The following email was a reply from Dr William Dodson, in response to my email that concluded “For an ADHD student to thrive, it begins and ends with real empathy, where real empathy is connecting with another human being beyond relatable things.
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Dear Mr. Kuhn,
Thank you very much for your recent email on empathy. It struck the bullseye with me (Our research group is named RSD-Empathy Group) because it is, as you eloquently point out, one of the few absolute requirements for doing really well despite all of the obstacles and callous behavior with which people with ADHD must contend every day.
When I first started working in adult ADHD there was nothing from which to start, just these long lists of “executive function deficits” that people with ADHD had. I became so frustrated with the types of presentations that were and still are the only things available from the guys doing research. I wanted to get up and scream, “OK! We get it. ADHD creates a lot of problems. Tell me what to do about them!?”
So, I decided that I would have to figure it out on my own.
Most of all I wanted to talk with the adults with ADHD who were NOT in my office. I wanted to
know what they had figured out that so many others had not that allowed them to thrive and commonly do so without the aid of medications.
After 25 years of asking these questions, I came up with only one thing they all had in common. What you call the “execution of Empathy”. Our group used a term of which I am not personally fond… the kid had a Cheerleader. The term I use is Advocate. The term does not matter because they are all the same thing and all happen the same way.
Every one of our people who discovered how to master their ADHD had a special person in their life who was what D.W. Winnicott referred to as the vessel that held the memory of the child as a good and precious person especially when things were going very, very badly in their lives. These people could be anyone in the child’s life. It was best if the advocate could be a parent (read, for instance, Jonathan Mooney’s books about the importance of his mother), an older sibling, a grandparent, etc. But it could be anyone… especially coaches and teachers. All of these people intuitively knew to consistently deliver a 3-part message. See if this sounds familiar:
- “I Know you. I’ve known you pretty much your entire life. And I know that if anybody could have solved this problem on their own through sheer brain power and hard work, it would have been you.
- That tells me that we’ve missed something vitally important that has been an invisibleobstacle for your entire life
- And, I want you to know that I will stick with you through the rough patches in the future until we figure this thing out and master it. Together we can do things you can’t evenimagine right now.”
A child’s worst fears are that they are unlovable (because they are broken in some way,) and they are going to be abandoned with a problem they cannot fix no matter how hard they try. (BTW, a piece that cannot be left out is that last phrase. If a child knows that you see the potential for greatness in them, they will walk through Hell for you to deliver that greatness.)
We both know that every child needs to have this kind of 3-part message, but children with an inexplicable ADHD nervous system need it more frequently and for several more years than neurotypical kids (ADHD children are about 2 years behind in neuro-emotional development so they need this relationship longer). They also need to avoid people like his teacher who could not see this potential for greatness even when you pointed it out. She needs to find a different line of work because she does harm in the classroom. All she can see is a bad (“lazy”) kid who could be discarded because they were worthless.
So, keep doing exactly what you are doing. It seems you are a natural. You discovered what it has taken me 25 years to understand. You discovered where every ultimately successful child has to start. I wished I had known this back then.
Best regards,
Bill