So my son started middle school and immediately his grades dropped down into D’s and F’s. Since his mother was able to get all the teachers in elementary school to bend over backwards and do special things to help my son out, and give him Ritalin (out of my control as she doesn’t co-parent), instead of letting him fail and learn to deal with the way his mind works, he wasn’t prepared for middle school. He didn’t know how to be responsible for himself. So now that he was responsible for writing down homework assignments and remembering what things on his own he was struggling.

So, with his grades dropping what do think was the first thing his mother did? Any guesses??? She immediately put him on Ritalin, again. She didn’t try any other steps to help him out. So when he wasn’t getting bringing homework home or doing it she wasn’t checking it, I guess. So I guess here thought process is like most horrible parents, lets go for the quick fix rather than taking the appropriate steps, actually parenting.

I on the other hand did my job as a parent and set up consequences for him and gave him process to follow, to get him in a routine. Probably the biggest impact was buying my son a watch, which I suggest to any middle school or high school child. Don’t just buy any watch, but this watch.

This watch has 5 alarms that can set and the watch will vibrate like a pager or phone. So to solve the issue where my son just couldn’t remember to write down the assignments for each night, we set alarms for those 5 classes. So he doesn’t have an excuse. When the alarm goes off he has to immediately make the correct choice to stop talking to friends and write down his assignment or face consequences when he gets home. He is now getting his homework signed about 98% of the time. They say it takes something like two or month to form a habit. He probably doesn’t need the watch at this point, but we make him wear it anyway so he doesn’t have an excuse, as the alarms are his second shot at getting his homework signed.

Please parents, DO NOT give your kids drugs, but give them the tools they need to succeed. The first and best tool is consequences, please don’t forget this or be afraid. Remember you job is to parent, not be your childrens best friend. Yes, that means being the bad guy a lot of the time.

Save your childs brain and future by not giving him drugs, he isn’t the problem its the system.

Looks like I have some issues with the styling on my blog. Will try to fix when I find the time.

Wrote a very long post with interactive flash graphs on the Depression that is coming.  Vote for me on Digg, please?

http://digg.com/d1rhEK

If the link doesn’t work try www.2009depression.com

Thanks!

Often I talk or blog about the U.S. school system and how it produces sheep.  The U.S. school system was built based on the German school system, which was designed to produce people who took orders and think the same way.  Here in the U.S., our schools promote or reward kids who don’t think differently.  Those students then go on to college because they were given the best grades based on thinking a certain way and doing what they were told.  Those college students, highly rewarded in college, then hit the job market and they given management jobs because they think a certain way and follow directions, they play the rat race well, fall in line.  Now when times are down and out, where are all those sheep?  Standing in line waiting for someone to come rescue them and give them a job. Their resumes all look the same they all have the same overall school and career path.  None of them standout.  Its all over CNN today, “you have sell yourself to stand out!”. Good luck when you haven’t done anything different than the other 100 people standing in line for those 10 jobs.

So those parents who put their children on Ritalin (speed) so they can fall in line and do what they are told, be like all the other kids so the teachers day is easier, this is what your signing up your kids for.  Your ADHD children are right-brained.  Its better that they are different.

Why the company names in the title you are asking?  Well in the down economy, which companies are no where near bankruptcy and which are still showing high sales volumes? Those companies in the title are all run by CEO’s with either ADHD, Dyslexa or both.  Why are they so successful? Because they are right-brained, meaning they see in pictures and patterns.  They all take risks and buck the trend.  They are so ahead of the curve their companies are financially secure and they have product lines that are mostly recession proof for now. They may eventually succumb to the recession, but their losses won’t compare to the their competitors.  Imagine if the auto industry had a Steve Jobs or a John Chambers?  How about the banking industry?

Sheep can’t think their way out of a wet paper bag. So before you put your kids on speed (bad parents) think about this post.  And no Steve Jobs, John Chambers, David Neeleman, and Richard Branson are not just lucky.  They made their own way doing what they wanted and didn’t listen to the naysayers.  So don’t think they are just one off people.  You have to believe in your children and stop listening to teachers.  Most teachers are clueless they care only about what they get measured on and thats getting kids to pass and to make their lives easier.  Your kid challenges them and they just want kids who are easy.  Please parents stay strong. Stop looking at teachers as very knowledgeable people who are deep thinkers and know what is best for your child. Teachers and instructors can’t see past the end of the school year.  They know how to pass or fail kids based on our broken school system, not what is best for your child in the long run.

The most important thing to remember isn’t go to work for the best-known companies or get the best position.  The key is do great things and the rest will come.  In a down economy if you are programmer for say Microsoft your job isn’t safe and more than likely it won’t be easy to find another job. But instead if you programmed something for a smaller startup, say augmented reality, or iPhone app that sold a million units I guarantee you wouldn’t have an issue finding work.

