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6th out of 46 books
—
16 voters
Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention
by
Katherine Ellison (Goodreads Author)
“An absorbing, sharply observed memoir.”
—Kirkus Reviews
A hilarious and heartrending account of one mother’s journey to understand and reconnect with her high-spirited preteen son—a true story sure to beguile parents grappling with a child’s bewildering behavior.
Popular literature is filled with the stories of self-sacrificing mothers bravely tending to their challenging ch...more
—Kirkus Reviews
A hilarious and heartrending account of one mother’s journey to understand and reconnect with her high-spirited preteen son—a true story sure to beguile parents grappling with a child’s bewildering behavior.
Popular literature is filled with the stories of self-sacrificing mothers bravely tending to their challenging ch...more
Hardcover, 304 pages
Published
October 5th 2010
by Voice
(first published September 17th 2010)
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"Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention tells the oldest story in the world, a story familiar to anyone who has read the Old Testament, Greek myths, or Shakespeare's tragedies. It's the story of a wayward, willful child and a parent driven to desperation, a story of full-force collision between an older generation's best intentions and a younger generation's intractable resistance.
Katherine Ellison's new memoir, however, takes a distinctly modern turn. Buzz, Ellison's twelve-year-old son (and the wayw...more
Katherine Ellison's new memoir, however, takes a distinctly modern turn. Buzz, Ellison's twelve-year-old son (and the wayw...more
Full disclosure: I have three children (all girls) and none of them have ADD. Which is good, because from Katherine Ellison's description, ADD (especially in boys) absolutely sucks. Absolutely. Sucks.
(In all honesty, I wondered a bit about Ms. Ellison. There is just the merest hint of the unreliable narrator there: I got the slightest soupcon, the tiniest suspicion, that perhaps she is a somewhat inconsistent mother. I do not AT ALL condemn her for her confessed lapses - saying "shut up" and so...more
(In all honesty, I wondered a bit about Ms. Ellison. There is just the merest hint of the unreliable narrator there: I got the slightest soupcon, the tiniest suspicion, that perhaps she is a somewhat inconsistent mother. I do not AT ALL condemn her for her confessed lapses - saying "shut up" and so...more
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One mother's journey to help her teenage son, diagnosed with ADHD, find something that works -- to help him academically, to save her sanity and to foster family peace. Ellison seems to present a balanced and realistic approach to finding solutions, even exploring a number of options too expensive to be used by the average North American. She has a love-hate relationship with ADHD medications, a view which accurately represents the experience of many parents of children with ADHD. Interestingly,...more
"Buzz" is a memoir about how the author, following an escalating family struggle that resulted in her son's complete and utter meltdown, decides to take a year off from other projects and focus solely on understanding him and helping him learn to cope with his ADD - and, not so incidentally, tackle her own struggles with the same disorder. Some of her approaches are well-meant but flawed while others show a great deal of promise, but throughout the process we get to see her learning and growing...more
I thought this book was awesome - I believe that Ms. Ellison was not just speaking to the issues with which Buzz had to navigate, but how her own distraction was lending to both her problem and Buzz's defiance. I enjoyed the balance between her interpretation of her own actions and gaining insight to how Buzz might feel when he was acting out (the 9-1-1 call to the police comes to mind).
I also found this book to contain a lot of useful information about the variety of treatments and information...more
I also found this book to contain a lot of useful information about the variety of treatments and information...more
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This book is - literally - changing my life. It's so close to my life and so close to much of Eli's life that, at times, I feel really proud of this great memoir I have written and then...I remember that I did not write it. I highly recommend it to any & all. I'd loan you my copy, but then I would have to part with it and stop underlining and crying all over it.
