Jean Mullins:
My name is Jean Mullins, my son is Joseph, and his last name is different, his last name is Moubhij.
He has ADD, he also has sensory issues, pragmatic speech issues, all secondary to the ADD. And he’s 15, he’s a sophomore in high school and right now we’re struggling with organizational skills and effort.
Alyne Ellis, interviewer:
And he also has behavior issues?
Jean:
He still has behavior issues at home, not in school. Everywhere I go now they tell me what a great kid he is, he’s - might be down at the local store after school and, you know, I go in there and he’s with me and they say what a great kid he is, he’s very polite, very funny, very smart, um, but he still struggles.
As a teenager he struggles with, um, primarily organization...effort. I’m starting to realize how much of an issue his pragmatic speech is. He doesn’t get the nuance of language, he’s too literal, so if you were, if someone was going to go to the store and they didn’t go and you ask them "you didn’t go to the store?" The person would say "no," and he thinks that should be yes. And I understand that that’s correct, yes, I didn’t go, as in agreement, but he doesn’t get that, he – you have to tell him that, he doesn’t learn it, where another child, by hearing that over and over again, you know, certain, the same structure, he would realize that "no" is the acceptable answer but he doesn’t. So it’s very black and white. So he’s fantastic in math and science and computers and programming but he, you know, he’s missing some things I think in humanities, in English and things like that.
There’s that – organizationally he’s severely challenged. He can’t, you know, organize anything on his own, um, and then he’s bored in the classroom. The teachers ask you to have a different notebook for every class and I, you know, OK’d it with them, he has one notebook so that everything’s with him all the time. Granted it’s more of a trapper keeper, it’s cloth and, ah, I have him nightly go in and make sure that everything’s where it should be, that there aren’t papers flying all around, that he has pens that, you know, pencils, everything that he needs.
Alyne Ellis, interviewer:
Do you sit with him to help him organize that?
Jean:
I sit there some of the time, I don’t do it with him, I don’t tell him how to do it, but he would not do it on his own but to me that’s what I’m talking about when I talk about the effort now. He understands that he has to do better to go to college if he wants to go, you know we’ve talked about it forever, I don’t talk about it any more, he understands that but he can’t incorporate it, he can’t, you know, get off what he wants to do and do something, you know, that he doesn’t wanna do, like homework, like organizing his notebook. And he’s better at it at certain times than others and of course the attention is a problem and it’s worse in the late afternoon when he gets out of school because he’s been paying attention all day, or trying to.
Alyne Ellis, interviewer:
Does he take medication?
Jean:
Um, he recently has decided he doesn’t want to. His biggest hurdle right now, as far as being attributed to the ADD, is his organization and it really doesn’t help that.
Alyne Ellis, interviewer:
So what else do you do to help him get organized? You mentioned a trapper keeper, that’s a great idea, and you must have some other things that, systems that work for him.
Jean:
As long as I can remember we have had lists. For instance a list of things he has to do in the morning to get ready. The list has gone so far back that when I started it he couldn’t read it, I put pictures in, pictures of a toothbrush, pictures of, you know, hair, brush your hair, you know, food, eat, and, um, he would check them off as he goes.
There was no reward to it, though, rewards didn’t work very well with him because if he really felt like he couldn’t achieve them, some of the things that were set up in school, so it was more damaging than it was helpful. So I didn’t put any rewards to it but he still picked it up and he did it and there's still with us now and instead of me saying "did you brush your teeth? Did you put on your deodorant? Did you do this, did you do that?" I just say "look at the list, look at the list, look at the list".
And I would recommend this to anybody because what happens is if you’re reminding them, you’re the one saying brush your teeth, wash your hands, clean up after breakfast, they’re not remembering it, they’re not incorporating it. So if you just say look at the list they look at it and they realize what comes next, what comes next, what comes next and by doing that over and over again it relieves the stress, the morning stress, but it also – they understand more, and they’re responsible for remembering what they have to do.