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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › What ADHD actually is
Children build an explanation whether or not you give them one, and the one they build is usually about being bad. A short, matter of fact account, ideally with a picture book made for their age, gives them something better to carry. Say what it is not as well: not a punishment, not because of anything they did, and not a thing that stops them being good at what they love.
We created man from an essence of clay (Quran 23:12). How a person is made is spoken of plainly there, and speaking plainly is what a child needs from you here too.
المؤمنون
وَلَقَدۡ خَلَقۡنَا ٱلۡإِنسَٰنَ مِن سُلَٰلَةࣲ مِّن طِينࣲ
We created man from an essence of clay
Qur’an 23:12read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A national survey of public knowledge about children's mental health problems found real gaps in what people recognise, with delays in seeking help linked to not knowing what was being looked at. Children live inside that same fog unless somebody explains. The survey measured public understanding rather than testing how to talk to a child.
Pescosolido BA, Jensen PS, Martin JK, Perry BL, Olafsdottir S, Fettes D. (2008). Public knowledge and assessment of child mental health problems: findings from the National Stigma Study-Children.. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A child who has an explanation stops needing to invent one, and the invented ones are almost always about their character.
If things fell apart when your routine did, that is information rather than a character flaw. A great deal of what was holding you together was built into the day around you.
With children, practise the hard social moment rather than explaining it. Act out asking to join a game, or losing one, a few times at home where nothing is at stake.
In any quiet practice, dhikr, prayer, sitting still, your mind will go. The practice is not staying put. It is noticing you have gone and coming back, however many times that turns out to be.