I really enjoyed this book! I am a little skeptical of the ADD/ADHD diagnosis, because so many people/children are labeled this way without much evidence to back it up. However, I related to quite a bit of what Ellison had to say. For example, since I made the move from full-time professional mom to stay-at-home-mom, I totally get her analogy of running daily sprints to running a long old marathon. Also, while it seems a little trite and obvious, kids certainly become what they live around. When...more
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I debated giving this 4 stars. Maybe it's more like a 3.5 stars. The reason I didn't rate it higher is maybe more because I identified a little too closely with Ellison. The breakneck pace of her thoughts mirrors mine fairly well, although my ADD doesn't come with the temper impulse control (any more). It made for uncomfortable reading. And a smidgen scary, as I'm not a parent yet and it has definitely crossed my mind that being my scatterbrained self with a child who is equally scatterbrained m...more
The author has a way of writing that makes you feel like you are going through what she is going through. I enjoyed this book because I felt that I wasn't the only parent doubting my parenting abilities amongst the craziness of dealing with a child who has special needs. I have spent so much time telling myself all the mistakes I have made with my son but by the end of the book I felt like I could take the time to look at the good things that I do. I take more time to hug my son and listen to hi...more
This could be a useful book for a parent of an ADD child -- the author tries almost every treatment option and reports back on what worked. However -- look, I don't want to be snotty, but in my opinion, her kid isn't just suffering from attention disorder, he's also kind of awful. He's not just distracted, he's MEAN: to his parents, to his brother, and to other kids. He reminds me of the boys in my elementary school (all of them, oddly, named "Butch") who made fun of girls and smaller boys, shov...more
I enjoyed reading this because it was thoughtful, informative, and very well written. Ellison has a gift for writing about things that made me cringe without ever letting me feel like she was whining or feeling sorry for herself. If I behaved with my children (I have none yet) as she sometimes behaved, I wouldn't be able to talk to my close friends about it, much less expose myself in such a manner in a book. But she did and I am glad. The writing was engaging and excellent all the way around an...more
I get so mad when someone writes a book promising to do a certain thing for an entire year or accomplish some task, and then doesn't do that promised thing. I could write scores of books about stuff I'm not actually going to do. I'm going to spend the next year on the moon! Where's my advance?
In Buzz, Ellison is supposed to be taking a year off to concentrate on her son's behavioral issues, and her own, too. Instead she takes several consulting jobs, starts construction on her house, and goes o...more
In Buzz, Ellison is supposed to be taking a year off to concentrate on her son's behavioral issues, and her own, too. Instead she takes several consulting jobs, starts construction on her house, and goes o...more
For someone looking into the pros and cons of various ADHD diagnosis and treatments, this is packed with lots of first-hand research, along with experience in giving many of treatments a try. The willingness of the author to share her personal experiences and those of her family members is admirable. That her son had made some significant progress toward the end was definitely a positive. That said, I’m not sure how to rate it. Probably in the range of 3 to 4, definitely a 4+ for giving a range...more
Definitely liked. Quick read. I believe there are other dietary solutions other than suggested, and biofeedback is just not an alternative to most. I related greatly with the author of a mother of two boys being born at the same stage of my life, and understanding of her distraction. I think her attempt to pay attention is more of an attempt to find solutions beyond paying attention. She learns on this journey that she spends more time with Buzz (instead of avoiding him) which probably has a gre...more
Katherine Ellison, after a particularly notable argument with her son, decides to spend a year "paying attention" to his and as well as her own apparent ADHD. She writes of their experiences trying the various alternative and traditional approaches for the clinically distracted- as she calls it. I really enjoyed was being able to read through her accounts of the different approaches they tried for her son "Buzz" and her very direct opinions about how and why they worked or didn't for her family-...more
This is the right book at the right time for me -- even so, it is a terrific book. The author is an "old-style" print journalist so everything is meticulously researched. It's also a very personal story as she spends a year plus investigating and trying many different therapies to treat ADD/ADHD for both her and her son -- from drugs to neurofeedback to meditation and others.
Interesting to read even if you don't have any ADD in your life because the subject gets a lot of press and is still not...more
Interesting to read even if you don't have any ADD in your life because the subject gets a lot of press and is still not...more
This book hit the mark with me as I am dealing with several members of my family with ADHD. What I appreciated more than anything was Ellison's willingness to open up her family struggle and consider how her issues and her son's created a toxic brew.
If you have a family member, co-worker or are an educator dealing with these kids, you should read this book. It will give you insight into both what can and possibly cannot be done due to the limitations of the disorder and financial cost of treati...more
If you have a family member, co-worker or are an educator dealing with these kids, you should read this book. It will give you insight into both what can and possibly cannot be done due to the limitations of the disorder and financial cost of treati...more
Thank you, Robin Aronson, for pointing me toward this! I love Ellison's blend of reporting and first-person funny -- she's ike a more rigorous and less jokey Mary Roach. I trust her journalism (hello, Pulitzer) and respect the mix of hope and skepticism with which she approaches her kid's ADHD. Full disclosure, I don't have a child with ADD or ADHD (and I don't have a son) so part of me clings to the idea that some of his behavior was not a clinical disorder but rather the result of him being an...more
I've had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) as far back as I can remember, even though I was never officially diagnosed until I was 21. I always assumed -- as did others -- that I was simply forgetful and continually bored. A year after my diagnosis, Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention, opened my eyes to the world of attention deficit with anecdotes I could relate to; like never remembering where you put the car keys and not being able to "tune in" to something someone is saying even though you reall...more
Beautifully written, brutally honest and self-deprecating, often emotionally raw, this book captures at least a taste of the joys and frustrations of both having ADHD and living with someone who has ADHD. Not to mention the extra dose of additional anguish and maternal angst we mothers tend to feel when we see our children hurting. I saw so much of my son in Buzz.
