ADHD friendly legislation. At the very least, involvement in ADHD organizations will allow you to stay abreast of legal status changes that affect your child.
Parent Coaching
ADHD coaching is a growing industry. Most of the attention given to this alternative method for managing ADHD is how a coach benefits adults. Parent coaching is not about mentoring your child. It is about taking courses and assimilating information from a certified ADHD coach.
Parent coaching places you in the student's role. You learn many strategies on developing your child's strengths and mitigating the more onerous ADHD symptoms. Mark Norris is at the forefront of this invaluable movement. He has developed a comprehensive site dedicated to the issue and a detailed coaching program that he implements for adults.
Four to six percent of the United States population is estimated to have ADHD. Recent trends indicate the percentages will sharply increase. Most of the increase is due to the burgeoning diagnosis rate among children. As the rate continues to rise, parents must be aware of the advocacy responsibilities they inherit as their child navigates the turbulent waters of ADHD.
Advocacy means involvement. Involvement does not happen unless you have a deep commitment for your ADHD child's progress.

Mark Norris is a certified ADHD Coach for adults and for parents with children who have ADHD. He offers coaching in English and French, via phone or webcam. His academic background includes training in ADHD coaching along with a Master`s degree in Adult Education. A college professor for the last 15 years' teaching specialized education and coaching students doing fieldwork in this academic field, Mark's courses range from communication, counselling, alternative psychological approaches to creativity enhancements and adaptation methods for families who have children with special needs.

Advocate For Your Child's Mental Health Needs

Families seeking mental health services for troubled children in the United States today face a daunting challenge. Budgets are tight, resources are hard to access, and demand exceeds supply. In this climate, parents do well to become forceful advocates. Here are a few tips to get you started.
Scarce benefits go to those who know how to claim them. By stating your case, you can help your child while building public awareness of common problems and putting pressure on the system to improve.
Understand the System. The health insurance industry, which makes coverage unfordable for many people and only partially affordable for some, also fails to compensate providers adequately. Parents whose children have mental health issues find that many outpatient providers have abandoned poor insurance reimbursement rates in favor of fee-for-service care (self-pay).
The picture worsens at the institutional level, where low reimbursement makes it difficult for hospitals to keep psychiatric beds available. Nowadays children often languish in emergency rooms for days or weeks.
Most children entering treatment start with individual and family treatment from an outpatient therapist, who can help locate a psychiatrist if a medication evaluation seems called for. Psychiatrists are generally harder to find when the therapist is in private practice than when he or she is part of a clinic. Clinics, however, may have months-long waiting lists. Also, because staff turnover is high, you may need to tell your child's story many times as new clinicians come on board.
The next medical step after outpatient therapy is a partial hospital or extended day treatment program lasting a few hours a day, in which groups focus on teaching patients how to regulate their behavior. Acute or hospital care, usually accessed through the emergency room, is available only when children threaten to harm themselves or others.
Managed care authorizes payment for services on the basis of "medical necessity," about which providers may differ. Hospital stays are often so brief that the full effects of the medications prescribed are not apparent at discharge.
Children who cannot be stabilized quickly may be referred for subacute care-basically a short-term residential setting for assessment purposes. It is assumed that children will return home soon, whether or not the system can provide the community-based supports they need, but not all children do so.
Know Your Rights. If your family's policy includes mental health benefits, your medical insurance company is responsible for directing you to an in-network outpatient therapist and psychiatrist. If you are unable to find one or the other by calling the phone numbers supplied, your state's managed care ombudsman may be able to help.
The ombudsman may also be able to help if you suspect that your child is being discharged prematurely from an inpatient setting because insurance threatens to deny reimbursement even though your benefit has not been exhausted.
If you need other resources-a therapeutic mentor for your child, in-home help with behavior management, respite care (usually a few hours) to relieve you, or special recreational benefits with mental health dividends (tae kwon do, music or dance lessons, or horseback riding, for instance)-you may, depending on your financial situation, be able to get them by asking the state department of child-protective services to open a "voluntary services" case. (To do so you will probably need to have a therapist for your child and a diagnosis.) Physicians can sometimes prescribe in-home services from visiting nurses.
No matter how many mental health providers are involved, you, as your child's parent, are properly the captain of the treatment team. As such, you have the right to hire and fire other members. Demand respect, cooperation, and timely answers from everyone. Watch to make sure we are all doing our jobs.
If periodic crises send your child to the emergency room, ask the outpatient therapist to request all previous records of treatment. Next, with the therapist's help, write a detailed clinical summary, complete with institutions, dates, psychiatric diagnoses, and medication trials as well as medical, developmental, family, educational, social, and recreational histories.
Notify past providers of any errors that appear in the records they supplied. Use the clinical summary to inform the evaluating physician in the hospital on your next visit, and keep it up to date.
Ask clinicians in temporary settings to confer at intake with long-term outpatient providers. Keep a log on medication and other interventions tried with your child. Also document the apparent results.
If providers seem to be blaming the problems on your parenting rather than on the disorder itself, consider bringing in a homemade videotape that makes your point. If the child enters a hospital or subacute facility, tell the new institution what behavioral changes and support services you will need when he or she comes home to stay.
Locate Resources and Other Advocates. Much information about medical diagnoses, medications and side effects, and treatments for different conditions is available on the Internet. The computer at the medical school of a state university can guide you to relevant books and articles in the collection. Your state's statutes (available at the public library or online) can help you learn, for example, about laws against bullying and the legal mandate of the state's department of child-protective services.
If you skim the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV-TR), of the American Psychiatric Association, you'll see that its definitions are both symptom based and largely subjective, with a gradually increasing scientific foundation that lends support to some diagnoses but not all. (You can find the DSM-IV-TR also at the public library.)
Nonprofit institutions working on behalf of children may be able to direct you to other resources. People who have traveled the same path can save you lots of time by telling you what has worked for them. It can also be heartening to discover that you are not alone.
Surf the Web for disorder-specific sites. These frequently offer information, links, list serves, and chat rooms where people can share questions and practical advice across great distances. Various local mental health organizations sponsor support groups for individuals and families with different mental health issues.
Systemic problems have public policy implications. Consider joining one of the many parent advocacy groups. Working with others, you can help improve available resources and create new and better laws.
Make Your Voice Heard. Institutional bureaucracies grind their gears slowly. If you feel disserved by the mental health service delivery system, consider telling your story publicly.
Write a letter to the editor about something apropos that you read in the the main newspaper serving your area. If your problem affects a number of people and is urgent, you may be able to place an op-ed piece.
If you don't want to take pen in hand yourself, call a newspaper reporter or columnist, and explain why your situation merits public attention. You are especially likely to succeed when a public entity has let you down big-time.
Your advocacy efforts can direct your energies into many productive channels. Furthermore, when you assert yourself, you set a powerful example. Remember that your child is watching you to learn how to live in this world.
Society needs to hear from everyone, including children, if its changes are to be for the better. When we insist on receiving fair and equitable treatment, we honor ourselves while also serving our community, our state, and our nation.

Marcia E. Brubeck is a graduate of the University of Connecticut Schools of Law and Social Work (go Women Huskies!). Before becoming a social worker, I edited scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences, including psychology. In my spare time, I like to identify wildflowers and watch birds with my cat, Charlie W. Brown. I also enjoy taking long walks, learning about antiques, seeing art films, gardening, baking bread, and writing popular fiction and nonfiction. Learn more about me at http://www.marciabrubeck.com/