Today we face the second installment of the interview that Babies and more has done to the psychologist Antonio Ortuño, author of the book "Intelligent Families", in which we are going to talk about the diagnosis (and overdiagnosis) of ADHD and also about how educational work in the family can help them a lot by making pharmacological psychiatric treatment not accurate.
What reliable alternatives exist to medication and what could families be advised before they use it?
In all studies and research, the most reliable alternative is always to work with parents, train them in skills so that they exercise their educational function well.
Personally I tell you that you are experiencing a relationship problem with your child, and that your child is not suffering from a disorder. Thus they recover control of the situation, and leave the state of defenselessness that make them "victims of this disease."
How do you make him understand?
I suggest that according to the symptoms of TDHA, all children on the planet at birth would be hyperactive, since they do not have the ability to: Something that is normal in humans wants to be perceived as a disorder, as a disease. It tends to pathologize life.
How can parents help their children?
Depending on the educational guidelines, we teach our children or not to strengthen their abilities to control their motor restlessness, their impulsiveness and their attention deficit.
Parents, I understand, can help a lot by educating with a safe and clear environment and offering children their own decision and self-regulation tools, little by little. I'm right?
In educational contexts where unpredictability, incoherence, discredit, distrust, disrespect, disguise of scolding, punishment, threats, anger, sermons, excessive control prevail ... I think it is ethically reprehensible to point to the child as having a "Hyperactivity problem", and even more if you are medicated.
That problem of hyperactivity at best is the best adaptive response a boy can give in his family context.
Can parents be helped to help their children?
It is essential to help parents detect what does not work, and motivate change and learn good educational practices (my smart traffic light technique is working efficiently).
With an education based on respectful control and unconditional love we have the best prevention of any psychological problem. And if it is done well, there are plenty of drugs.
Is the school an ideal environment for children with TDHA or more "moved" features?
Ideal, ideal, perhaps it is not for any child. If a child performs misconduct at school, the problem must always be focused on what is happening at home. Any child psychological problem must first be worked at home with parents. The skills that our children learn at home, sooner or later, generalize them to other contexts such as education. Therefore, little can be done by the school if the parents do not perform their duties well.
What should I change at school for these children, understanding that, in addition, not all children are equally active?
Well, generate a context where it is exercised: a respectful control, balancing the free spaces of norms with reasonable and reasoned limits, an attention focused not only on the academic level, but on the emotional level of children.
Children should feel understood and accepted as they are.
We thank you to the psychologist Antonio Ortuño the interview he has given to Babies and more and we hope it serves to help families better understand their children and perhaps seek alternatives in the diagnosis of ADHD and try other therapies before pharmacological.
