The book is designed for parents of children with executive function disorders, including, but not limited to, ADHD. As researchers, they have developed a system for assisting children in becoming more organized. It's not a book about life hacks, it's a book about systems and rewards.

Parents of school age children with ADHD; adults with ADHD who are looking for clues as to why their school years were they way they were.

The authors of this book have some clinical research credentials: Head of Hte Cancer Control Research Program and Clinical Professor in the School of Population and Public Health Richard Gallagher PhD (Author), Elana G Spira PhD (Author), Jennifer L Rosenblatt PhD.

There's a ton of good strategies and explanations as to executive functioning affects organization and success.

The rewards are based on perfection. If a task/sheet/system is not performed perfectly, it's a fail. Now, I don't know how much you know about ADHD, but one of the features they look for is perfectionism. What looks like lack of motivation on the outside can actually be perfection paralysis on the inside. This is where you procrastinate not because something is boring, or you're being lazy, but because you mistakenly believe that it can't be done to a certain standard, so you are terrified to do it. Perfectionism in ADHD goes hand-in-hand with internal self-loathing (another common trait), where you internalize mistakes and other "deficiencies of self" so much that you believe them to be your core identity.

The authors do mention that children with OCD and similar disorders will respond poorly to the proposed approach. But they never mention ADHD's perfection component has the potential to make things worse.

Anything based on perfection is a recipe for disaster, even if someone is neurotypical - because perfection isn't a thing that exists, causes behavioural problems, and is exhausting!

The book is a partial yes, but I can't in good faith endorse perfectionism.

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Created Feb 22, 2024 at 10:36am • Submit your own review...