Pay attention.
Are you paying attention?
I told you to pay attention!
Why aren’t you paying attention?!
No matter how young or old we are, it is important to pay attention. We expect our children to pay attention when we issue household directives and are exasperated when they don’t comply with our wishes. Teachers are frustrated when students turn in sloppy work. The youth sports coach is mystified to see the shortstop gazing off into the clouds.
Of course it is not fun for children to stop playing and perform seriously when we direct them to. For some children, it is especially difficult because their mind does not know how to pay attention.
The easy part is saying, “Pay attention.” It’s how to pay attention that is the tricky part. Paying attention is really a process comprised of several interconnected skills. When we ask children to pay attention, we really are asking them to be competent in managing a progression of behaviors.
To start the attention process, the child must first be able to focus, meaning that he/she must pick one thing to pay attention to. Children who experience problems focusing their attention will have difficulty starting and becoming involved in an activity. You’ve probably heard the expression “get on task.” Once they get started, children may be able to move through the next steps effortlessly and complete the task. Or they may have difficulty with one or more of the next steps.
SELECT
The child must be able to select the correct thing requiring his/her attention. The child with AD/HD may have difficulty determining what is relevant. In school, the child may learn a lot of information, but it may be the wrong information necessary for a particular assignment. He/she may not understand how the information relates to the assignment. 
So choosing the proper text to study, or the correct page of homework to do, is important. Imagine how frustrating it is to accomplish what you think is the assignment, only to find out that you spent a lot of time and effort but did not do the correct assignment. Definitely a weekend buster! Warning: read the instructions carefully.
SUSTAIN
Some people with AD/HD may be able perform the first two skills. They may be able to focus, they may be able to select what is relevant, but they are unable to sustain attention. They are unable to “stay on task,” unable to keep doing it for a period of time that is long enough to complete the assignment. It’s not just that they can’t sit still, although that is often a problem, it is that they just can’t seem to stick to it.
Sticktoitiveness involves patience and a sense of purposeful direction.
RESIST DISTRACTIONS
Throughout the attention process, the individual must be able to resist distractions. They must ignore things that happen around them. Simple things like how the fan makes a noise, or the light-bulb flickers, or another child in the classroom gets up to walk over to the pencil sharpener, makes noise sharpening and then walks back to his seat. At home, it means ignoring the sounds of the television from another room, nearby conversation, rustle of the newspaper (remember when there was an evening edition?) The child finds these things more interesting than the boring assignment.
Now, don’t start thinking that you are so smart and decide that the remedy to prevent distractions is to put your child in a hermetically sealed soundproof room to keep distractions out. Ha! A person with AD/HD must ignore the thoughts in his/her own head! Thinking about recess, or who is coming over to visit on the weekend, or what is for dinner… these are examples of intrusive internal distractions at a time when the child should be thinking about the homework assignment or picking up the clutter in his/her bedroom.
You’ve surely heard the expressions “Your mind is wandering,” or “You are day-dreaming.” Hmmmm,which reminds me of Daydream Believer , the original 1967 Monkees recording and the remix that came out in the late 1990’s and how we used it for the soundtrack of the winningest soccer season video, but oops, I digress.
So, while it may be <counter-intuitive for you, the non ADD’er, consider that playing music could help your child concentrate on the boring reading assignment by filtering out the noisy internal dialogue. Bouncing a ball while memorizing spelling words can obliterate the non-syncopated internal sounds and replace them with a predictable and grounding steady beat. Chewing gum (sugarless, in case my dentist is reading this!) helps in the same way when you are out in public and it is not possible to employ the previously described accommodations.
SHIFT
When deeply involved with something, especially something enjoyable that provides immediate reward, the AD/HD individual may have difficulty abruptly changing his/her focus away from what he/she is engaged in doing. Having difficulty changing direction mid-course, shifting gears, stopping one activity and moving right into the next is part of the AD/HD spectrum.
Perhaps you know someone who can play video games for hours, or watch TV all day, or surf the internet until the wee hours (imagine that!). This is known as HYPER-FOCUS. It is the opposite of being distracted by extraneous stimuli. It is the inability to pull attention away from something enjoyable through being drawn-in too intently while being ‘rewarded’ by flashing lights and electronic sounds. Back in the day it was pinball machines!
“Children and adults with ADD have difficulty shifting attention from one thing to another,” says Russell Barkley, Ph.D., a research professor of psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. “If they’re doing something they enjoy or find psychologically rewarding, they’ll tend to persist in this behavior after others would normally move on to other things. The brains of people with ADD are drawn to activities that give instant feedback.” October/November 2005 issue of ADDitude
Think of hyper-focus as like being in a state of trance. Your child is not willfully ignoring you. Rather, he/she just doesn’t ‘hear’ you.
Many individuals with AD/HD can pay attention to things that are very interesting to them, things that are new, or activities that involve only one other person. This can be confusing to those around them. We believe they have it within their power to concentrate and pay attention, because we have witnessed it firsthand. It may be difficult to understand and we may be tempted to scold the child or judge the individual at the times when attention is just not there.
Therefore, it is important to remember that children with AD/HD typically lack the ability to perform consistently over time. One day, your child may accomplish many tasks from start to completion, including putting away the toys or the crafts supplies or the sports gear. On other days, nothing gets done, or maybe several things get half-way completed, and the house just looks like Hurricane Chaos hit.
Which reminds me…..there is a pile of laundry calling my name. Gotta go! — Debbie