Besides trying neurofeedback (probably prohibitively expensive for us), my greatest take away as a parent is to slow down and be prese...more
Besides trying neurofeedback (probably prohibitively expensive for us), my greatest take away as a parent is to slow down and be prese...more
I began to read BUZZ the moment it came in the mail. Well, after I had taken it out of mailman's hand. I had no idea whether the book would make me want to read, read, read or whether the book would make me want to sleep, sleep, sleep. Thankfully, BUZZ BY Katherine Ellison is well written. Although, the subject Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder shortened to ADD is a complicated illness. The book is just the opposite. There are moments throughout the memoir when I laughed, cried, questione...more
This is an incredible book. The author, Katherine Ellison, whose son has ADD and ODD (oppositional defiant disorder) and who has been told by others that she may have ADD herself, takes off a whole year from work to try to find the best thing to do in order to cope. She calls her son Buzz for the book in order to protect his identity.
Her son had become impossible to live with, he was having numerous trantrums, abusing his younger brother, demanding expensive toys and clothes, getting into troubl...more
Her son had become impossible to live with, he was having numerous trantrums, abusing his younger brother, demanding expensive toys and clothes, getting into troubl...more
The stories are interesting, and her perspective is really helpful for understanding the approach that parents of children with ADD sometimes take. Her struggle with whether to medicate her son and her description of alternative treatments were really interesting.
My only gripe with the book is her constant harping on public education as her older son struggles. While she notes that her younger son--without ADD--does well in school and has teachers gushing about his performance, she fails to see...more
My only gripe with the book is her constant harping on public education as her older son struggles. While she notes that her younger son--without ADD--does well in school and has teachers gushing about his performance, she fails to see...more
I enjoyed Katherine Ellison's memoir, though it seemed (to me) a bit less about her journey with Buzz and more about her journey with herself. I also think that some of the treatments she pursues would be out of the question for those without substantial financial means, so they are not really a true option for everyone. Still, I really enjoyed her bringing her journalist's eye to the history of ADHD as well as shedding some light on the labyrinth of treatments and social misunderstanding and st...more
Buzz by Katherine Ellison is a true story of Katherine who takes a year off from her job to pay attention and be with her son, Buzz, who has Attention Disorder Deficit (ADD). Katherine finds out she has ADD too. She tries to help both Buzz and herself.
I think this is a great book for parents going through this because there are lots of tips and resources in it. It's a good story too! I'm rooting for you, Buzz!
I think this is a great book for parents going through this because there are lots of tips and resources in it. It's a good story too! I'm rooting for you, Buzz!
This book is by an investigative journalist who has ADD as well as her son. I loved her style: quick- paced and witty. I learned a lot about how people with ADD function, especially their struggles. She goes through every possible method of getting help for this condition, including Dr. Amen's brain scanning technique. Every classroom teacher needs to read this...and parents of any child who has ADD.
Really 3.5 stars. Honest and heart felt, Ellison's memoir describes daily predicaments of parenting and experiencing ADHD. Ellison delves into the biology of the brain, the search for help, and describes a courage to love unconditionally (except when maddened) the unique gifts and quirkier irritations of the ADHD mind. She is funny and warm. Anyone with or parenting an ADHD mind must read.
Aug 02, 2011
Dawn
added it
This memoir, by Pulitzer prize winning journalist Katherine Ellison, is essentially about her journey to help her pre-teen son with ADD but it is really a book EVERY mother should read. It encourages mindfulness in parenting and then shows us in detail the powerful changes it makes in family life. Her writing is extremely educational and well-documented as well as insightful.
In working with individuals with mental illness, it seems that ADHD is over-diagnosed in children. I was hoping this book would give a different look at the disorder. However, for the writer to be a journalist, her writings were unimaginative, not insightful, and quite boring. Since it is a memoir, it is expected that the writer focus on herself but I was wanting more.
Written by an accomplished journalist, this book chronicles the author's trials at dealing with her son's and her own ADD. What I liked most about this book is cleverness at combining psychological observations with more general social commentary. What I found confusing was understanding what part of the book was the specific Year of Paying Attention.
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Katherine Ellison is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, former foreign correspondent, writing consultant, and author of four books, including The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes You Smarter. The mother of two sons, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area."
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