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Mental Health Corner
Mental Health Corner “But My Son Focuses So Well!”
By Rabbi Azriel Hauptman
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Parents of ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder) kids are often faced with a paradox. On the one hand their child seems to be unable to focus, but when it comes to reading books, playing video games, and other stimulating activities they can focus so well that they can sit motionless for hours on end and not even hear when their name is called. This is known colloquially as “hyperfocus”. Indeed, one of the official symptoms of ADHD is “often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly”.
Another enigma about ADHD children is in the area of energy. When an ADHD child is engaged in stimulating activity, he will often have boundless energy. But when asked to do something that is not so exciting, such as putting his socks in the hamper, he will frequently react as if he was being forced into slave labor. What is the key to this mystery?
In order to understand ADHD children, we need to completely rethink our perception of their challenges. It is not necessarily true that these children are suffering from an inability to focus. Rather, their problem might lie in their difficulty in focusing their focus! In other words, they have an extremely hard time when they are asked to direct their attention in a specific direction. This ability to direct one’s attention is one of the aspects of executive function.
What exactly is executive function? Surprisingly, it is extremely hard to accurately define, but we will try to explain it as simply as we can.
Imagine that you had a little secretary in your brain that kept track of all of your appointments and obligations and would constantly remind you about all of your required activities for that day. This tiny person in your head would nudge you us to focus when necessary and would watch over you very carefully that you should not become overly and dangerously absorbed in any specific activity. We all have this little voice in our hard. This is the “executive” that lives inside of our brain and this is what grants us executive function.
Children (and adults) with ADHD have a very quiet executive living in their brains. Therefore, they are not reminded to focus on what is important and to avoid distractions. In the absence of this mental executive, their brain power becomes unharnessed. When something is exciting and stimulating, their focus is off to the races. But when something is very unstimulating but important, they do not have that little voice in their head that tells them to remain on task. They then quickly lose their energy and focus.
Individuals with ADHD are not “lazy bums”. They want to succeed and be productive just like everybody else. What they do need is intervention. The possible interventions for individuals with ADHD include medication, ADHD coaching, and therapy with a clinician who is well versed and trained in the treatment of ADHD.
This is a service of Relief Resources. Relief is an organization that provides mental health referrals, education, and support to the frum community. Rabbi Yisrael Slansky is director of the Baltimore branch of Relief. He can be contacted at 410-448-8356 or at yslansky@reliefhelp.org
