Life With ADHD: Why Grandmother Was Essential To My Education

 Happy Holidays Divas! I’m back in Chicago on holiday until Sunday and back to work on Monday. Covid felt like a cold in all honesty, and the worse part about it was being home plus the anxiety fueled by the media. If you are not vaccinated, please get vaccinated. I don’t know how this got here (so many theories and it makes you wonder) but it needs to go away. I’m grateful that I am vaccinated and that my illness was mild.

Today being Christmas Eve, I felt a fitting topic was my Grandmother, whose birthday is today. A loving but stern German woman, Grandmother had a heart of gold. Always the nurturer, she took care of everyone then herself with selfishness, and such generosity that made her a saint. She had that quality that made people love her, yet she could be argumentative. “ ‘I always have the last word,’ “ she often say. She was not afraid to back down from anyone, even my father, with his control measures over my life while being emotionally unavailable as a parent. 

I was not an easy child. Children are bidirectional: they influence their environment and their environment influences them. Give a child responsibility, that teaches them to become responsible. Treat a child like a baby and be the helicopter parent, that teaches them to be a baby of sorts. I was babied by Grandmother, yet I feared her out of respect. 

Children with ADHD move with speed, often twice that of their non-ADHD peers. Flanked by endless energy, excitement, excessive chatter, with unique creativity and perspective with focus challenges, ADHD move counterclockwise in a classroom setting. With ADHD medication plus consistency and routine, children with ADHD are able to co-exist in a classroom with peers. I was that energetic chatterbox with focus issues as a child who wouldn’t do math, but I would do subjects I liked and would do ok in them. School was overwhelming at times for me, due to the fact that I was expected to learn at the same pace as my peers. (After all, this was the eighties in Catholic school without medication). Staying home with Grandmother was more fun compared to being in school. 

Bingo games, making and playing with play dough. Holiday baking. Using metal coffee tins with art supplies to create containers for baked goods, such as chocolate chip cookies or “s” cookies. Her favorite spoon that I, not my brothers or cousins was allowed to touch. Using household objects to teach basic math skills. Teaching me how to play piano by ear. Doing her best to keep me on task, checking in as I did homework, when I did homework. 

And gently, but firmly holding me accountable for not doing homework when I had pages of spelling corrections to do over winter break. I sat in the back bedroom at my great aunt’s house on the far south side of Chicago facing the parking lot of the store next to me, where I was able to see across the street. I remember that winter break where I wrote words so many times I wore down pencils and had writer’s cramp. 

Being able to learn at my own pace while at home was less stressful, calm and held my attention with a restored sense of confidence to a degree. It was here that Grandmother taught me respect, honesty, kindness, and love with manners. My mood swings and temper tantrums due to anger outbursts plus anxiety, did not phase her. She accepted me for me, not for what she wanted me to be. 

At the age of fifteen, my world shattered when she passed away. I was alone and on my own. Pooky, the stuffed dog she gave me when I was nine years old, sits on a shelf in my room with Grandmother’s spirit protecting me just like she always did. 

Thank you Grandmother for loving me so much. Thank you for teaching me everything and being there for me. For teaching me how to bake. For manners. Honesty, kindness, compassion. How to stand up for myself. Giving me the love of pro wrestling, and encouraging my creativity. For teaching me one hell of a serve in volleyball following your shoulder injury that summer during swimming lessons. Most of all, thank you for accepting me for who I was, not for what people thought I should be. Now I have a favorite bowl and sometimes the last word. 

With coffee and love,

Dani