A.D.D. And A.D.H.D. Back in the Day
A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. are terms that weren’t around in my childhood. I suppose that had they been, I would have been a labeled child.
I vividly remember my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. B., blocking in my desk with a cut up cardboard box. I hated her and her effort to make me focus on my school work. The three flaps of cardboard surrounded me cuing the whole classroom in that I was a misfit. I was humiliated to say the least.
My little walled in world was lonely and I shed a few tears in my box. However, being the creative little “brat” that I was, my walls soon became my voice. Instead of focusing on my studies, I doodled and wrote on my cell walls.
I refused to do homework for her class. She made me stay in her room and miss art, music and physical education. I only rebelled more. While missing P.E. didn’t upset me much, my favorite teachers were in art and music and I very much missed them. Morris and Earnest Collins were cousins and it was obvious that they were both meant to teach.
Mom and dad divorced when I was eight years old and I longed for a father figure in my world. Seeing my daddy once or twice a year didn’t cut it. Perhaps that is why I had a special liking for Morris Collins (the art teacher).
As I look back on that time in my youth I am thankful they hadn’t invented the diagnosis or the drugs for attention deficit or hyperactivity disorders. I am pretty sure I had no disorder other than a teacher that balked at my wanting to learn differently than she was able to teach.
Medications anger me for the most part. I’ve studied them up close and personal for twenty plus years in my nursing career. There are so many avoidable side effects that come along with each little pill or potion on the market. So needless when proper nutrition and exercise can cure most of what ails us, or prevent illness in the first place.
My beautiful young grandson was given some of those meds and had heart palpitations and chest pains before he was ten years old. I was more than furious with society at that point. His “box” was in the form of a tablet that could have very well killed him. My cardboard box hurt my feelings, his “box” may continue to have ill effects on him for a lifetime.
Now mind you, I do have the prejudice of a grandma’s perspective here. My grandson is an awesome young chap with a creative mind. Sitting with him for any length of time, you will hear his multitude of ideas relating to robot building, bible studies, his career ideas and so much more. He is a thinker and a dreamer much like myself.
The only thing that made me angrier than squelching his creative mind with prescription dope was the fact that they were damaging his health.
Spanking has become all but taboo now. I firmly believe that some well applied “heat to the seat” can alter more negative behavior with a more positive outcome. A good old fashioned spanking cured many temper tantrums and unruly behaviors in my day. Oddly enough, no one ever had a heart attack or got diabetes or any other illness from receiving one either.
I guess I am officially “old school” now. I still flit from subject to subject during conversations. I still balk at being told what to do. In spite of being a reasonably productive adult, I am still day dreaming at almost fifty.
