Every Saturday Sophia and I go to a Mommy and Me Spanish-immersion class. I would very much like to give Sophia the gift of a second language, but unable to speak one myself, I decided we’d tackle bilingualism together. The Spanish class is wonderful—highly engaging, hands-on, entirely in Spanish, and the language-rich activity changes up about every five minutes which is just about right for a toddler’s attention span. I’m learning a lot.
I would love to be able to say that Sophia sits attentively, compliantly responding to the teachers requests and interacting with the class. But this is how this morning went:
Teacher (in Spanish): Sophia! My heart! How cute you are! Welcome! Sit down please. You have your baby doll with you! Fantastic! Take off your shoes.
I remove both Sophia’s and my shoes. Sophia immediately slides her feet into my clogs and proceeds to clod around the room.
Me (in English, whispering): Sophia, please take the shoes off (and then my attempt at Spanish) Sientate!
Sophia begrudgingly takes off the shoes and sits down in my lap.
Teacher (in Spanish): So! Today we are going to begin by washing our dolls. Sophia, look at your doll’s hands. They are dirty. Yuck! Phew! (There was a Spanish exclamation for this, but it eludes me.) Let’s wash them! Wash them! Wash them! (Then she sings a song while Sophia, delighted, washes her doll’s hands. The only words I catch are “I wash my hands.”) Okay, Sophia. Now dry them! Dry them! Dry them! Very good! Okay! Who’s next? Alex, your monkey’s nose is so dirty! Look at it…
Sophia is already across the room, climbing on top of a chair and grinning at me. I ignore her, and she returns to my lap.
The teacher moves on to the next student, “Oh, Miguelito! Your elephant has dirty ears!”
Sophia is trying to pry the doorstop up off the floor with her 16-month old accomplice, Alex. I ignore her, and she returns to my lap.
The teacher is now with Juan, who is crouched behind his mother. “Juan! Come over here! Look how dirty your bear’s mouth is!”
Sophia has opened a small wooden cabinet and is reaching for some electrical wires inside. There comes a point where the behavior cannot be ignored. I silently redirect her back to the circle.
The teacher moves on to the last student, Mateo, who is deliriously rolling around on the floor. “Mateo, sit here! Come sit on your mother’s lap. Is this Goofy? How did he get so dirty…?”
Sophia is now embracing her co-conspirator, Alex. This has drawn the attention of the entire class. In English: “Look at Sophia and Alex! She goes for the younger men!” “I hope this isn’t any indication of what she’ll be like as a teenager.” “Sophia. Wait until after class. The other boys will be jealous!” etc. Sophia, relishing the attention, commences kissing Alex…on the lips. Before I can make it over to them, he’s kissing back, and the two of them are going at it. I pull my little cougar off of her prey, and try to hold her down in my lap. She twists expertly and, before long, is out of my grasp. Choosing my battles, I allow her jump up and down squealing “Salto!” as we wait for Mateo to have his turn. At least she’s being disruptive in Spanish.
Sophia is the only niña in this class. The other students, the niños, have a fraction of her activity level. They cling to their mamás, only gradually migrating out of their mothers’ laps over time. Occasionally the niños will shyly follow Sophia’s irresistible example…but it’s my girl leading the boys into temptation—not the other way around.
After class, I apologize profusely. “Lo siento, Adriana! I’m just never sure if I should let her go, or bring her back. On the one hand, I don’t want to feed into the behavior; on the other, I don’t want her to be interrupting your class….” Adriana reassures me that it’s fine. Sophia is doing what she should be doing at this stage. She’s not being naughty, she’s being a toddler. Well, okay, but then what are the other kids doing?
My mother’s long-term significant other, a.k.a. Grandpa Bernie, has nicknamed Sophia Schpilka-Baby, derived from the Yiddish word schpilkas, which roughly translates to “Ants in your pants.” From the moment Sophia wakes up (leaping into a standing position and shouting, “Get Out! GET OUT!” at the top of her lungs) to her last moments before bed (fighting Kevin and I like a feral cat as we brush her teeth) the child is in constant motion, heat radiating from her body, hair matted with sweat, cheeks flushed and a broad smile plastered across her face.
One might think she is months away from her first dose of Ritalin. But, as much as I long for the 3-hour nap her little friend across the street bestows upon her mother, there are is no speed in Sophie’s immediate future. ADHD according to Russell Barkley (the It-Boy of ADHD) is about three things: 1) impaired impulse control; 2) excessive task-irrelevant activity; and, 3) poorly sustained effort.
