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Safety & Success
Boys with ADHD Can Find A Cure By Going Back to Tom Sawyer Era
Zachary has Attention Deficit Disorder/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
He cannot sit still long enough to do his homework from middle school. A leaf rustling at his window is enough to distract him. If his brother walks in his room, Zach impulsively trips him.
Hyperactive/distractible/impulsive: this is Zachary.
Yet Zachary thinks nothing of spending all day Saturday playing video games. He plays them alone for fifteen straight hours, if his parents allow it.
What's going on?
Boys with ADHD can quickly become video game addicts because of how their disorder affects their brains. According to a report in Nature magazine, when a boy plays these games, the basal ganglia portion of his brain becomes very active and his body releases dopamine, a chemical that gives him a sense of well-being. Ritalin, the drug used to treat ADHD, also works in the basal ganglia and increases dopamine. In this way, video games function like a drug to boys with ADHD.
Dr. Daniel Amen, foremost expert on ADHD, says, "The more a boy with this disorder plays video games, the worse he'll do in school and the more irritable he will be when asked to stop playing." Experts at the University of Illinois have documented this view after asking parents of ADHD children to keep diaries of their behaviors. The more their children played the games, the worse their behaviors got.
Those same University of Illinois researchers have also found that ADHD symptoms lessen if children spend more time outdoors. The more natural the setting, the stronger the effect.
However, it is very hard for today's parents to limit video games and send their children outdoors to play. The games form the basis of their boys' social lives and very few children play outside anymore. In fact, Richard Louv, author of Leave No Child Inside, found that fewer than 10% of American children regularly engage in unsupervised outdoors play. Video gaming and indoor activities create a culture that harms boys with ADHD.
"Our boys would have done better a hundred years ago," says Samuel Moore of Stone Mountain School, a boarding school exclusively for boys with ADHD. He believes that modern culture with its technological distractions makes it harder for children with neurological disorders to succeed.
ADHD was probably just as prevalent in Tom Sawyer's day, but boys back then did not spend hours in front of video games, television and computer screens. They could also quit school and find jobs outdoors as cowboys, farmers, railroad workers, etc.
Most parents cannot recreate a Tom Sawyer world for their sons.
This is where a program like Stone Mountain School - designed around the specialized needs of such boys - can help. The school does not force these "square peg" boys to fit into the "round holes" of an overly civilized world.
"Our boys thrive in the outdoors," Moore said. "They calm down almost immediately."
Stone Mountain School is set in the North Carolina wilderness, where students participate in outdoor sports like fishing, swimming, canoeing, and rock climbing. They chop wood and do other physical chores. Some students enter the program in poor physical shape, but within weeks, Stone Mountain School's healthy food, active sports and outdoor life tones them up.
Stone Mountain School also gives the boys a chance to succeed academically. Class sizes are very small and teachers use methods specialized for ADHD. For example, the boys have frequent breaks, do more hands-on learning, and use computer programs to help them organize their work. They learn study skills and time management.
"Our students are bright and creative," Mr. Moore said, "but they've learned to dislike school. We turn that around fairly quickly."
Moore says many students have spent much of their boyhoods in trouble at school and at home. Constant correction by parents and teachers along with academic failure leads to low self-esteem and depression.
"We can turn that around too," Moore said.
As boys move into an atmosphere that allows them to succeed academically and to channel their physical energy, they begin to feel safe emotionally. They may have come to Stone Mountain School with "concrete bunkers" around their psyches. However, as counselors work with them and their families, and as they form friendships with other students, they learn to open up emotionally and let go of their former hostility.
"Parents tell us wonderful stories about how their son changed into an open and cooperative person," Mr. Moore said. "The boy they knew was always there finally emerges. It's a tremendously satisfying process for everyone involved."