COTUM V4, Play: ForewardIntroIn today’s world, before students are classified with a formal...

COTUM V4, Play: Foreward

Intro

In today’s world, before students are classified with a formal disability, they must meet impact criteria in two of three areas: Home, School and Play.  For older kids or adults, Work issues may be factored in. 

We looked at life at Home in Volume 1, and life at School in Volume 2.  It’s Play time, now.    

For kids with ADHD, this presents a powder keg of possibilities and contradictions.  Kids with the ADHD often long to play freely with others.  Problem is, that the average kid in the early years can’t tolerate or keep up with kids stricken with squirrel flu.  Hence, kids longing to play with others, often are left to play alone.  One way or another, most play situations with kids with focus issues will lead to some level of misery; for either party.

It’s no secret that misery loves company.  My 47 years on this earth have reinforced this cliché, continually reminding me that some things become clichés for a reason.  I’m not sure why misery got this particular cliche all to itself, because a whole lot of things in life are looking for company.  

Mischief Loves Company

While misery longs to drag others down into its sad abyss, it’s mischief that truly adores company.  Working in education for over 20 years as an adult only reinforced this principle.  Mischief doesn’t just love company, it hordes it.  It’s rare to find a wayward scramblehead land themselves in solitary trouble.  I’d just as soon let the miserables have their pity party.   I was more interested in finding others with a penchant for following or a similar hatred of boredom, and convert it into actual trouble.  

I’m not sure why, but trouble sure seems less imposing when you go into it with others.  In reality, it is the polar opposite.  This is no more true than if you are a teenage boy.  As the lowest form of human life and development on the cognitive totem pole, mischief is subject to a torrent of impulses that might as well take out an ad on Facebook and advertise whatever illegal activity has occurred.  More accurately, company to mischief is a false security blanket.  Why get in trouble by yourself as you the break laws of man and nature, when you can do it with friends, acquaintances and associates? Sharing is caring, after all.  Even in chicanahry.

My youth resonated with this undeniable truth.  This meant a litany of woes not just for me, but for my friends and allies as well.  I was many things, but a loner in mischief was rarely one of them.   My teenage years would see a world of police tickets, groundings, suspensions and laughter rack up with impressive totals.  I’m not sure I was alone for a single one of them.  Someone was always along as an accomplice, even if behind the scenes.  I didn’t do my best work alone, that’s for sure.  Be it feeding off of the ideas of others, or sharing duties in the ritualistic slaughter of boredom, I was a total team player.  Once I hit high school, it seemed as if I was never far away from someone willing to take a bad idea and run with it with me.  

That’s mostly because I was rarely alone.  

Once I got through the monotony of the church-tinged grade and middle school years, I exploded into the truer version of myself that would stick around into adulthood.  The church years left me knowing I didn’t want to be at home much.  The result was the development of a military-grade echo location system, perpetually searching for the closest party, group of people to tag along with or distraction to jump into.  If there was a keg party being held in a 25 mile radius, I was going to find out about it.  

Furthermore, if there was a migrating pack of reasonably attractive girls foraging through town, my radar would find it. If there were teenage thrill seekers testing the limits and patience of adults, that too would be caught by my sonar.  Outside of common sense, decency, ethics, religion, morals and academic instruction, not much got past me.  

Spittin’ Wisdom

This was a stark contrast to the means in which I was raised.

Growing up, my mother liked to “spit wisdom” as today’s youth might say.  Typically, these were alleged to be straight from the sacred Christian bible.  My parents were pretty standard boomers, with their various predictable boomer phases.  They had the softball phases, poker phases, brandy phases, bowling league phases, ethnic food phases, and the like.  Oh, and Jesus.  That was the biggun’.

Religion was one of many, and ran concurrently with bemoaning all their youthful fun.  I am not sure why so many boomers wanted to forget the fun they took part in as they aged, situational amnesia runs rampant among them.  My parents were no different.  Their uniqueness came in that they took it to epic levels of judgment and fear-mongering.  It’s a dangerous mix when fueled by insecurities and guilt. What better way to share the gift of insecurity, guilt and judgment by taxing your children with it.  

And tax they did.  We got hit with one for just about every fun thing they did in their youth.  Would have been a lot more fun to be issued the impunity they so enjoyed at the time, but no such luck for the Tomes children.  Somehow, they convinced themselves that they could make their transgressions right by God by making us feel bad for doing the same thing.  I see what they did there.   My mom spit so many sayings and verses at us, it was hard to tell what was straight from her bible and what was just a bunch of shit she made up.   She had a lecture dart poisoned and ready to toss our way for just about any fun that crossed paranoia-driven radar.   At its zenith, she threw these with such frequency that it whittled away the credibility of everything she said.  Some were easier to separate from others.  

