This weeks Diet...

IMPROVING OUT OF SIGHT!!!!

Harry ate breakfast everyday this week.
Consisting of french toast or cereal with milk.

He ate lunch everyday this week too.
Nutella sandwich, yogurt, cheese and crackers, fruit snacks and apple juice.

Snacks after school have been, cookies and milk, yogurts, ritz crackers, juice, sandwich.

Dinner, he is doing a lot better too.
He had 3 peices of pizza one night
He loves, cous cous, rice, chicken, broccoli, carrots, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, lasagna, pasta with no sauce, sausage, ravioli, I try and get him to try anything once, but these are all a winner! Not bad Harry =)

Tickle Monsters....

Tummy tickles are the best! I love giving them to my boys. Thomas screams...more! More! I usually sit on his legs, pin his arms back and tickle tickle tickle the belly! So fun! He will then with tears of laughter say, that's enough! And so I stop and then he says again! we have a great time doing this.

The other day Harry saw me doing it to Harry and he started to tickle my back while I was tickling Thomas, so I let him tickle me and I laughed. Then I turned around and thought I will do the same thing to Harry, I pinned him down and started tickling, it was hilarious. He did the "I need to go potty" so off he went. In the mean time I was chasing Thomas around the house trying to catch him, Thomas was laughing and running around. Harry joined in saying, you can't get me! So I chased them both up stairs, we chased Thomas into his bedroom and tickled him on his bed. Then it was Thomas and my turn to chase Harry into his bedroom. He jumped up on his bed and the tickling began, Thomas was more just watching as I tickled Harry on the belly.

He then started screaming, mind you I always look for the cues to say it is getting to much for them or they have had enough, no signs this time. He went from laughing to screaming bloody murder! I jumped off of him really quickly, he continued to cry uncontrollably, screaming get out of my room, the joy and the fun, the playing had gone. He seemed to be furious and very upset. I asked him if he was ok and he said just leave me alone. So I left the room with him crying on his bed. Not exactly the outcome to a fun moment I was looking for. I was shocked how quickly he had gone from fun to sadness. I really didn't understand?

Not sure if he was too overwhelmed? Was feeling scarred in his safe place, his bedroom? Really didn't know why the tears and anger arouse so quickly? This mom is still puzzled over this moment!

Social Skills for Kids with ADD (ADHD)

by Cathi Cohen, LCSW

"Nobody wants to play with me."

"I never get invited to birthday parties."

"The kids were teasing me today at school."

"I don't fit in."

Sound familiar? We've all heard children say these things from time to time. Comments like these usually reflect normal growing pains. In some cases, however, children say these things on a regular basis. If that's true for your child, he may be communicating a need for help.

I have spent the last ten years as a professional counselor working with children and their parents in the area of helping children make and keep friends. So many of the children I was seeing alone in counseling had the same problem - feeling that they didn't fit in with their friends and schoolmates. I recall one eight-year-old boy saying, "I feel like I live on my OWN planet, and everyone else lives on THIS one."

Feeling alone and disconnected from peers is a distressing thing for a child to experience. And it's not only the children that suffer. Many parents also feel frustrated and hopeless at not knowing how to help their children make the friends they so strongly desire.

That's why I created Stepping Stones, a social skills group training program for children aged 7 to 12 and their parents. I have found that teaching children basic social skills not only enables them to make and keep friends more easily, it gives the children a feeling of acceptance and a sense that they're not alone in their troubles. It also helps significantly improve their self-esteem.

Having a high "Social I.Q." is extremely important for children. Good social skills enable children to get along well with others. Unfortunately, children rarely have opportunities to learn good social skills. Cooperation, empathy, conflict resolution, managing emotions, and listening skills are not commonly taught in our schools. Yet somehow society assumes that children can learn how to get along with others simply by observing others. But that doesn't always happen. For many children, complex mathematics is easier than carrying on a conversation with a peer. Learning a foreign language is a snap compared to expressing anger with words rather than actions. Solving advanced computer games is a blast while listening and responding appropriately to a friend's problem is torture. The good news is that social skills CAN be taught to children, the same way you can teach a child to read or spell. Parents can learn easy training techniques to work on with their child, and the positive results are often immediate and dramatic.

A new book entitled "Raising Your Child's Social I.Q.: Stepping Stones to People Skills for Kids," offers you tips and techniques for helping your child develop the social skills necessary to make and maintain friendships. Each chapter focuses on a specific social skill. In addition to tips on skill building,there are easy practice exercises you can do with your child to make sure he can transfer this newfound knowledge into actual social situations.

