Post by unicorn-tiff'smom on Jun 28, 2006 14:21:01 GMT -5
Finding Friends
Half of all ADD kids have trouble making and keeping friends. But having childhood friends is a better predictor of adult happiness than is I.Q. or academic achievement.
Eight-year-old Josh stands alone at the edge of the playground, watching the other kids play. He'd like to join them but has no idea how.
Eleven-year-old Tina sits on the porch steps in tears. From the next block, she can hear the sounds of a birthday party to which she wasn't invited—even though she thought the birthday girl was her good friend.
Fourteen-year-old Tom spends all his free time alone, on his computer. No one calls him, and he calls no one.
Is anything sadder—or more frightening to parents—than a friendless child? "Parents fall apart crying about their child's situation," says Richard Lavoie, a special-education consultant in Barnstable, Massachusetts, and the author of It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend. "And it's never about academics. It's always about the pain of social isolation their child is facing."
It's hard to overstate the importance of friendships. Mary Fowler, the Fair Haven, New Jersey-based author of Maybe You Know My Teen and the mother of an ADD son, says that having close childhood friends can make "the difference between things going well, or becoming a hard-to-manage teen, dropping out, abusing substances, and being in trouble with the law." Experts say that having positive social relations in childhood is a better predictor of adult happiness than is I.Q. or academic achievement. "Friendships are not a luxury," says Lavoie. "They're a necessity."
Please click on the link to catch the rest of the story...
www.additudemag.com/ourkids.asp?DEPT_NO=300&ARTICLE_NO=6
Half of all ADD kids have trouble making and keeping friends. But having childhood friends is a better predictor of adult happiness than is I.Q. or academic achievement.
Eight-year-old Josh stands alone at the edge of the playground, watching the other kids play. He'd like to join them but has no idea how.
Eleven-year-old Tina sits on the porch steps in tears. From the next block, she can hear the sounds of a birthday party to which she wasn't invited—even though she thought the birthday girl was her good friend.
Fourteen-year-old Tom spends all his free time alone, on his computer. No one calls him, and he calls no one.
Is anything sadder—or more frightening to parents—than a friendless child? "Parents fall apart crying about their child's situation," says Richard Lavoie, a special-education consultant in Barnstable, Massachusetts, and the author of It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend. "And it's never about academics. It's always about the pain of social isolation their child is facing."
It's hard to overstate the importance of friendships. Mary Fowler, the Fair Haven, New Jersey-based author of Maybe You Know My Teen and the mother of an ADD son, says that having close childhood friends can make "the difference between things going well, or becoming a hard-to-manage teen, dropping out, abusing substances, and being in trouble with the law." Experts say that having positive social relations in childhood is a better predictor of adult happiness than is I.Q. or academic achievement. "Friendships are not a luxury," says Lavoie. "They're a necessity."
Please click on the link to catch the rest of the story...
www.additudemag.com/ourkids.asp?DEPT_NO=300&ARTICLE_NO=6