In today’s schools, our children have to be good at everything, but in the real world, they only have to be REALLY good at something. We have to change the message we giving to our children, and especially the ones diagnosed with” learning disorders” because when it’s time to get a job they have a hard time “selling” themselves because their education has focused so much on their weaknesses.
Many of the symptoms of ADHD can be seen as the side effects of deep imagination. For example, one symptom is “easily distracted by irrelevant thoughts.” This is an important stage of creativity called incubation, where you do not directly try to solve a problem but allow space for inspiration to occur.

The single most important factor in creating something new is imagination. All children have fantasies and those diagnosed with learning issues, like ADD and ADHD have lots of them. These can be a distraction, but can also give students the power to create a new world.

We need to educate creative minds by valuing creative minds, encouraging rather than discouraging imagination. We need to remind kids and parents that studying leads to good grades, thinking leads to problem solution, and imagination leads to world changers. This week, Dr. Lara Honos-Webb offers some tools to translate symptoms into needs and explains how you can give your child permission to meet those needs.

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