Does my child need help?

The first step in raising your child's Social I.Q. is determining whether your child exhibits specific behaviors that could be causing problems with his peers. Following are some simple questions you can ask yourself to ascertain if your child might need a little help in developing social skills:

• Does your child have trouble approaching a new group of children?

• Does your child wait for an appropriate break in the conversation before saying something?

• Does your child look others directly in the eye when speaking?

• Does your child "go with the flow" of the group - try to do what others are doing, and at the speed they're doing it?

• Does your child stand too close or too far away from other children?

• Is your child able to manage his or her emotions appropriately - without losing his cool often?

Children who have difficulty with social skills can exhibit a wide variety of behaviors. For example, your child might be like Jennifer, who doesn't have a shy bone in her body. She thinks nothing of barreling into a group of children playing kickball, grabbing the ball away, and saying, "C'mon, let's play Spud." Being too pushy or trying to change the group's activities too quickly can cause other children to react negatively to your child. At the other extreme, you may have a child like Alex, who always remains on the sidelines, watching and waiting for someone to ask him to join in. When he is asked, Alex is unsure of what role to take in the game. Alex would like to play with others, but he doesn't know how to do so. He is more comfortable playing by himself than rising to the challenge of the social arena.

DOs and DON'Ts of Social Skills

Regardless of your child's personality type, your goal is to help your child understand what constitutes good social skills. Following is a list of DOs and DON'Ts for how to join in with a group of children and make a good first impression:

DO:

• Watch others - check out what the group is doing first and determine if it's a group that you'd like to join.

• Watch yourself - make sure you appear friendly and approachable, especially in your tone of voice and your posture.

• Think of what to say ahead of time.

• Think of when to say it - wait for a break in the conversation or the game before speaking.

• Look at others straight in the eye when speaking to them.

• Go with the flow of the group.

• Find common interests and talk about them.

• Ask a question that shows interest - this makes the other child feel very special.

DON'T:

• Tease others.

• Brag about yourself.

• Criticize others.

• Take charge and try to control the behavior of other children.

• Stand too close or too far away from other children.

• Disrupt the game.

Sit down with your child and review the DOs and DON'Ts lists. Ask your child if he can come up with other DOs and DON'Ts to add to the list. Focus on the DOs of good social skills, praising your child when he exhibits an appropriate behavior.

One way to reinforce good behavior is to role-play at home. Reverse roles often so that your child gets the chance to play not only himself, but also the role of the other person. This gives your child the opportunity to see things from another person's perspective - an essential element in a child's understanding of his behavior and its impact on others.

How Parents Can Help

Often children are unable to manage the details of running a social life on their own. With a little bit of advance planning, you can help make your child's social life more like a playground than a battlefield. The following tips will help:

• Work on ONLY one social skill at a time - wait until one goal is mastered before you move on to the next goal.

• Reward your child when he makes progress. Look HARD to find any small, yet noticeable, signs of improvement.

• Carefully arrange a supervised, time-limited, date for your child to spend with other children to practice newly learned social skills.

• Review social goals with your child PRIOR to social outings. For instance, "Tell me, Andrew, what are you going to do when you first get to the birthday party?" "Well, Dad, I'm going to walk up to the birthday boy and wish him a Happy Birthday. Then I'm going to walk over to where the other kids are playing and ask them if I can join them." "That's right, Andrew, you've got it!"

• Help your child nurture ONE or TWO friendships through more regular contact.

• Involve your child's teachers and guidance counselors in helping to reinforce social goals. For example, teachers can use check-off sheets to give you daily feedback on progress, as well as to encourage accountability and consistency in your child.

• Invite your child's friend to a HIGHLY attractive activity - for instance, the movies or an amusement park. This type of invitation is more likely to be accepted rather than rejected.

• Videotape or audiotape your child at home. Reviewing these tapes with your child allows children to see themselves as others see them.

• Encourage sibling cooperation. Sibling relationships often provide a "safer" arena in which to practice new social skills.

• Continually stress the importance of keeping promises and commitments to others.

• With gentle reminders, help your child return phone calls to friends.

With concerted effort and diligent practice, children CAN learn social skills and raise their Social I.Q. When children have good social skills, they get along better with their peers, develop positive self-esteem, and are more likely to experience both social and professional success as adults.

Fish Oil....need those Omega 3's

http://www.evitamins.com/product.asp?pid=5937

Need to get some ASAP!!!!

5 Simple Things

September 11th, 2009 | Author: Brenda

Living life with ADHD can be hard at times, but hey, life can be hard for anyone, ADD or not.