For instance, I don’t proclaim to be a Christian Historian or biblical scholar, but was fairly sure that KYPIYP, standing for ‘keep your pecker in your pants’, wasn’t from the book of Psalms.  Palms, maybe.  Not Psalms.  No way, no how.

Still, the damnations began to wear on us though.  To that end, I had not yet divorced myself fully from the imposed Christianity they branded us with, so they stung a little more than they should’ve.  Eventually, when you’ve been told daily you will go to hell for drinking or pre-marital sex, you’re going to start believing it.  Especially if you start both of those activities at an early age.   By age 14, I was an 85 lb gangsta that had dabbled in both. By my mom’s math, I had punched a one-way ticket to hell.  Once that’s in place, there’s not much to worry about as far as self-regulation goes.  

To be clear, the approach didn’t work out too well.  If at age 14 you are convinced that your salvation is somehow now on permanent layaway plan, all it did was eliminate a hurdle in the race to kill boredom.  

Show Me Who You Go With

As I aged, I learned much of the “biblical” schtick she battered us with, wasn’t even biblical.  Her favorite sure sounded like it came from God.  Her most frequent go-to was “show me who you go with, I’ll show you who you are”.  I don’t think my mother ever considered the possibility that it was her child that was the lynch pin of evil influence on others.  Beyond that, her faux bible verse wasn’t without some wisdom.

If it rings true, I am everyone.  

I went to high school in the 1980’s, when cliques ruled the land.  Somehow, I transcended that trend and found a way to hang out with everyone.   When my energy level, non-stop talking or annoying behaviors wore everyone out in one group, I was onto the next.  I’d hang out with anyone; anything to simply not be stuck at home and alone.

Growing up in Northern and Central Wisconsin didn’t provide much of a chance to develop racial or cultural diversity in your peer group.  That said, what I lacked in diversity on that front, I made up for in personalities.  I would be hanging out with the school valedictorian one day, leather-clad crusties the next.  I got bored with people in a hurry if just with jocks, or just with nerds.  The end result was a constantly evolving and very eclectic group of people I considered friends.  That trend never stopped and still true as I approach age 50.  There’s such a wide variety of ages, races, backgrounds and interests among my closest friends that even I kind of wonder how the hell that happened.  

I grew up in small towns with small public high schools. This meant supply and demand would play a role in peer group development.  Both schools clocked in at under 500 students, meaning your options were limited from the start.  It wasn’t so dissimilar from the concept behind Pokemon;  gotta catch ‘em all. By the time I graduated, I would spend time with just about every native clique within each school.  I might not have been a charter member, but I logged an awful of time as card carrying members of various social troupes within the two schools I went to.   To fully defeat the enemy in the war on boredom required  you cross familiar friend genres frequently.  A win would require you engage with those outside of the norm.

It’s not the same in big cities and at bigger schools.  There, you can hide in anonymity and are more likely to find a niche and by nature and circumstance, deal with less boredom than those in small towns. Podunk towns and schools don’t have that luxury.

As I grew up, the notion of fun began to morph.   Over time, it became hard to discern the difference between fun and trouble.  Mostly, because they became synonymous to me.  I really didn’t need anyone to help me find trouble, I could find it plenty good all by my lonesome.  It just wasn’t as fun to do that, though.

Little Kids, Little Problems. Big Kids, Big Problems.

My behavior in my early years was significantly better than my teens and beyond, but the signs were there that trouble was a-comin’.      

At an early age, my ability to function well in social situations was ahead of my age.  Some kids shy away from talking to adults, but not me.  In fact, I preferred talking to adults.   As a kid, my parents would entertain their friends with frequency.   Their  rapidly morphing religious views changed that as I got older, but it taught me a lot about friendships.  They put both fleeting and lifelong friendships in front of us.   I had a love-hate relationship with those gatherings.  I loved it when they entertained and would do nearly anything to get a chance to be around the adults.  I don’t recall feeling like I annoyed anyone, but that was not a reciprocal feeling.  The scale of my persistent annoyance was brutal.  

For as much as I loved adults to converse with,  I loathed being sent to bed whilst they carried on.   When sent to my room upon wearing out my welcome, I’d sob myself to sleep, angry over the perceived snub.  It didn’t matter if the parental units had given me a couple of extra waking hours to bomb their peers with my wit and charm.  I was a youthful paradox; driven to converse with adults, and mature enough to actually function in doing so.  So mature on one end, but so immature on the other, that the mere thought of room banishment drove me to instant tears.  Mature and emotionally labile, all in one tiny, talkative package.

