Penny Williams's Blog, page 58
June 16, 2014
Chill Skills: Calming my emotional child with ADHD
In our household, we find ourselves saying, “Is it really worth all that?” to our son, Ricochet. His responses to frustration and social issues are often overdone for an 11-year-old boy. This is due to his ADHD and learning disabilities, and can usually be tracked back to two triggers:an overly sensitive emotional reactionor the inability to handle a small amount of frustration appropriately.
My son is overwhelmed with emotion sometimes, and has trouble labeling his feelings. You can’t d...
June 9, 2014
Banishing the mom uniform
Her unkempt hair, too short for a ponytail, hides under a navy blue Yankees hat more often than not. Her go-to outfit is a loose pair of black yoga pants and an athletic shirt cut to flatter her curves instead of highlightthem. Makeup is a luxury she rarely makes time for. This describes many stay-at-home and work-at-home moms in a self-care slump. It describes me. It’s no-muss no-fuss comfort. That is my mom-is-always-last outfit — my mom uniform. I’m juggling four businesses to make e...
June 6, 2014
Blog Tour Recap, Book Excerpts, & Reviews
I have been featured all over the place this week to celebrate the official launch of Boy Without Instructions: Surviving the Learning Curve of Parenting a Child with ADHD. The ADHD and parenting blogospherehave been kind enough to publish their own reviews of my book, excerpts from the book, guest posts I wrote, and even product reviews and giveaways. Please show your appreciation of their support of the ADHD community by visiting their websites — they all offer something unique and be...
June 3, 2014
Blog Tour, Days 2 & 3: “Boy Without Instructions”
The reception of Boy Without Instructions: Surviving the Learning Curve of Parenting a Child with ADHD remains warm and welcoming. Many fellow bloggers have embraced the book with open arms, and I’m forever grateful to them for their support.
First today, we have an excerpt from Boy Without Instructions on Gifted with ADD. Margit Crane has a wonderful website on living with ADHD and being gifted. Here’s your chance to read a section of Boy Without Instructions before buying.
Second is a r...
Excerpt: “Boy Without Instructions,” I’m a reformed helicopter mom
Hi. My name is Penny Williams… and I’m ahelicopter mom.
Excuse me,I wasahelicopter mom. I worked very hard to reform this behavior and relinquish my pilot’s license. Ihate flying anyway!
Bydefinition, ahelicopter parentis: “amotherorfatherthathoversoverachild;anoverprotectiveparent.”
Yep, that was me alright. I was a master hoverer. My son, Ricochet’s ADHD counselor had bee...
June 1, 2014
Blog Tour, Day 1: addmoms, a mom’s view of ADHD, ADHD parenting blog
There are two reviews of my new book, Boy Without Instructions: Surviving the Learning Curve of Parenting a Child with ADHD online today, part of my week-long blog tour to celebrate the book’s official release. As well, I wrote about the thread that connects parents raising children with ADHD on {a mom’s view of ADHD}, as well.
First, click over to the ADHD Parenting Blog and see what Crystal took away from reading the book. She says:
“Penny’s book was suspenseful –I was on the edge of m...
May 31, 2014
Happy Book Release Day to ME!
You can’t see me right now (fortunately), but I’m doing a great, big happy dance. I did it — I wrote a book and made it to the finish line. Since I was 15 I wanted to write and publish. At 15, I thought I’d be living in Malibu and writing soap opera scripts for Day of Our Lives. Thankfully, that dream morphed into a grown-up ambition, and one with great purpose.
When my son, Ricochet, was diagnosed with ADHD nearly six years ago, I turned to the world wide web for answers and support. I...
May 28, 2014
My annual end-of-school-year plea to end the madness
Parents everywhere are inevitably anxious for school to end by the first of May. Parents of kids with ADHD and learning disabilities get a jump on this. I don’t know about you, but my desire to reach the end of a school year starts in November, about a month after the honeymoon period ends. By mid-November, I’m counting down the days until Thanksgiving break. By early December, I’m holding my breath in anticipation of the holiday hiatus. It keeps going downhill until I reach a point of...
May 21, 2014
Peeling back the onion: ADHD, SPD, Dysgraphia, Autism
It’s pretty common knowledge that many individuals with ADHD will have co-occurring mental health or developmental conditions (also called comorbid conditions), like oppositional defiance disorder (ODD), sensory processing disorder (SPD), learning disabilities, anxiety, depression, bipolar, tourette’s, and more. The CDC states that as many as 30-60% of children diagnosed with ADHD will have at least one comorbid condition. With that statistic in mind, parents must be diligent to discove...
May 15, 2014
Top 10 Books on ADHD for Parents
Parents are sent out into the world with a prescription and maybe a fact sheet or two when their child is diagnosed with ADHD. There’s no manual or guidebook for this special parenthood. We are thrust into it blind, and we usually take a beating before we get it figured out. I’m working on a guidebook of sorts for parenting a child with ADHD, but until I can get it finished and available, the following 10 books have been my greatest resources to learn to effectively parent my son, Ricoc...