You can take medication to manage your ADHD, hire a coach or see a therapist, or you can just try to get along the best you can.

Here are 5 simple things that can help your ADHD as well as some of the other “gifts” that might come with it.

1. Take your vitamins. Vitamin C and the B vitamins are especially important. Vitamin D can help with depression if that comes along with your ADHD. A combination of flaxseed and vitamin C has been shown to be effective in managing behavior, restlessness, and impulsivity. Zinc has also been shown to be effective. Start with a good multi-vitamin and take it from there. Oh, and some fish oil would be helpful, too.

2. Drink more water. (No, Diet Coke doesn’t count.) It’s my personal belief that adequate hydration throughout the day helps your brain function more efficiently. Try to get your 6-8 glasses throughout the day. Instead of filling up one of those giant sized water bottles, use a small Dixie cup instead. The ones they sell for the kitchen are about 7-9 ounces – one serving of water – and they’re far less intimidating.

3. Move! No – don’t sell your house – move your body. This isn’t exercise for weight loss or punishment, this is moving for your brain. Exercise can have a significant effect on your ADHD symptoms, and unlike exercising for weight control, you don’t have to do intense cardio for 30 minutes to see results. Take a walk most days and try to speed up the pace just a little. Walking outside is the best; I think being out in nature really soothes the ADD soul.

4. Make protein a priority. ADHD brains function better on a diet that is high in lean protein. Having some protein at breakfast and lunch is most effective, since most of us use our brains more during that part of the day. Protein doesn’t have to mean meat – there are lots of other sources out there including protein drinks.

5. Be who you are. As ADDers, we can spend a lot of our time focusing on our symptoms and monitoring ourselves for slip ups or ADD moments. You are who you are for a reason, and it’s OK for you to be you, ADD and all. Spend less time thinking about how ADHD makes life harder and more time appreciating the unique and wonderful person that you are.

Head Phones

I can't rememeber if we have posted about this before, but when Harry is in a overwhelming situation with too much audio stimulation we have started giving him an old set of headphones to wear to block out the sound. It has helped prevent his emotional outbursts while playing greatly. It also helps him to stay calm in a otherwise over whelming environment, like the school bus.
He now has a small MP3 player that he takes on the bus with him, it has a relaxing sounds cd on it, to help him stay calm and focused. It has made the difference. His anxiety has dropped a little too, when it came time to getting on the bus or playing with his brother he always showed signs of worry about the noise level that comes with doing these things, the headphones have made it one less thing for him to stress over. I say they are a hit! success!

Harry's first visit to see Dr. Klokeid.

Besides the flu shot at the end of the appointment, it went really well.
I was able to share a lot about Harry's medical/special needs history with her, as well as talking, she got to see his quirky behavior first hand. He headbutted the wall and was acting a little hyper during the visit today. It was nice to feel like it wasn't all in my head but yes it really does happen.

I had to explain to her that he converses and interacts best with adults, especially when it is in a one on one environment like this. Its when there is a lot of distraction, in a uncontrolled environment, with lots of people ie, his class or school bus, he just doesn't cope, he will not make eye contact with others and will not easily talk with other children. He finds it very hard to make friends because of this. So in seeing him in such a wonderful environment that brings out his best, that she may not see the real Harry. but luckily he did come out!

I shared all the normal stuff that share with all the dr's we've seen. His behavior/emotional/social/cognitive/OT issues. She was surprised that it has taken this long to get the right help for him and was more than shocked when I shared with her the findings from Children's.

Dr K has suggested he sees a neurophysiology who we will try and set up with next. Also to get an allergy test as he has horrible postnasal drip which could also be adding to his behavior and problems. He needs on going therapy and someone working on his case to give him the on going help he needs. Hopefully then we will figure out how to help him best.

I loved how Dr K says this is a new start, that we will do everything we can to get him the help he needs. such a difference to Pediatrics Ass. We are moving ahead, boy it feels great!!!

Now just waiting to get some contacts from her, she is all about getting us referrals and making it work!!! He is also on a antihistamine for the nasal drip, so will call them in a week to let them know who that is going.

Dr Guy Oram Neurophysiology
Could be a good option for getting further testing on Harrison. Seems to have a more thourgh procedure than children's hospital. Initial visit, meeting parents, child and teacher, second and third meeting with the child and fourth is the evaluation findings. So much better than a 20min eval. lets cross our fingers on this lead.

Dr Guy Oram
Kirkland
ph. 425 576 1817
e. droram@droram.net
www.droram.net