Most case studies show kids with ADHD are reputed to be immature compared to same-age peers.  Like many aspects of kids with ADHD, this can be a difficult read.  The disorder might be the same, but the manifestation of it vastly different.  ADHD drives the child’s activity level, not the child’s personality.  I theorize that it is the reaction to activity level that impacts personality.  

Kids are born unique, and often kind of ugly.  Admit it, most babies aren’t cute at birth.  Ugly or not, we’re all born with some inherent traits that play a role.   Those traits elicit a reaction from teachers, parents, and of course, peers.   Feedback studies for kids with the scramblehead  receive thousands more negative reactions from their non-squirrelous peers.  

The negativity takes a toll.  In many cases, a significant one.  

The Home Factor

Like personality, each kid’s has a unique home dynamic. Even in a positive environment, kids may face damage to their self-esteem.  This in turn can serve as fuel for many of the negative behaviors associated with kids with ADHD.    

All kids, regardless of their aptitude for focus, are subject to home dynamic.  It’s a numbers game.  Kids with ADHD are going to warrant more attention from others, especially adults in charge.   In well-structured homes, parents on top of life at home are going to have more full-speed collisions with their superball kids.   Focused kids tend to avoid the full-speed collisions on their own, even if their dynamic is disorganized and erratic.  Kids with ADHD need some stability.  The unfortunate reality is that ADHD is both genetic and environmental.  If the hyper apple is stuck to a similar parental tree, that kid is going to have a tough road.  Is true now, and was true in my day.  

We were more of the latter.  Our home dynamic wasn’t bad; it was just weird.  

My father worked crazy hours and was somewhat disinterested in us in our early years.  My mom was completely overwhelmed with three kids had in a 4 year span, all before turning 25.  Poor woman had no chance. If not for the brown shag carpeting and cheap drywall, we might have all perished from full-speed wipe outs.  We didn’t slow down for anyone.    We lived a full 3 hours away from our closest extended family.   She lacked help, maturity, and functional coping skills required to handle three relentless kids.  It created a strange dynamic of resentment, poor supervision, angry outbursts, and my mom’s own battle with her own scrambled head.

My hyperactivity would come and go in the early years, but find permanent footing in my mid-teens.  My lack of focus and weirdness never really went away.  Instead, they shifted into different areas over time.  Prior to that, I was mostly resistant to sleep, impatient, and highly curious about everything.  

Some kids have a level of the disorder that makes them much more active and explorative of the world around them.  This creates more chances to branch out, become social, and learn more about the world around them; with our without accomplices.

I was this child.

Hindsight

I am gifted with professional experience and hindsight as an adult.  Having taught and coached for over 20 years now, I’ve gained a lot of knowledge from the other side of the disorder.  I’ve always been fascinated with personality and different roles that kids take within certain situations.  I’ve known people with the devil inside them that raised kids too awkward to gain acceptance into the Tri-Lams, or even take a part-time job at Microsoft.  

I’ve seen the opposite as well.  One of my closest friends in life is a peaceful, highly-intelligent, matter-of-fact, corporate lawyer.  We’re close, but I couldn’t pick his kid out of a lineup, though.  Oh, I know what he looks like.  He’s just never stopped moving long enough to get a glimpse of him.  

On occasion, I’ve seen rifts within the same kid; both brilliant and seemingly intellectual, but distracted by the slightest things.  

I was this child.  

I was playing cribbage with my father by age 5.  When we had guests over, such as his college buddies or coworkers, I wanted in on the action.  During one party, I resorted to taking dares to eat jalapeños in order to stay near the adults.  It was with my dad’s college friends, whom I idolized.  Having made a similar group of friends in college, I can’t imagine doing anything less to the children of my friends.  If your college friends can’t be counted on to torment your children for you, what good are they?  

I wasn’t bored hanging out with kids, but adult conversation was legit stimulating; talking to kids my age was not.   It became simple math to figure out what would change that; whatever the kids were doing had to be more stimulating than adult conversation.  At age 7 or 8, that’s tough to overcome, unless the kids are older and misbehaving.  Whatever it is, it had to outweigh what was at hand.

Scrambleheaded kids pose a challenge to the best intentions of any teacher or parent.   Many, myself included, find themselves in remedial classes that simply perpetuate boredom.   No self-respecting adult is going to like having a hyperactive kid interrupting conversations and carrying on as if an equal.  Social situations often find kids relegated to play with peers that move at a different speed than they do.  It makes it hard to learn to play.  Most kids lack the social skills to politely redirect the situation.  

Most adults are better at it.  They’ll ease their way out with more grace than an annoyed 8 year old.  By nature, 8 year old kids with ADHD have no chill whatsoever.  

