Out Here, ADHD just doesn’t “exhist”
| June 14, 2009 | Posted by SuperADDMom under ADDventures, iRant |
My son checking out the tadpoles on an evening jaunt on a back country road
So, right off the bat, before I go offending someone who has an ADHD child, in the city, who attends school. I’m not saying rural living and/or homeschooling is a “cure” or that you should pack up and move to the country and start homeschooling your child. Rural life is not for everyone. I can understand that.
But having grown up in the country all my life, and having tried the fast pace of the city, the rushed lifestyle, the schedules ” and all that jazz”…Out here in the country, I just “fit ” better. My kids just “fit” better. ADHD just doesn’t exist especially when your ADHD kids classroom is outdoors catching snakes, sitting in the ditch yelling into culverts studying echoes and how sound travels, finding out where tadpoles come from, naming plants, and getting your feet dirty while picking rocks for a campfire pit.
I’m not trying to paint a rosy picture of rural living…my kids are not medicated for their neurodiversities, and they do drive me crazy some days, when they grate on each other’s last nerve and need a break from each other, and I’m about ready to lose my mind from my Concerta running out at about 5 pm, and I get scatterbrained myself, and there is still supper and bedtimes to be done.
Some days it sucks when we have to go to town or the day to run errands for the month, and we’re out stuck in a vehicle most of the day and they are about ready to climb the inside of the van walls. But if I had to parent my kids, in the city, sending them to school on a schedule, for THEM and my OWN ADD, and they were unmedicated. I’d probably be in a rubber room at the nearest city hospital!
Got ADHD? Rural life is the Rx 
Its just more laid back, and everyone is a bit more forgiving.
Oh look…Cows!
That fits with several studies on “ADHD”. Recently three anthropologists and a biologist found that those with “ADHD” associated variants in the DRD4 gene were healthier than those without in tribal societies in Kenya.
I think what you are saying makes a lot of sense, actually. I truly enjoy myself when I go out for nature walks and especially when I visit the ocean. I don’t know what it is about visiting the ocean (not from the beach with zillions of people). It’s sort of like meditation for me. It’s also interesting to note that ADHD wasn’t even a part of any discussions (with or without the label) prior to the industrial/civilized build up! Clearly, something to think about.
The country and the woods are an effective balm for the AD/HD brain. However, I grew up on a family farm in the fifties and sixties and I can tell you, AD/HD was definitely present at home as well as at school.
While we spent many hours finding crayfish in the stream, we also risked tons of hay landing on us from making tunnels we had been explicitly commanded not to do. We made life miserable for each other and our parents with our intolerance for boredom and need for stimulation. There is nothing quite so stimulating as Bait and Bicker.
We pried the nail heads off the galvanized nails holding the corrugated aluminum roof of the machine shed, and had a good time rolling them down the gulleys. My father was not glad the roof leaked like a sieve after that, though.
I suppose country living not bound to the necessity of Doing Something Useful in the country would be a different story. But as a life style choice for most people, it won’t work. Too, too bad.
Oh there are days where there is need to be doing something useful, where ADHD’s “negative” traits rear it’s ugly head. Like cutting wood and stacking it for those cold winter nights, but we try to do the best we can to make it fun in some way, or muddle through the drudgery. Country livin’ in not for everyone…in fact most people can only stand a sunday drive through, and claim to be bored.. I or one am never bored with a rural setting, everything changes so much from day to day…there is always something to sidetrack ya.. but that’s ok