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Comment by sundvor | Hacker News Reader

Awesome work.

This made me think. My 7y boy has ASD/ADHD. When he talks, which is often, he talks constantly and all the time. It can feel like an onslaught; is very tiring over time.

We've always been reading to him, and he enjoys words - and learning new vocabulary. I'm quite particular about grammar also, and he's always open to being learning this, being corrected, and he'll even correct his own after a few times. It's amazing to hear him "work" Google Home, modulating his questions until he gets what he wants.

So he's obviously got a very sharp brain, but from a parent's point of view it can take a lot of effort to stay engaged at that "11th hour" point - specially when tired and dealing with non-compliance.

Would appreciate if anyone has pointers here, if this resonates. We need to teach him that communication isn't just Transmit, but Transmit/ Receive (Tx/Rx).

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My daughter used to be a 'narrate my life' kind of girl at that age, and I used to play silly conversational games with her, that we both really enjoyed.

So, she would see a balloon up a tree, and she's ask how it got there, and I would say "I guess it was carried up there by a giant eagle" and she'd say "no a man with a crane" and we would just keep spinning increasing outrageous hypotheses.

It became a quite common game for us. She also liked 'guess my animal' type games.

Great approach, thanks for the suggestion.

My in laws do this thing were children are mostly ignored. When adults are talking or watching tv, the adults should not be interrupted. In practice they ignore other adults most of the time too. Very boarish, dysfunctional people in general. Conversations with them are very one sided and shallow. So kudos to you for not relagating the kid to non-person status like that.

One of the things we focus on is taking turns, giving other people the opportunity to talk, and not interrupting each other. I thinks it's easier with multiples because they tend to regulate this among themselves. Like our two will object if they're interrupted, especially the littler one.

> So kudos to you for not relagating the kid to non-person status like that.

I was raised to do as I was told, sit quietly and speak when spoken to in company. It did me no harm whatsoever, and meant I could behave in public without constantly demanding attention.

There is a difference between expecting a child to behave properly in company, and neglecting to interact with them at all.

> I was raised to do as I was told, sit quietly and speak when spoken to in company. It did me no harm whatsoever ….

How could you possibly know?

> My in laws do this thing were children are mostly ignored. When adults are talking or watching tv, the adults should not be interrupted. In practice they ignore other adults most of the time too. Very boarish, dysfunctional people in general.

Surely these two (ignoring children for adult conversation and ignoring other adults) do not always go together, and need not be conflated. My wife, who is Italian, told me that, in the European model of parenting with which she is familiar, children are expected to defer to adult conversations.

While I have no children, I see no reason that this couldn't have a positive effect, analogous to that of not being an only child—whereby children learn that, though they are important and valued, their desires do not always come first, and they need to learn to be respectful of others. Your comment seems to suggest, by contrast, that it is obviously and necessarily a poor way to raise children.

(I also don't think that ignoring other adults, at least in some circumstances where they want my intention, is necessarily a bad thing, but that's probably more a factor of my bias towards being alone than of any parenting philosophy.)

I have four kids (two of my own, and two stepchildren) and I generally agree with this style of parenting. I feel like there is a bit of a "cult of the child" in America (where I am) where it is a competition now to raise the most perfect children, with the most perfect Instagram ready activities all the time, each a potential STEM subject genius with world changing thoughts, etc. etc. It's tiring to watch if you are on social media, which I feel is one of the big drivers of the new attitudes toward kids. I see parents using their kids for virtue signalling all the time.

But that's not how the world actually works. How is this conditioning preparing your kids to live in the real world, where people aren't going to coddle them and make sure all conversations are fair and equal?

It's not "conditioning" it's teaching empathy, kindness, courtesy and respect for others.

Not sure if the issues are the same as the ones that we experienced with our son, but my wife suspected that our son had ADHD and she read several books and ended up agreeing with the ideas behind brain balance. She found a chiropractic neurologist who studied with the author of the book, and he prescribed some exercises to overcome some primitive reflexes and an elimination diet. Our son became less irritable and is better able to focus (but is still working on impulse control). My wife is super happy with the results.

Interesting, and good to hear! Is that anything like http://drrobertmelillo.com/2016/03/18/5-exercises-inhibit-pr... ?

I'm more familiar with MNRI. Masgutova reflex integration.

Yes, I believe Moro and Galant reflexes were two of the ones that my son worked on. I think there were two others not on that list.

the way your son is acting sounds normal, are you sure he is adhd

His pediatrician, psychologist and psychiatrist made that assessment.

I didn't describe his full set of behaviours, impulsiveness; it'd be a very long post. I try to focus on the good things, but was hoping to see if others here might have some strategies to try.

I've taken steps like change jobs to be able to get rid of car to ride to work to improve fitness to get more energy to hopefully be a better dad.

There is a fad in diagnosing ADHD to boys especially. Some boys just need to move their bodies more than others.

OPs experience with his children is wonderful but I’ve never seen research indicating early language development having anything to do with intelligence or success in adulthood.

I read you, yet that's kind of funny: Son struggled to get through a karate class in the afternoon without a small refresher dose of Ritalin - which has helped him academically at school. He finally got sent out after three strikes for disrupting the class without; his attention and ability to be one of the crowd instantly improved with the addition of the drug.

From this in particular I'm inclined to believe in the professional opinions of the specialists we engaged.

He's doing 3x weekly Kyoshkin sessions as well as occasional mountain bike riding, but we could probably try to do even more to get energy use up on a daily basis; very strong, an abundance of energy. Which is normal for most children at least.

Do you know what leads some boys to move their bodies more than others?

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