ADD Coaches Blog

Mother-to-be My Way

In a recent post I ranted a bit about the black-and-white thinking I was hearing about the practicalities of working at home with a new baby. I wanted to go back to that to talk a little bit about my own view of how it should be done.

Ok, maybe you know me better than that: I don't think it should be done any given way.

I recently read a lovely book called Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent by Meredith Small, and I do highly recommend it. This book describes itself as being about "ethnopediatrics;" I tend to think about it as a sort of anthropology of infant care. While this book seems to conclude a few things about how we were built, it does reinforce a central tenet: there is no right way of caring for an infant. There are many culturally-based and biologically-based aspects to how we parent.

Here are some things that the book seems to conclude:

• We evolved to be carried around. All those millennia of having neither strollers nor the safety of modern buildings meant we carried our infants while hunting, gathering, farming, etc. Babies tend towards wanting contact and movement.
• We evolved without infant "scheduling." Different cultures deal differently with nursing and infant feeding; depending on the necessities and customs of a given culture. Infants may either feed at will, or may have to wait a while for mama/caregiver to be able to get around to it. In more contemporary societies, we may think it's more healthful to only feed baby on a set schedule, but this is culturally-based.

Where does that leave me, as a mother-to-be? It leaves me knowing that there are options, and that baby will do fine however I feed him or otherwise care for him. There is no need to decide on principle that there is a "best" way. Taking care of myself and my business (which means taking care of my clients) can form a structure to build around. At the same time, as a coach, I can model choices that suit me and my child and family, carving out the right path for me and for us, rather than taking on the assumptions of our society of how things should be done best.

Some coaches have told me about their different ways of combining coaching with infant care; in other words, the divergent strategies that worked for them. Here are a few examples:

• Hiring a babysitter to be at the house for a block of time during which to schedule coaching calls.
• Occasionally nursing while coaching, with the knowledge and agreement of the client.
• Bringing baby to daycare.
• Scheduling a longer block with a client, with the agreement that coach will call client after she's done nursing.
• In general, being aware that baby's rhythms will change every couple of months.

It seems to me that it's going to be a fascinating and compelling exercise in flexibility and ingenuity. It also seems like there are so many people telling each other which way of operating and parenting is correct, and so much bias against e.g. nursing in public, that it becomes very important and impactful to make personal choices and to demonstrate them!

Happy Friday to you all,

Becca

www.coachbecca.com

beccacolao.typepad.com

Mother-to-be of Multitasking Shoulds

I'm 5 months pregnant, and starting to puzzle about how I'll do things like work when the baby arrives. I've been struck by how many people have such absolute ideas about how it should be done. Now I've heard the stories about how everyone professes the way you have to make each and every parenting decision. I guess I'm just surprised at how this spreads, to, well, everything.

I've been asking around, for example by posting to forums with other coaches, about how they combined coaching work at home with infant care and nursing. This brought out so many responses, some very opinionated or even rabid. Wouldn't you know it, some of these responses were from people who haven't had kids, or didn't work from home or coach when their kids were born. It made me sad and mad- how black and white people can get. Why am I telling you this here? Because a lot of what I heard people saying had to do with attention and multitasking. In short, a lot of people seem to believe it's bad  to multitask. They think it's ineffective, or possibly evil. I hope they don't coach a lot of people with ADHD, because I gotta tell you, as an ADHD coach, I help people manage and maximize the advantages of any multitasking they naturally do. For people with ADHD, it is usually about getting the right cocktail of activity or stimulation- that might include some physical activity while doing something intellectual. Or it might include background music, activity, or even television while working on something. There's even a book, Fidget to Focus, specifically about finding your optimum combos.

I don't claim to know how I'll respond to having the extra person in the house, i.e., the baby, while I'm working. I can tell you that I know that a person's very presence affects my attention and focus without my being responsible for them. That can work well or less well- it isn't about good or bad, it just depends on what works at a given time. I certainly don't know how this person specifically, i.e. my child-to-be, will act at different stages. But what I want to nip in the bud is the notion that I, or anyone, should deal with the combination of work and childcare, at home or otherwise, in particular ways. I'm hoping to collect more stories of quirky combos to that end (the quirks are what I love about this job!) , and I am so happy that I also received responses from people with more nuance than the folks who told me "it is never possible/doable/good to talk to a client when your baby is in the house/ you don't have a babysitter," or "it is unconscionable to ever even consider feeding/nursing a baby while you're on the phone with a client."  Funny thing: I never asserted that I wanted to do that, I just asked how others had handled it and experienced it. I guess I pushed the should-button nonetheless!

So coaches and everyone else, let's stick to looking for whatever on Earth works for you and forget what you think is a "bad" working habit. How can we find out what works when we're all busy judging each other?  And please, share your tales of how you did it in the comments.

Driving Stick

Well kids, it seems that having more to focus on can focus us better. I'm not surprised, and I've worked with people on this for ages. Some people can think better while chewing, or cook better with the radio on. I was very pleasantly surprised to hear that someone studied this with respect to young drivers! This is practical and useful information, where I'm used to hearing the negative from the press about, say, young drivers with ADHD having a higher risk of accidents. I've heard so often from people with ADHD that they focus better on driving with some additional stimulus- just like we focus better on a lot of things with some additional stimulus. Kudos to UVA and Dr. Cox for taking their research beyond the black-and-white!   Here's the news, this from the WCAV news website.

Driving with ADHD: Manual Transmission

June 20, 2007

Psychologists at the University of Virginia have been researching the
driving habits of teens with ADHD and, they believe the type of
transmission you choose for your child may make the difference in
serious driving situations.

