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Comment by tdy_err | Hacker News Reader

Coping with a hyperactive child can be tough, but foremost you need to do your best to understand them and meet their needs. And “shutting them the hell up” is working against that. Truly, the best route here is probably to find another caretaker who is willing to take the time to help this child…

Anecdotally, I had similar troubles as a kid and after a battery of evaluations they found I had slightly diminished verbal language processing (despite passing common tonal audio tests just fine). Understanding this equipped the adults in my life to better accommodate my needs, and in turn, I’m sure, mitigate the hassle I made for them.

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> And “shutting them the hell up” is working against that.

It’s fewer words than saying helping to foster increased listening and learning capabilities, but is effectively the same thing. As a parent you want to have deeper and meaningful conversations that allow for instruction, guidance, and mentoring. These things cannot happen if there is a clinical mental illness in the way.

I read that and gave you the benefit of the doubt that brevity was your intent more than expressing frustration:) I can imagine how difficult it must be to want to help someone who can’t help themselves but has nobody else…

While I have many ideas about how we got through my childhood, I think any meaningful plan will have to suit your kid so general suggestions are probably hit or miss at best. This is why I suggested a caretaker but I guess I really meant “a specialist”.

I’ll just say this, to offer some insight… ADHD is not just losing track of the external world- it is a loss of your own internal world. It’s like someone is always tugging your instruction pointer away from your stack. This is suffering.

> As a parent you want to have deeper and meaningful conversations that allow for instruction, guidance, and mentoring. These things cannot happen if there is a clinical mental illness in the way.

If we are talking about ADHD, this is bullshit.

As someone that wasn’t medicated as a kid and had a lot of meaningful conversations, had mentors, learnt, went to college, built a career, screw your attitude.

If we are talking of that extreme of a case, that’s why medication is there.

But back to the original part, to me it just sounds like you also need to learn how to work with them.

I suspect you were not a foster child with years of neglect.

> you also need to learn how to work with them.

That’s why I asked the question.

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