SO GO DO GREAT THINGS!

So for the past two weeks I ran a little test on myself. No, not an official scientific test, though I think those are overrated and overdone. I played several different types of music as I worked (I am a programmer). I tried rap, classical (piano), pink noise, white noise, mixture (all types), radiohead, ghostland observatory (my favorite), and a techno (house, trance). Oh, and if your wondering what white noise and pink noise are, they are like on the TV. If you do a google search you can find the two files I used on the web, they are both 10 minutes long and I run them in a loop. No country music, yuk. Oh, and I tried just headphones with out and sound/music playing, as well. I ran the test to see how much work I was able to do and how well I could concentrate.

The more high level result was that the music without words or no music was best (with and without music I still wore the headphones).

The best results are as follows, 1 being the best:

1. Techno music (this music plus a rockstar energy drink are amazing)
2. Classical
3. No Music
4. white noise & pink noise
5. radiohead
6. ghostland obs.
7. rap
8. mixture
9. whatever else

Hands done techno, especially trance music, gave me the best results. I found that anything with words gave me problems, this is of course due to the fact the ADHD people (aka Right brainers) think in images or pictures so we have to turn words into a picture of the word or what the word is (helicopter my mind doesn’t see the word but a picture of a helicopter). So when I listen to music especially rap or rock when they sing I almost make a movie of the lyrics in my head.

Hope this helps others. You all should try it.

Found this presentation that has a good representation of ADHD. The actua presentation is about Branding or Brands, but it literal puts ADHD/Right Brained into perspective.

You can read presentation here. Their are several slides but an average of about 5 words per slide.

You can skip to slide 28 to see the stuff I referenced above. Slide 29 shows those with left brains and those with right brains. Currently society and school systems (which the U.S. got from Germany) only reward those on the left (left brains) vs. on the right (right brained). But as we see in business, if you focus on the left so much the company will fail. The U.S is now feeling those affects, well those companies who have failed to reward those of us with Right Brains.

The problem is in order to succeed (as referenced in the slides) is that you have to have both those with right and left brains. I do disagree with the strategy setters though, as to be good leaders you need to have vision and to be successful in business your products need to have a great experience, aka intuitive, emotional, touchy feely. Those with Right brains need to set strategy and direction, as well as, decide the products features and experience. Implementation and follow through is what Left Brained people are good at.

Where the U.S. companies are struggling are that because of the level of technology available, such as the ability to mass produce with CNC machines, plastic laser printing, and programming langauges like Ruby on Rails, where products can be created in days and on the cheap, is that Left Brains are not as need any more. Thus removing the barriers needed to build things, skilled labor.

It is now easier to replace the analytical than the creative people. Sure those with Left Brains have the same access to those mass production capabilities, but they will mass produce products that are just a bunch of non-creative features into a product, aka Ford, GM, Motorola phones, Dell computers…etc. In order to sell these they have to sell them for cheap, which sooner or later they will go out of business.

Anyway, I digress. When you are down about your ADHD or your childs, look at slide 40, remember black sheep are good. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about yourself or your children.

Whether you like them or not, here are some black sheep…. Eminem/Slim Shady, Einstein, Virgin Airlines/Virgin Mobile, Apple, Obama, iphone, Madonna, Ozzy Osborne, Dennis Rodman, Michael Jordan (he has ADHD or Dyslexia can’t remember which one; both Right Brained) ….. no they don’t all probably have ADHD, but they do stand out.

BE BOLD, BE BRAVE!

Well, as I posted before I made job switch about 6 months ago. I took a contract to perm position and I have been given an offer to go perm. Hoping to sign the offer if the money ends up being correct. I am hoping to be not to far off from those six figures.

I can’t say again how much being in the right environment, well and the correct job/ responsibilities, is the key to how successful we are as ADHD/Right brainers. My last position was with a very conservative company with very conservative managers, who were very risk averse. These were also the type of managers that hate the new guy/girl with big ideas. I can remember the first day I wrote one of the those footers on my email, the one down by your name. Mine was something like “If you don’t like change you will like irrelevance even less.”, people were freaking out. Its a foot note, what is the big deal? The managers are type that micro manage you and worry about if your taking to long of lunch and coming in on time. The kind that expect you to work overtime if need be, but an extra day off forget about it. The kind of managers that are focused on your 40 (hours) and your every move rather than on your deliverables. Anyway, this company is the type of place where all the managers are in the maintenance mode of their careers, which means they are sitting pretty and just along for the ride and good paycheck.

