Who knew such a little person could talk so much!

When my son is uncomfortable or intimidated, he doesn’t breathe a word. When he feels good, he launches into an unceasing monologue that I find both aggravating and promising.

As the chatter drones on and on, I scrunch up my eyes and rub my temples in an attempt to quieten my brain. I don’t know why I do it, it doesn’t help.

“Ok, you need to keep quiet now” I say to James – instantly regretting my words.

Unfortunately this isn’t the first time I’ve said these words, and if I’m honest, I know it won’t be the last.

“Sorry” he says, his eyes looking down at the ground

“It’s Ok” I sigh and give him a hug and turn back to making dinner. I find the correct knife I should have been slicing tomatoes with instead of the bread knife, I put more water into the pot that has almost boiled dry and I respond to a text that came through about 15 minutes ago.

As soon as my eyes catch his line of sight, he is back at it again, rambling off at such a speed, it’s almost incoherent babbling I’m listening to once again.

Another huge sigh escapes my body before I can stop it. I know he sees it because he winces ever so slightly. But the pull to talk, talk, talk is too strong. He keeps going, despite all indications he should stop.

Luke walks in and asks me a question about a permission note. I nod at James so he knows I’m still ‘listening’. Meanwhile Luke gets more restless waiting for his turn to talk, he starts tapping his foot and huffing and glaring at James and I find that I can’t take another second of this incessant chatter.

“Ok, this is a good time for you to take a break” I say gently using a technique I’m trying to teach him.  Pause, take a deep breath and see if anyone else wants to contribute to the conversation.

“Sorry” he says again.

Oh, how I hurt for him. I don’t want him to feel he needs to apologize for talking. But I also can’t let him monopolise our lives with his prattle.

He gets so caught up in his talking, I sometimes think he wouldn’t even notice if the house was burning down. I’ve had to yank him back from the path of an oncoming car, and he only paused his story long enough to give me an annoyed look for grabbing him too hard, never noticing the car and the doom he narrowly avoided.

But when he is chatting, it means he is happy. It means he is feeling really, really good about himself

And, unfortunately, it’s the time I stifle him. As much as I love his happiness, I’m exhausted at having a radio announcer by my side at all times.

So at night, after everyone is in bed, I steal away to the quiet of my bathroom. I shut the door. I breathe. Then I walk down the hall, open my son’s door, and lie down next to him in bed.

He lights up like a Christmas tree, and begins talking as if I had been there the whole time. He interrupts me when I dare to ask questions or share stories. He even interrupts herself – did you know that was possible?

Ultimately, I have to give him a time limit.

“5 more minutes” I say.

He uses up all 300 seconds of the time, wraps his arms around me as time is up, and lets me squeeze in an “I love you” before he’s telling me yet another “quick” story.

I stand and begin to leave as he is finishing his story, his last word of happy chatter being released into the air just before the light goes out.

As I walk down the hall, I hear him talking – out loud to himself, of course – and I smile.

I honestly can’t determine if my time with him was worth it. I know I didn’t get much out of it. But when I go to check on him later, he is smiling in his sleep – every night.

"Mom, I Made a New Friend!"

"Mom, I Made a New Friend!" - THE #1 sentence any parent of an ADHD’er would love to hear.

The anxiety I feel over my child sitting alone at recess and having to resort to reading books in a quiet corner during lunch because he has no friends – indescribable and heartbreaking.

We’ve discussed about what makes a good friend, and which behaviors are, and are not, appropriate. He and I have had several conversations about ‘how’ to approach other kids who he’d potentially like to form a friendship with. I’ve encouraged him to make eye contact, not interrupt, to think before he speaks and to listen more than he speaks.

Because many ADHD kids lag behind their peers in social skills, they tend to be more immature than those without ADHD. The problem here is that despite immaturity, he is super intelligent and wants to discuss concepts and topics far beyond his years – the younger kids just don’t ‘get’ him.

His class teacher and I have discussed pairing him up with others in the class to complete tasks and projects but it all comes down to the same bottom line…

He doesn’t quite fit in anywhere.

The thing with children is that they generally have no buffer for comments that point such things out “James is weird” ; “James can’t focus and his fidgeting is annoying me” and “I don’t like James”

I could bang on about how our school’s motto is respect, responsibility and resilience – and while I go out of my way to instill these values (along with many, many more) within my own children, it seems many parents these days, don’t bother teach their children the fundamental basics of acceptance.

The bottom line is that children are children and they learn from the adults around them (as well as from other children). We as adults have the responsibility to teach our children to respect each other no matter our differences, to be responsible for our words and actions and understand that while we have the right to say what we want, we have the responsibility to accept the consequences and understand that consequences sometimes hurt other people – and that is our burden to carry.

So, the next time that your child mentions that James was reading by himself at recess or lunch time again or that he wasn’t picked for a team during sports and had to be the ‘assistant referee’ to his class teacher or that he had to walk up the front of the line with the teacher because nobody wanted to pair up with him for the walk back to school from the sports field, perhaps you can talk to your child about being a good friend.

Encourage them to talk to my son or offer to pair with him during a class project because your child will soon find out that he is highly intelligent and loves marine life, dinosaurs and science.  That he could talk the ear off an elephant if given a chance. Your child might realise that he is a fierce friend who is loyal to a fault and super protective over the people he cares about and that he has the softest heart and cries when you accidently squish a bug.

My child wishes it were easy for him to make friends but he has no confidence and no self-esteem and does not believe that he deserves for someone to give him the time of day. He is only 10 and has had a tough start. As a parent of a non-ADHD child (or any other autism spectrum disorder) wouldn’t you want other parents to encourage their children to give your child the chance to make friends?