my sons school actually does the exercise while you study approach. After breakfast and before class they all do stretches and light exercises while reviewing things like sight words, numbers and letters, math problems, spelling and vocab words. Depending on the grade of course. Its pretty neat and seems like it works a bit.
That is so cool. I could have used that. I am ADD and have some of the hyper thrown in too. I learned to vibrate in place though instead of bouncing around a room because I didn't want to have a "meeting" in the hall. I liked tapping my pencil when studying but it drove other folks nuts. I had to substitute bouncing my knee. Funny thing was that that is my response to being intensely interested in the subject at hand. Not bored or distracted. I want to get in and physically wrestle with the information. You see me behaving like a "normal" student and the subject is probably boring me to tears.
I found coping methods without drugs or professional counseling (they didn't even recognize the syndrome in the '70's). As an adult I used Ritalin for about 7 years. I abandoned it after menopause because it eats your bones. Ritalin is pharmaceutical Meth my friends. It works for a short period but it wreaks a heavy toll on the body system in the long term. It can destroy the teeth and weaken the bones. I am not saying that their is no place for it but not in children. It can jump start you from a low place where you don't see a way of coping to a place where you can but then it needs to be abandoned.
That can be psychologically more difficult than physiologically. I missed the energy and clarity of thought. It has taken me a year and a half of experimenting to change my diet and take vitamin supplements to get my energy and thought processes approaching what they were on the Ritalin. But I am not loosing teeth anymore. If you are dealing with a child with ADD or HADD please try diet and vitamin and herb supplements before jumping on the Ritalin bandwagon. Teaching a kid coping mechanisms that redirect those intense bursts of energy and give him CONTROL over his own life are EXTREMELY important and I believe vastly underused and underrated.
My broody hen crushed/suffocated most of her poults overnight! She just seems to be sitting on them too tight. Is that common with hens brooding poults? I rescued the remaining poults from her and moved them to the basement brooder box. (The 2 chicks she has seem fine.)
I hope this year goes better.