Of course, these are the types of companies and managers where we ADHD/Right Brained people don’t fit in. We clash with the management, because we are fast paced and we want change that will help make the company better and stronger. So we either get demoted, get forced out, or get fired.

Fast forward to today, I now work for company (startup) where they only worry about what you deliver and if your doing your job, not if you are working 40 hours. Need extra time off no problem I will make it up some day when I work overtime to finish a project. I never see my boss unless we go run together at lunch or if I have a question for him. As long as I am doing what needs to be done, he doesn’t care. No ideas are shut down, as long as they make the product better. Nobody being territorial.

All I can say is I love my job and they would have to force me to leave. No boring repetitive tasks either!!! I am doing development (a.k.a programming). Yes, ADHD/Right Brain people can be developers, as long as its with programming languages that allow you to be creative, Ruby on Rails (ROR) and Flex work for me. Sure you can be creative with any language to some extent, but with ROR and Flex/Flash the a lot of the details are handled for you, especially with ROR.

Plus, I still get to work with graphics.

I took this test and I scored a 35. Possibly could have been a little higher, but not sure some of the questions were phrased correctly so I just choose a middle answer when I wasn’t sure.  http://www.msnbc.com/modules/newsweek/autism_quotient/default.asp

I can definetly see how ADHD and Autism are connected or as PHD’s like to say on the same spectrum. I still believe that Autism and ADHD are the same just a little less of the symptoms or increase in function-ability(if that is a word).  I can see that ADHD people seem to be more able to empathize or better yet, have the ability to see peoples intentions or thoughts by sensing their moods.  But, I have to be honest. A lot of the time, I just skip over peoples feelings and don’t care much, if they are people I feel are ignorant about the situation or topic at hand. So, I wonder if those with less functioning Autism just feel this way all the time?

Sorry, for not posting in a long time, but I had some personal issues happening so I needed to be silent for awhile. I promise a post soon.

Does anyone have any suggests on topics they would like me to discuss or talk about?

Sorry about not posting lately, but I have been on vacation and went to a week of training (programming) and yes I was being lazy.

So I wrote post on my other blog about programmers who are right-brained that I think is worth mentioning here since this blog gets a lot of traffic from searches on ADHD + jobs. I have written or mentioned good jobs before, but this time I am focusing on some specific details. You might be asking, how can programming be a good job for someone who can’t seem to stay focused? Well, because most people have misconceptions about ADHD. The first being the people with ADHD cannot focus. ADHDers actually focus (hyper-focus) continuously for most part of the day. This is actually what happens when we are day dreaming, as we are so overly focused on what we are thinking about that we shut out the entire world. We also go into hyper-focus when we are playing video games, watching television, or when working on things we really enjoy. A second misconception is that we get bored easily, which does have some merit, but its actually not as simple as getting bored. It is actually that ADHD (aka right-brained) don’t have a creative outlet that lets our minds work how they were meant to. This second misconception is where I will focus this post.

As I have written in one of my other posts, an ADHD person can be successful in almost any job if they are given freedom. Their is a great essay written by Paul Graham here called “You Weren’t Meant to Have a Boss” that explains my thoughts about freedom better than I can myself. I am sure most individuals who are not technology savvy probably think you need to be a mathematician to be a developer. That once was probably true, but each day that is less so. I won’t go into here, but programming languages are becoming easier and easier to use do to things such as frameworks. Frameworks remove all the mundane task that developers use to have to do mainly each time they programmed something. And these frameworks are where ADHDers can make huge strides. A lot of people think that ADHDers are lazy and just don’t want to do work. This isn’t true. ADHDers actually just want things to move at a fast pace and don’t like dealing with details as they side track us.

So if you are someone with ADHD then look for a job that allows you to remove the mundane. For me I have chosen the creative route, which includes marketing, graphic design, and yes programming. They all provide creative outlets and FREEDOM. As far as programming I have chosen Flash, Flex, and now Ruby on Rails. All of these are mediums to me, which coincidently have frameworks that remove the mundane tasks so that I can let my right-brain flow with ideas without getting bogged down with to many details. To compare this to painting, working without frameworks would be like a painter having to mix each color, make their paint brush, and weave their own canvas. Ruby on Rails (aka ROR) is the perfect programming language for right-brained people (ADHD) because it allows you to easy get started developing functionality into your programs. If you are interested in programming, but never knew where to start here is a good tutorial that will get you up and running in no time.

So yes, even those with ADHD can become programmers, but we do have to still sit through the boring classes we don’t like in order to become successful. You can’t expect to become a good painter just by picking up a brush or you can’t become a great programmer without taking some math classes or computer classes. We need to learn the basics and the foundations first.