Review of 'The Family ADHD Solution: A Scientific Approach To Maximizing Your Child’s Attention And Minimizing Parental Stress'
The Family Adhd Solution: A Scientific Approach To Maximizing Your Child’s Attention And Minimizing Parental Stress
by Mark Bertin, M.D.
Published by Palgrave Macmillan: February 2011: New York, 230 pp.
By Merri Rosenberg
Having a child who’s diagnosed with ADHD is a challenge for families. Not only are they coping with behavioral issues, like classroom outbursts, or difficulties with other children, but sometimes parents have to confront skeptical grandparents or well—meaning friends who doubt that ADHD even exists.
Mark Bertin, a developmental pediatrician, who has a private practice in suburban Westchester and is also director of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics at the Westchester Institute for Human Development, wants to offer parents some practical strategies to help their children—and themselves.
The underlying tool he offers is practicing mindfulness, a way to “pay more attention to our actual experience and less to the random, anxiety-provoking clutter that constantly fills our minds, allowing us more consistent access to our own wisdom and clarity.” Bertin suggests that such awareness can help parents of children with ADHD reduce their own stress levels and be better able to help their children manage ADHD.
He helps parents understand that “Parenting style matters in ADHD. While this is not the same as saying parenting causes ADHD, different methods of parenting tend to be more effective and more likely to minimize symptoms.”
The book is accessible, structured with a welcome clarity. Dr. Bertin explains what ADHD looks like, suggests specific techniques and strategies to deal with children who lose focus, can’t stay organized, or have poor impulse control, and offers practical methods that parents can use to better handle their own anxiety and stress.
I imagine that families struggling on a day to day basis with the challenges of having a child with an ADHD diagnosis will welcome this as an invaluable addition to their coping kit.#
