Parenting J and JN has taken a toll on my health, yet how can I leave JN alone in this world to struggle and grow up on his own, while I just focus on my own family? I cannot give up on this work.
As JN grows up to be a 13 year old boy, I began to keenly understand the risk of his well-being and personally understood the words from Focus on Family and others below:
"These young people without proper parental and medical care, can easily become defeated - first academically, then emotionally, socially and spiritually. with prayer and proper care, these specially gifted kids can have academic success. They can discover who God created them to be and find what He has in store for them. God can and does use ADHD in His particular and peculiar plan for your child's life."
I have written a post before about listing down the strengths of your child with ADHD. Yet, we tend to focus on correcting the child's behavior such as fidgeting for example, because "struggles inherent to ADHD of social skill deficits and poor peer relationships are among the strongest predictors of poor social adjustment..." (Guevremont & Dumas, 1994; Hoza, Mrug, Gerdes, Hinshaw, Bukowski, 2005) and we forget to focus on the positive traits behind those behaviors.
A lot can be done simply by being there to encourage, but it is not always easy. It requires emotional strength and resources. I am thankful to the understanding and support that Daddy has been providing me. JN is a teachable boy. It brings me to my knees and give all the burdens to God. It requires understanding. God is a gentle and compassionate God. We can learn a lot how to deal with children with ADHD with patience and wisdom from God. We need to pray to God for wisdom and patience, which is vital and should be an integrated method of handing ADHD.
I am reading up more about the biblical perspective on ADHD and how to help these children.
Below are some Christian-based resources on ADHD:
http://adhd.weebly.com/index.html
http://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/parenting_challenges/adhd/how_to_help_an_adhd_child.aspx
http://www.everydaychristianity.com/articles/family-life-articles/parenting/a-christians-guide-to-add-and-adhd/
Here are some books providing a biblical perspective on handling ADHD:
I Just love this verse (i'll tweak it for JN) 'For i know the plans i have for JN, declares the Lord, plans to prosper him & not to harm him, plans to give him a hope and a future'. jeremiah 29:11
ReplyDeleteI am clinging on to this verse for my son too. It lifts alot off my shoulders. Hope it will do the same to you too. :)