The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download Chapter One for free at DrKenner.com.

Gloria, you have a son who's got some anger problems.

Yeah, they told me on the note that they refer to a cycle.

Okay, you know what? It's a little hard to hear you. How old is your son?

He's 10. He's 10 years old.

And what—you said that you went to a therapist?

Yes, I went to a psychiatrist and he recommended me to take him to a psychotherapy.

Psychologist is psychotherapy?

Yeah, yes.

He has a 10-year-old male with anger. PMH, ADHD, taking Concerta.

Okay. He's got ADHD—Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, right?

And the main thing that's showing is the anger, right?

Okay, so—and you do know what that is?

No, I don't.

Okay, let's see, I want to say two things. Sometimes, some people call ADHD—Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder—the disease du jour for kids, meaning that Mark Twain—delightful Mark Twain—would have been diagnosed with ADHD. Meaning any rambunctious, alive kid who hasn't been sedated would be categorized as ADHD, so it's very much overdiagnosed. So sometimes it's diagnosed and it's it. It used to be called MBD—minimal brain damage. But who wants to label their kids with minimal brain damage? So guess what they did—they changed the label: ADHD. And what parent doesn't think that their kid is inattentive? "You're not listening to me."

So I want to just say that you want to really know your own kid, and you want to make sure he doesn't get labeled for life with a diagnosis that doesn't fit.

So what they do refer to—I will give you some of this—what they call the symptom picture or the symptoms of ADHD:

First, it's inattention. They're not paying close attention to their schoolwork or other activities. They just seem very disorganized, right? But healthy kids can be disorganized because they're not interested in schoolwork. The teacher is boring. You know, there could be other reasons for that. But they may have a very difficult time with any sustained attention, whether it's playing or doing some schoolwork.

So he's 10 years old. Is there anything that he loves where he can truly attend to?

He's usually on the computer, playing computer games.

Fascinating, isn't it?

Yeah.

So I would say that his values are computer games, right? So it's not that he's inattentive. He's inattentive to what we want him to be attentive to—just like my husband may be inattentive to taking out the garbage. Right now—my husband's wonderful, I've never had to—he just does it. But, you know, a lot of people joke about that. Why? Because it's not as fun to be doing that, as opposed to be reading up on computer programs, the things he enjoys doing. So we're all like that.

He could lose things. He's easily distractible. These are some of the symptoms. He has difficulty organizing tasks and he avoids them.

So you really need to know your own son to see whether the diagnosis fits, because a doctor just meeting your son may not get a clear picture of it.

The hyperactivity—let me talk about the hyperactivity part a little bit, Gloria. Hyperactivity is when kids just kind of fidget and squirm in their seat. They run about, or they climb on things—but it's over the top. They may have some difficulty in sitting quietly. And he may feel—it may feel like, you know, you have a little wind-up motor on the back, or a little button you push—and he just is like the Energizer Bunny.

Exactly.

Okay. Well, on one hand, it may be something internal. Or it may be—guess what I'm about to say—a kid that's fully alive. And he is just—he's a little scientist. He's a little explorer.

So again, I want you to not—when parents think that they have a kid that's got ADHD, they start acting towards that kid differently. And I want you to really clearly look at what he's able to focus on, what he isn't—whether his hyperactivity occurs because he just is a little explorer.

Interesting.

Yeah. Oh, my son would—oh, if he gets bored easily, well maybe his mind needs to be more engaged. I mean, if you'd ask a kid, “Sit still, don't speak”—I mean, we used to take my kids out, and my kids would get under the table and play with each other, you know, like it was a house. And we would be with adults who would get very upset. "They have to sit at the table. They have to behave," right?

Well, how boring to sit for—what—an hour and a half at a Thanksgiving meal just sitting there? You know, I'm exaggerating with the time, but for kids at that age, you need to be able to recognize—you don't give them free rein—but you want to recognize their attention span and that they are hungry to learn.

The last thing I want to just touch base with is—

Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that’s it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

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The last thing I want to just touch base with is: when they say Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, they talk about being very impulsive. They—you know—not waiting your turn, interrupting or intruding on others, just yelling out the answers to questions before they've even been completed.

Again—maybe he's got a fast mind.

So tell me a little bit about your son, just in a nutshell.

Well, he's been—I mean, I've noticed him being hyper since he was a year and a half.

Okay. Still? Now he's 10 years old?

I'll be driving my van, and I have other children.

How old?

I have him. He's kind of—I have a two-year-old daughter, and then I have another, a 12-year-old son that is also ADHD, ODD.

Okay, so he's got Oppositional Defiant Disorder, right?

A different one, okay?

And I could be driving, like from—I live in Pennsylvania to New Jersey, and this child will not stay still. He'll be all over the van while I'm driving.

Yeah, that's—that's tough.

Okay, so maybe I did overstate it. Maybe with him, you do need some help. But you also—none of us come with—the kids don't come—kids come with a little tag that says "Some Assembly Required," meaning we need phenomenal parenting skills. And we don't have—we may not have full terrific skills.

So there's a wonderful book on my website—or the books by these two authors that I'm going to mention are fabulous. They're How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. And you can just go to my website: DrKenner.com—DrK-E-N-N-E-R.com. They've written other books, you know: How to Talk So Teens Will Listen, Siblings Without Rivalry. And my guess is that there's some rivalry going on in that van.

For the younger one, you could go to www.GuideYourChild.com, which may help you with your two-year-old too, because the two-year-old is in the van too.

So listen, thank you so much for your call, Gloria.

Thank you so much for helping me.

Oh, you're welcome.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner:

"You didn’t put booze in there. Perhaps you should give it to my daughter—melt that chilly disposition of hers. She won't let me see my grandson. I'm cut off from him because I don't like her treating him like a trained poodle. I swear that boy doesn't piss without her permission, the way she frets and fusses over that boy. Funny. She’d let him run, let him breathe, let him live. She won’t even let the poor kid ride a bicycle."

And that's from Chocolat. And we all know the experience of being—having someone in our life, whether it's a parent or a grandparent or somebody—who lets us live, who lets us breathe, who lets us enjoy our lives.

And we know the opposite experience too, of being around people who don’t let you breathe—either they’re angry with you all the time, or they fuss over you all the time.

And I highly recommend this movie, Chocolat. And I highly recommend doing the thinking work to figure out what people you want to invite closer into your life—into your inner circle—and what people you want to think twice about and say, “You know, I don’t like being around that person. Maybe I don’t want to invite them that close into my life. And maybe I do want to spend a little more time with the people I love.”

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com—and please listen to this ad:

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You can download Chapter One for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy the book at Amazon.com.