But when Sophia and I approach a street, she holds my hand, stops and looks for moving cars. And if there are a stack of books nearby, she will bring them to me, one at a time, listening to me read for at least an hour (if I have the stamina to do it). And recently, she learned to put on her shoes through persistence and sheer determination to go outside. These are not the behaviors of a child with ADHD.
Here’s what I wish more people understood: activity level exists on a continuum from the lap sitters to the wall crawlers. I have seen way too many kids diagnosed with ADHD or hopped up on drugs when they simply have high activity levels. A true child with ADHD simply can’t help him/herself. It is painful to watch. There are no internal controls. The child longs for limits and can’t find them.
The Sophia in Spanish is curious, she’s on the go, wanting to examine every little thing, (“How works it?”), see how I’ll react (“Mommy doing?”), but will only venture out as far into the world as I’ll let her (“Don’t touch it. Mommy says no.”)
In the womb, around 11 pm each night, she kicked as if her intent was to come busting out of my abdomen just as soon as she gained the fetal strength to do so. The challenge will not be to dull or curb these passions, but to ensure that this energy is used for good (and not evil).
Que Dios me ayude!
Showing posts with label ADHD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ADHD. Show all posts
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
The Girl Who Mistook Her TV for a Vacuum
Vacuum (n): 1. A space entirely devoid of matter.
It’s not easy to avoid television in America. They're in our cars, our grocery stores, our hospitals, our airports, our restaurants, our shops, our homes. They have migrated from the living room to the bedroom and the kitchen. Some even claim their own “entertainment rooms.” I recently went to a mall near my mother’s house, where they had just installed televisions that hung from the ceiling at 50’ intervals. Just when one had escaped the assault of one TV, another took over, ensuring that, as you shopped, you couldn’t take one step without a commercial blaring at you. A neighbor informed me about a local restaurant that has a television at every table. Now, no longer beholden to watching whatever is on the communal restaurant TV set, you can choose your own programming. Home away from home.
Nielsen reports that the average American watches 5 hours of television a day (Three Screen Report, 2008). The average child watches about 4. And, true to my word, Sophia watches none.
This has been one of the greatest challenges in parenting Sophia. I specifically shop at stores that don’t have TVs. I have rudely asked my friends to turn off the tube when we come over. I have, on occasion, made Sophia face the wall when there was no other option.
Yes, I know you all think I’m nuts. No, I don’t think a ten-minute exposure is going to turn her into a fiend. Yes, I worry that depriving her will make her in a TV junkie by the age of five. Still, I can’t bring myself to allow it…even just a taste. That's the irrational part of me. The thinking part of me is concerned about brain development. Here’s my theory: Years ago, fewer kids were diagnosed with ADHD (From 1997 to 2006, alone, diagnosis of ADHD has increased by 3% each year, CDC, July 2008) . Certainly, the uptake in ADHD diagnoses could be attributed better diagnosis—or even over-diagnosis, with children with high activity levels being mislabeled.
But I think it might have something to do with TV. Hear me out: Three decades ago, when I was a child (and doing my part to contribute to those 5-hour/day stats), shots were long and steady. The camera stayed trained on Mr. Rodgers for what felt like an eternity, (probably at least a good three minutes at a time) occasionally panning to follow him into the kitchen, the front door or the fish tank. But for the most part, there was very little editing.
Fast forward 10 years to 1980. Enter MTV. Music videos spawned a novel, highly visually appealing approach to film making: strobe-like editing. Suddenly, images lasted on the screen for no more than a second at a time. What used to be one cinematic point of view was transformed into hundreds, even thousands of points of view over the course of a few minutes. But here’s the rub—we no longer had to sustain our attention for more than a split second at a time. The images were constantly changing.
Many times a parent with a child with ADHD has said to me something like this: “He can’t sit and focus on his homework for more than a few minutes at a time, but he can sit and watch TV or play video games for hours.” Yes, it is only anecdotal evidence. But I believe there is a reason. I believe that these children are not sustaining their attention for hours at a time when they watch TV or play video games. I believe they are being reinforced for their lack of attention, rewarded with new image after new image.