"One of the problems with driving and ADHD is they can easily become
in-attentive, daydream and not pay attention to what's going on in
their driving environment," said Dr. Daniel Cox, a researcher and
doctor in UVA's Department of Psychiatric Medicine.

Doctor Cox says in-attentive drivers tend to*not pay attention to
changing traffic lights or other cars on the road.

"If you are impulsive you are more likely to run yellow lights, cut
people off, etc, also exposing yourself and others on the road to
higher risk situations," said Dr. Cox.

Researchers at UVA's Virginia Driving Safety Lab conducted tests on
teen boys age 16 to 19, who suffer from ADHD.

Dr. Cox said, "We trained them in terms of driving in automatic
transmission and or 4-speed manual transmission. Then we evaluated
their driving when they drove either or these two transmissions."

The results show that the teens drove twice as better on a manual car
than an automatic one.

"When I'm driving my manual I have to pay attention to the road more,
pay attention to my speed, so I know what gear to put it in, when I'm
slowing down, when I need to downshift. So I think it helps me focus
a lot better," said Cory Cox, a teen driver.

Dr Cox said, "I think what that says is that anything that draws the
ADHD drivers attention back to driving, what they are doing is a good
thing."

All of these experiments were conducted through the Virginia Driving
Safety Lab at UVA.

Anyone who's concerned that a medical condition may be affecting
their driving should contact the lab with further questions.

Meditation

People talk a lot about meditation is useful for ADD, and when a group of colleagues recently had an online discussion about it, I thought it was time to say something about it.

There are studies on how useful meditation is for management of ADHD symptoms and improvement of focus/attention. There is a widespread view that it's a good idea, as well. This can lead to some difficulty in the "should" department: it is something I hear clients say they should do because it'd be good for them.

The trick with studies and widespread views is that they don't apply to you as an individual; they hold true for a generalized group. The trouble with "should" is that it doesn't really say anything about whether something is good for you personally, either. It's a way of taking on pressure, without making a decision to actually do something.

Now that we have that out of the way I want to recommend a book called Moon Over Water: Meditation Made Clear  With Techniques for Beginners and Initiates. This book is very practical and outlines a variety of meditation techniques from different philosophies and strategies-- without carrying the weight of a lot of ideology. It's a book that helps people understand their options for making meditation work for them.

I know meditation doesn't work for everyone, and not all strategies work for everyone, and I know it first-hand. Before my ADD diagnosis, I tried meditation and relaxation techniques. In the middle of deep-breathing exercises, I'd get anxious or even panicky. When I tried Zen meditation, it made me anxious and hurt my head. Why? Because I was trying to quiet or even silence my mind, which basically made the mental chatter more oppressive, but not quieter. Some might tell me that with the right training and discipline, blah blah blah, I could do it. But the fact is, it wasn't working for me at all. 

I could understand what was happening after being diagnosed with ADHD- predominantly inattentive type. I was a hyperactive thinker, and willing my mind to be quiet was no different than willing the hyperactive body to be less fidgety.  The book let me understand better how I could work with my runaway  brain  while  meditating or relaxing; it is a matter of fit.

I also came to understand that sometimes it wasn't the obvious things that were relaxing or "quieting" to me. More physical activity might be more mentally quieting than sitting still. TV might be more zen-like than meditation techniques. I realized I did basically meditate in certain circumstances, like when trying to  sleep,  or oddly enough, while in the middle of a migraine and trying to deal with the pain. But I could also stop pressuring myself to do this thing that is supposedly good for me- and look instead and what works for me.

So this weekend, take the pressure off- find something that really helps you chill out. Let me know what it is for you!

Happy Friday,

Becca Colao

www.coachbecca.com
blog: beccacolao.typepad.com

Fellman's 10 Job Success Tips article

I just found Wilma Fellman's article in monster.com: 10 Job Success Tips for the Unfocused. Wilma's written a lot about careers and working with ADHD, but this article doesn't explicitly talk about ADHD. I think it's a lovely example of how you can do that- give support and suggestions to folks dealing with ADD-style challenges or with diagnosed AD/HD, without needing to refer to the label or diagnosis. While ADHD is part of the summary at the beginning of the article, the strategies are useful DSM-IV or not, and I think a lot more people will find themselves in these tips, so she's sure serving a huge audience. Here's a great example:

9. Use the Honeymoon Period
  Being new at a job is both exciting and frightening. Employers give you initial time to adjust and aren’t as demanding from the start. Use these early weeks to work hard on learning the job requirements, establishing ideal work habits, developing and implementing organizational strategies and smoothing over any potential rough spots ahead.

When I talk to diagnosed ADHD patients, we talk about how the first period at a job automatically generates focus from the excitement and novelty of the situation and tasks, even if they may become deathly boring later. We work on getting to know this dynamic in the client's work life, so it becomes clear what role it plays in their career experience and decisions, and so it can be used predictively and strategically.

Wilma talks about how to use this period strategically with great suggestions- these are opportunistic applications of that initial focus. She also names that phase without any ADHD jargon or symptoms, and gets at the generality of this experience; everyone has that initial period at work or other situation- and we can all use it to our advantage.

So the ADHD framework is just that- the label can leverage information; it can also help us look at things in terms of how we work or how we're wired. It's the matter-or-fact practical, and ADHD or not, that's a perspective we can use. Thanks Wilma!

A delightful Friday and weekend to you all from your Friday gal,
Becca Colao

www.coachbecca.com
beccacolao.typepad.com