That changes over time, and I was emblematic of that as well.  Kids with ADHD that find success in life tend to become very fluid over time.  By that I mean they gravitate naturally away from some situations where they experience rejection, and towards less tenuous situations.  Most educators know that activity such as recess and art provide great outlets for kids with squirrel flu.  Even in acceptable outlets, it can be a struggle.    

Kids with ADHD often create their own negative outcomes during playtime; some are bossy, some are just too high-energy for other kids.  Others are too physical, too emotional, or too explosive for most kids to handle.  Some are just too annoying for their own good.  While parents at cocktail parties might handle it politely, their kids are less likely to do the same.  Over time, many kids with focus issues experience anxiety with playtime.  They want to like it, they see others liking it, but experience is not on their side.  

My generation lacked some of the same level of attention-consuming devices kids now have at their literal fingertips.  The disorder is very much the same, but life around it is not.  There’s an escape now with cell phones, computers, tablets and gaming systems.   It creates a mysterious future for kids.  At their core, kids are still going to be intolerant of some hyperactive peer behavior.  They may get a break now, but is that good for everyone?  I’m undecided.

What can be safe to ascertain, is that the kid who is the most easily distracted, will settle on the least boring peer group at their disposal.  Acceptance within a core croup is hard for kids with squirrel flu, and isn’t always good when it finally happens.  In fact, it can open up disaster for them.  Too often, they fall in line with similar risk takers, thrill seekers or those with a malfunctioning moral compass.  Prisons, jails, and Washington D.C. are filled with these kids.

Easily distracted kids face a lifetime of potential issues that extend beyond childhood.   There’s always something new to get into, and once that’s been exhausted, it’s onto the next thing.  With kids, it starts with phases and trends, with each new one carrying an an extra jolt of attention grabbing excitement.  This is fine while young, but left unchecked, it mutates.  Anything with the potential for unbridled excitement and stimulation will win out every time.  Being real, most of those things, even if fun, present the chance for disaster.  Little kids bring little problems.  Bigger kids bring bigger problems.  Adult kids bring jail sentences, divorces, financial issues and regression. 

Over time, things seem to be more questionable in taste, more outlandish in style, more dangerous in risk factor.  One illegal act leads to another, and the mischief turns into danger.  Danger turns into a reputation.  The reputation leads to trouble.  Each time something goes down, it ups the life cost ante.  

I was this child.  I’m also probably that adult. I just learned how to navigate through it better.

I was fortunate.  I preferred adult interaction, but could handle most of the kid front.  I could discuss the finer points of the James K. Polk presidency by 2nd grade, but avoided being beaten mercilessly for it.   As a tiny kid, this was a miracle.  I didn’t spend countless days alone and without friends, which I’ve seen happen to all-too-many kids.   My early intellectualism did not stop me from being robustly entertained by the confused martians on Sesame Street who couldn’t figure out what the fuck a telephone was.  I don’t know if I’d have experienced that if I grew up today.  I think things might have played out much different for me if born when my won was in 2001.

All We Had…

As I grew up, predicting my peer group was as hard as estimating what I’d be into next. Eventually, once I hit high school, the only thing you could accurately bank on is me finding some sort of trouble.  

More accurately, that trouble would find me.  To imply that I’d find trouble suggests that I was an innocent halo-sporting child that was led astray by the dastardly offspring of heathens.  It wasn’t the case.  I was more than capable of corrupting others.  You didn’t need to sport an inner demon for me to relate to you.  I had extra demons, and shared readily with those lacking such things.

My friends would run the gamut from levels of genius to, how shall we say it, not so much.  My end game contained a surprising amount of diversity in personality amongst my core group of friends, even when in lily white, Northern Wisconsin.  As I grew older and branched out of Door County, WI, that would blow open on another level.  

Moving certainly contributed to that, but it was hardly the only factor.  It took quite a drive to cut through the toxic level of cliques that polluted high schools in the 1980’s.  The force was strong in me, as was my drive to know different people.  You can’t do that by subscribing to a clique.  You do that by meandering from one clique to another, preferably aimlessly.

The way I looked at it, why be friends with one group of people, when you could get along with everyone equally.  I wasn’t quick to change who I was to fit in.  I just washed out to be who I was.  There wasn’t much variance in that.  Some were quick to absorb me, others not so much.  

As a kid, I found making friends to be part of a much different process than the one that my kids find today.  Kids of my era were much more free to roam.  On some levels, peers my age were more accepting of differences.  Others were not.  

When peers were not quick to make friends, you were left to your own devices at home.  Be it fortune or bad luck, I had a pair of siblings at home.  They also had the scramblehead  When I was very young, under the age of 5, your playmates were your siblings.  I had two at home to torment, play with, beat up or trick depending on the day.  We didn’t go to daycare, and didn’t have a peer group around us.  

We had each other, for better or worse.