Customer Reviews

Parenting Children with ADHD: 10 Lessons That Medicine Cannot Teach (APA Lifetools)

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a winner. I have bought and read many different books on ADHD - from all perspectives - and I like this one the best. It is balanced on the medication issue, with accurate and well-researched medical explanations of the benefits and shortcomings. The title makes it seem anti-medication but the author does recommend medication (with certain caveats, and easy-to-understand explanations of the reasons it may not work well in some individuals), so don't be put off by this if your child is on medication. His goal is to go beyond a simple prescription to give the parent other helpful information that can provide a well-rounded approach to helping their ADHD child. The book is very practical, with questionnaires, checklists, or homework at the end of each chapter.
If you are new to this topic, buy this one first. If you are a veteran but need more tips on how to help your child, this book still has plenty to offer you.

I have over 100 books on this subject and try read anything that will help my ADHD son. The old saying an informed consumer comes true with this disease. You are your child's own best advocate.
Within this book I found some very helpful information I have not read before particularly with respect to diet and protein.
The book offers some wonderful checklists for medication monitoring as well as guideline lists for 504 plans.
It is written in clear concise language. I can tell you it has become a bible in my library of ADHD books.
Kudos Dr. Monastra for putting some new light and useful information on this disease!

Professional clinical psychologist Vincent Monastra presents Parenting Children with ADHD: 10 Lessons That Medicine Cannot Teach, a guide drawn from his years of experience evaluating and treating thousands of children and teens with ADHD. Chapters address simple basic problems and guidelines, including the importance of a lesson plan, how to teach children to manage their anger, why nutrition is critical and why yelling rarely solves anything. Written in plain terms, Parenting Children with ADHD is a superb supplementary resource for lay people, and a "must-read" for anyone charged with raising, giving care to or instructing an ADHD youth.

I am parenting five children with ADHD and have read a lot of ADHD literature. Dr. Monastra's book is the most useful I have read ever. Particularly helpful are his suggested accomodations in school, the "Time Stands Still" strategy and Parent "Self-Care" suggestions. His best chapter is called "Temperment May be Inherited...but...Emotional Control is Learned." He advocates ways to teach children emotional control that are so effective they should be shared with every parent with children :), ADHD or not. His book is life-affirming and practical. Thank you, Dr. Monastra, for making such a positive difference in the ADHD world.

I am a grandparent of a 5 year old boy, diagnosed with ADHD at age 4. I have read several books on the subject, plus reseaching ADHD on line. If you employ the same methods by which you were raised, not having ADHD, or the methods your parents used to raise you, you are missing the target by a mile. ADHD children are different in many ways and you must learn how and what to do for them as individuals. They are precious little people with vast potential for love and success in life. Only by you learning how to help them manage their lives, in a loving caring manner can you help them. This book offers proven methods to help the child at home and in school and in life. I do recommend this book. You also need to read other books on the subject and try to find a CHAD group or other support group for yourself because you are not alone in your struggle to save your child and family. I also recommend ADDitude Magazine as well as, Making the System work for Your Child and The Gift of ADHD, all from Amazon.com. It takes a village to raise a child. Good luck.

Of all the books I've read about parenting children with AD/HD, this is the most useful. The author, Dr. Monastra, runs an attention-disorder clinic that offers a class specifically geared to parenting children with AD/HD. He has taken that class, simplified the content, and broken it down into eleven lessons. While it is of course no substitute for attending a ten- or eleven-week class, the lessons are clear and highly valuable. He explains the condition from a brain-function standpoint, discusses the different medications (what they do and when each type might be most useful) and outlines simple techniques that can help address some of the biggest areas of difficulty. The book was very readable and engaging. Dr. Monastra understands that many parents of kids with AD/HD have AD/HD themselves, and he designed the book with that fact in mind. He also provides his "top 40" list of typical behaviors that parents may feel they need to address. Overall, I felt like I was reading about my own child, and his advice was extremely helpful.

Like many of you, I've scoured the net for any morsels of information which could be of help in understanding and helping my ADHD child. This book has not only provided me with further insight, above and beyond the ABC's of ADHD, but it has become one of my primary resource books. I find myself returning to the chapter about medication in order to better understand what my own doctor has expained to me verbally. I go back to the chapter on diet to make sure we haven't fallen away from the very practical recommendations there. And I often go back to the different tips to help control emotions, etc.
But what has pushed me to write this review is the sheer number of times I have quoted Dr. Monastra, to my son's teachers, to his Doctor, to our family members.... clearly this book has left a long lasting impression on me as a parent (my son's "case worker"). If Dr. Monastra were to charge royalties for the number of times I have said "... and if he were blind, would we ask him to just try harder to see... ", I'd owe him a lot more than I paid for this book!
Yes, I can definitely recommend this book as it is practical, easy to read, and contains information/insights you will not likely find elsewhere.

Dr Monastra clearly identifies this frustrating problem for parents in clear, easy to understand language. While supporting medication, he gives useful advice on how to handle your child to optimize their behavior. Highly recommend, found it very useful and will use many of the ideas he had. Wish we lived closer to his office, would definitely want him to take care of my son (no higher praise!).

I have read a lot of books on ADHD and I really like this one. It's very easy to understand. Some of these other books use big words, I prefer the simple terms like they use in this book.

If you are a parent of a child with ADHD and feel lost or wondering what to do or where to go, read this book. There are lots of times I wonder if I am doing the right thing. Meds, no meds... what to do? This book talks about how certain medications work on children. It also has a lot of great info. on some of the types of testing you can have done.

If you don't want to buy it or aren't sure check it out at a library. I just wish I could get some teachers to read this and understand our children. This books explains why kids with ADHD do the things they do.

Also, he talks about making sure your children get protein at breakfast so they will do better through out the day. This is what you are supposed to to with kids, but ADHD kids especially. We need to make sure they are getting enough protein.. especially in the morning.

I picked up this book and read it within a day. It is very informative about ADHD and gives excellent information that is very well presented to parents. I really liked Monastra's approach to diagnosing ADHD. If you have been told that your child may have attention problems, then you must read this book! It is also excellent for anyone who works with ADHD kids so that they will understand what ADHD is and how kids with ADHD are affected by the disease. When my pediatrican diagnosed my child with ADHD, I wish she would have handed me a copy of this book. I would have been better informed at an earlier stage of the game.