So . . . You are Tired of Being a Lameduck
A Disaster Manual for Attention Deficit Disorders and Attention Deficit Disorders with Hyperactivity
by Mary Jane Grange, R.N.
Published: 2001
Binding: Softcover
Pages: 193 pages
ISBN: 978-1-4269-3625-8
Cost: $20.00 plus shipping and handling; click HERE to order.
Letter to Parents of Children with Attention Disorders Deficit
This book discusses intensely the many layers of attention deficit disorders and the attention deficit disorders with hyperactivity. Many families are needlessly victimized by multiple spouses and multiple children and step children with attention deficit disorders. We are losing the potential in ourselves and draining the resources of our families and step families, communities, states, and nation. There are many causes for our attention deficits. Some we cannot control. Most causes we can control. We have been given the ability to stay on task. This ability is found in our agency, the freedom to choose between right and wrong.
Excerpt from "So . . . You are Tired of Being a Lameduck":
As a student nurse, I wondered if our lame duck behavior and even some psychiatric disorders were a result of attention deficit disorder. I began a study of attention deficit disorder. Since I am not a general with advanced degrees, I again used the greatest medical textbooks of all time which I can depend on. Ancient prophets saw our day, especially Isaiah. Prophets saw our difficulties. They saw our difficulties in learning. How would prophets teach us to learn with an attention deficit disorder? Could those ways be applied to secular learning as well as spiritual learning in our day?
As a young member of The Church of Jesus Christ, Floyd Earl Young, Jr. taught my seminary class in Laramie, Wyoming. He taught us that if we want to learn more about The Book of Mormon, we should write a paper using The Book of Mormon. To learn more about attention deficit disorders, I decided to use all four standard works of the Savior as text: The Holy Bible, The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price.
Most people read these works to prove The Book of Mormon is true or not true. Many have already proved The Book of Mormon is true. It is now time to move on and learn more about ourselves, our problems, and their solutions with The Book of Mormon and other standard works. The Book of Mormon is not a testament to replace The Holy Bible. The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. I do not want to live without The Holy Bible anymore than you do. These books are meant to be read side by side.1
I have watched nations change and individuals depart from the teachings of the Savior and the original Twelve Apostles. Yet, we are still squabbling over the truth of The Book of Mormon. While we are arguing over The Book of Mormon, the Ten Commandments given to Moses has been attacked. Many people want us to declare the Ten Commandments has no significance in our lives. I have wondered if it is The Holy Bible that is the true target to be destroyed, not The Book of Mormon. If we loose confidence in The Holy Bible, we really will go astray with attention deficit disorders. We also can be victimized needlessly. If The Book of Mormon is false then anything claiming there is a Savior will be attacked. Be glad there are two witnesses of Christ’s Sacrifice for us and a record of the writings of the original Twelve Apostles.
Every book has a goal. Our goal is to discover what attention deficit disorder is and what attention deficit disorder is not. Years later, when we are old and reflecting on our lives, we will discover what attention deficit disorder and attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity really are. Once defined, we can find solutions to our attention deficit disorders.
So what really is attention deficit disorder? How soon does attention deficit disorders begin in our lives? If I had to describe attention deficit disorders it would be this definition: Attention deficit disorders are our reactions to our environment, specifically, our first reactions to our first exposures to stress and opposition. If we get our way and stress and opposition continue, we continue with the same reaction. An attention deficit disorder affects everything in our life. It determines the choices we make and the kind of initiative that we have.
Attention deficit disorder is most usually defined as the inability to stay on task. However, I have seen healthy children who have not been given any tasks to perform. There are also healthy children who refuse to perform tasks. Is this really attention deficit disorder or a matter of choice?
Step families have many troubles with attention deficit disorders. At the end of my first book, The Medicine Wheel for Step Parents, I mentioned that I have more help for step parents in my second and third books. In my first book, I pointed out that there are double the dictators and imitators in a step family. In a step family, there are double and triple the children with attention deficit disorder and attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity. The children in step families refuse to follow tasks. To keep peace in the family, children are not given any tasks to perform. As a result, they are learning to run away instead of learning to perform and endure.
Considering how step children treat step parents and vice versa, all of your children and step children may have an attention deficit disorder. A step parent may have a spouse and an ex-spouse with this disorder. As expected, an ex-spouse will always have many excuses to justify that his wants and needs are more important than his children’s needs. An ex-spouse may also be dealing with multiple individuals with attention deficit disorder in his or her new family.
Responding to all of the individuals with attention deficit disorder in your family can be a nightmare for any mother or step mother. Treating these individuals by psychiatry, counseling, and medication will cost a fortune. The children manipulate their counselors as well as their parents and step parents anyway. Parents and step parents are forced to let their children roam the many stages of attention deficit disorder.
We all have a great-great grandfather in common who had to endure the hardships of eleven brothers and some sisters with attention deficit disorders. Their attention deficit disorders were caused by age and very hard hearts. Let us explore his story and see if we can benefit from his experience. We will learn some new ways to act, not react, to the attention deficit disorders in ourselves and our children. We will discover the layers of attention deficit disorders which accumulate until we say enough!
1 - Ezekiel 37:16-17, The Holy Bible, p. 1080.
Dear Concerned Parent or Step Parent:
Parents often comment about the differences in their children and how this has made their family life interesting. It is normal for your children to be unique. This does not mean that your family will not have problems to overcome. The Creator of this World allowed us to be unique by giving us the ability to choose right from wrong. Your children may be unique, but their learning will follow a pattern.
It is different with step families. One of the first puzzling things that a step parent notices in their step children is that his or her step children are not unique. All your step children have the same layers of dysfunction. Your step children may look different, but all of your step children and their families have the same behavior. If you look at the other side of the step family which includes your biological children, they have the same layers of dysfunction and behavior, too. Step children are coerced or feel obligated to follow a part of their remaining family that seems most advantageous to them.
Uniqueness is not allowed in step families. Personalities cannot be displayed with a parent who is married to a step parent. Your children’s personality and identity do not develop because they are coerced into following a sibling. This sibling may have adult attention deficit disorder.
Most usually, step children do not follow their surviving parent. They follow a sibling who has split from his or her biological parent. This sibling is the one that will preserve the integrity of the family. By not remaining in step with a parent, a child loses an important key in his life–his agency, the ability to stay on task. This behavior creates great gulfs in their family as well as your family. Anyone marrying into this step family has to follow this dominating personality. If they do, they experience the same gulfs.
Attention deficit disorders are not just problems with learning and identity. Attention deficit disorders accumulate in layers and affect all aspects of our behavior. These layers affect every aspect of our learning–what we learn, how well we learn, and our desire to learn. Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity sounds like individuals have no choice in the matter. We are stuck with what our body decrees for us over time. We are stuck with what someone who has an Attention Deficit Disorder decrees for us. Though we may be at different levels of intelligence and performance, humans are not stuck with impulses, reflexes, or agendas and their consequences. We have our free agency, the ability to stay on task. We can choose to stay on task in spite of hurt feelings, stress, illness, and fatigue.
Mary Jane Grange, R.N