So much depends on how you look at Are you a glass-half-empty person, or do you discover advantages where other people find only weaknesses? When it comes to raising healthy, happy kids, positive encouragement and support can work miracles where attempts to change and control create frustration and resentment. In her first book, The Gift of ADHD , psychologist Lara Honos-Webb offers a positive, strengths-affirming new way to look at kids who present behaviors associated with attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Instead of struggling to “tame” your easily distracted child, she shows you how to appreciate your child’s creativity, sensitivity, and passion for living. In this book, she develops the ideas from The Gift of ADHD into 101 simple and engaging activities you can use to develop your child’s unique strengths. The chapters of the book explore ways you can shift your thinking about different aspects of ADHD. Each starts with a short discussion of how a particular challenge can be reconceived as a strength. After that, the book dives into fun and positive activities you and your child can do together—often in just a few minutes—to help develop and reinforce the gifts of ADHD.
Lara Honos-Webb, Ph.D., is the author most recently of The Gift of ADHD Activity Book: 101 Ways to Turn Your Child's Problems into Strengths. She is a licensed clinical psychologist, author of four books, and is considered one of the world's leading authorities on attention deficit disorder (ADD) and depression. "
We all come with different strengths. While some of our strengths are not as easy to pick out as others, it's important to make sure our children recognize they have gifts to offer the world.
"One of the main reasons to focus on gifts is that doing so can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Children often live up to (or “down to”) our expectations. If we focus on what our children do well, they will continue to excel and build skills and passion. If you focus on what she cannot do, your child may adapt a style of patching up weaknesses and always feeling less than others."
This book comes shares some fun ideas for younger kids in developing strengths, managing their place in the world and recognizing they have value.