“Yes, Your Kid is Smoking Pot”
What Every Parent Needs to Know Now

"No one is immune to the disease of addiction," warns Katherine Ketcham, the coauthor of thirteen books, including Teens Under the Influence: The Truth About Kids, Alcohol, and Other Drugs – How to Recognize the Problem and What to Do About It and the bestselling classic Under the Influence: A Guide to the Myths and Realities of Alcoholism. For the last eight years she has worked with addicted youth and families at the Juvenile Justice Center in Walla Walla, Washington.

5 Simple Concentration Building Techniques
for Kids with ADHD

Imagine that you are living inside of a video game, where everything is coming at you at once and every sight, sound and sensation is a distraction. For a child with ADHD, getting through a typical day is something like that—and it explains a great deal about how they experience the world. Children with ADHD typically have impairment of functions such as concentration, memory, impulse control, processing speed and an inability to follow directions. If you’re a parent of a child with ADD or ADHD, this most likely sounds all too familiar. Over the years, you’ve probably struggled through homework sessions with your child, tried (and failed) to get them to complete certain tasks like cleaning their room or finishing yard work, and on more than one occasion, you’ve probably felt completely drained by their high energy and seeming inability to focus.

Under the Radar: How Girls with ADHD Go Undetected
And Why the Correct Diagnosis is Important for
Girls and Boys Alike

“I never suspected my nine-year-old daughter’s inability to concentrate was due to ADHD,” said Diane, the mother of three girls. “She isn’t ‘hyper’ or noisy—in fact, just the opposite. Kayla is the middle child—she’s quiet and tends to daydream a lot. We were frustrated because she couldn’t ever seem to concentrate or get her schoolwork done...But we were still really surprised when our pediatrician finally diagnosed her with ADHD last year.”

How to Navigate the School System When Your Child
Has a Disability

As a parent, there are moments when warning bells go off—times when you notice that your child might be having trouble grasping certain skills that their peers seem to have mastered.

ADHD and Young Children:
Unlocking the Secrets to Good Behavior

For the parents of a child with ADHD, simple, everyday tasks turn into battles—from getting the child out the door in the morning to getting him to bed at night. My son was diagnosed with ADHD at age 6, so I remember what it was like to have a daily tug of war with an attention disordered child all too well. Parents look for help everywhere.  They may read one book after another and hear a parade of behavioral experts speak who give them parenting tips that don’t seem to work. The more books they read and experts they seek out, the worse their child’s behavior seems to get.

Homework Survival for Parents

You graduated from school years ago. But you’re still dealing with homework every night for hours on end, and it’s no fun. If your child refuses to bring work home, won’t do it at night or gives you endless grief when you try to help, Empowering Parents has some answers for you. Here, James Lehman explains how to get your child to do his homework so that you can stop the nightly tug of war and stop doing the work for him. 

Homework is often a barometer of what’s going on in the child’s life, and it’s easy for parents to misinterpret the issue. Sometimes the child can’t do the work because of a learning disability. Very often, the issue really isn’t the homework. The homework is what we call the “incident.” The issue is an unwillingness to do the work.

Why Kids with ADHD Self-Medicate with Marijuana

Nearly a quarter of all 12 to 17 year olds in the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported current marijuana usage. Unfortunately, kids with ADHD typically have the highest rate of drug use among their peers. According to Stephen Andrew LCSW, a substance abuse counselor and director of the Health Education Training Institute of Maine, the latest statistics say that 80 percent of all kids with ADHD are using illegal drugs.

ADHD: Disorder or Difference?

All parents want to see their child as the smartest, most capable boy or girl on the block. So why would they want to have a label attached to them that often coveys just the opposite--such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? What a difference one word can make. Suppose we changed the last D in ADHD from “disorder” to “difference.”

Out of Control Behavior: Should I Medicate My Child?

Unfortunately, a diagnosis and medication aren’t always a solution. Medications that target behavior problems are at best a shot in the dark and at worst can have many undesirable side effects and alter the child’s personality. There is a fork in the road that many parents face daily: "We have a behavior problem. Should I medicate my child?"