I would even go so far to assert that the TV is the egg and our children are the chickens: In growing up watching these constantly changing images, I believe the TV actually trains our kids' brains to crave constant stimulation. Why not? Doesn’t every environmental stimulus contribute to a child’s cognitive development? We know that if a child is denied stimulation during critical periods, he/she will be cognitively impaired. So, if a child is over-stimulated during these critical periods, it’s quite possible that a very different sort of cognitive impairment cold result.
I’m operating on a hunch. I’m conducting an experiment. I’m delaying the introduction of TV because, it certainly can’t hurt. And it might help.
Sophia and I were looking at pictures of every-day objects while she was eating her breakfast. She new most of them…jar, elephant, even ice cream, but when she came to a picture of a television set, she paused. “Vacuum?” she guessed.
“In a manner of speaking.” I told her, and we moved onto the next picture.
It’s not easy to avoid television in America. They're in our cars, our grocery stores, our hospitals, our airports, our restaurants, our shops, our homes. They have migrated from the living room to the bedroom and the kitchen. Some even claim their own “entertainment rooms.” I recently went to a mall near my mother’s house, where they had just installed televisions that hung from the ceiling at 50’ intervals. Just when one had escaped the assault of one TV, another took over, ensuring that, as you shopped, you couldn’t take one step without a commercial blaring at you. A neighbor informed me about a local restaurant that has a television at every table. Now, no longer beholden to watching whatever is on the communal restaurant TV set, you can choose your own programming. Home away from home.
Nielsen reports that the average American watches 5 hours of television a day (Three Screen Report, 2008). The average child watches about 4. And, true to my word, Sophia watches none.
This has been one of the greatest challenges in parenting Sophia. I specifically shop at stores that don’t have TVs. I have rudely asked my friends to turn off the tube when we come over. I have, on occasion, made Sophia face the wall when there was no other option.
Yes, I know you all think I’m nuts. No, I don’t think a ten-minute exposure is going to turn her into a fiend. Yes, I worry that depriving her will make her in a TV junkie by the age of five. Still, I can’t bring myself to allow it…even just a taste. That's the irrational part of me. The thinking part of me is concerned about brain development. Here’s my theory: Years ago, fewer kids were diagnosed with ADHD (From 1997 to 2006, alone, diagnosis of ADHD has increased by 3% each year, CDC, July 2008) . Certainly, the uptake in ADHD diagnoses could be attributed better diagnosis—or even over-diagnosis, with children with high activity levels being mislabeled.
But I think it might have something to do with TV. Hear me out: Three decades ago, when I was a child (and doing my part to contribute to those 5-hour/day stats), shots were long and steady. The camera stayed trained on Mr. Rodgers for what felt like an eternity, (probably at least a good three minutes at a time) occasionally panning to follow him into the kitchen, the front door or the fish tank. But for the most part, there was very little editing.
Fast forward 10 years to 1980. Enter MTV. Music videos spawned a novel, highly visually appealing approach to film making: strobe-like editing. Suddenly, images lasted on the screen for no more than a second at a time. What used to be one cinematic point of view was transformed into hundreds, even thousands of points of view over the course of a few minutes. But here’s the rub—we no longer had to sustain our attention for more than a split second at a time. The images were constantly changing.
Many times a parent with a child with ADHD has said to me something like this: “He can’t sit and focus on his homework for more than a few minutes at a time, but he can sit and watch TV or play video games for hours.” Yes, it is only anecdotal evidence. But I believe there is a reason. I believe that these children are not sustaining their attention for hours at a time when they watch TV or play video games. I believe they are being reinforced for their lack of attention, rewarded with new image after new image.
I would even go so far to assert that the TV is the egg and our children are the chickens: In growing up watching these constantly changing images, I believe the TV actually trains our kids' brains to crave constant stimulation. Why not? Doesn’t every environmental stimulus contribute to a child’s cognitive development? We know that if a child is denied stimulation during critical periods, he/she will be cognitively impaired. So, if a child is over-stimulated during these critical periods, it’s quite possible that a very different sort of cognitive impairment cold result.
I’m operating on a hunch. I’m conducting an experiment. I’m delaying the introduction of TV because, it certainly can’t hurt. And it might help.
Sophia and I were looking at pictures of every-day objects while she was eating her breakfast. She new most of them…jar, elephant, even ice cream, but when she came to a picture of a television set, she paused. “Vacuum?” she guessed.
“In a manner of speaking.” I told her, and we moved onto the next picture.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)