Ritalin, Chocolate and Speed

I taught a child with ADHD/ADD how to ski once, perhaps it was fate

that i should be chosen to do it, anywho......after being put on skis

for the first time the kid took a while to calm down and just as he

did so,his mum came over (the loveliest person) and gave him a

chocolate bar. In my mind I was screaming "what do you think you

are doing, that'll make it worse".

But it didnt.



She kindly offered me a lift down the mountain that evening as I had

no way of getting down. I was very interested in his 'condition' and

she told me that the doctors had wanted to put him on Ritalin, which

she explained was a legal form of speed. In ADHD kids it has the

opposite effect as non-adhd kids. And so it was with cafeine. I was

incredulous! Not only at the effect but I knew from reading a Doreen

Virtue book, the numbing effect of Ritalin.

(I can see why the doctors prescribed it though. Welcome to medieval

Canada).



The next week,she brought him up again and personallly requested me.

That felt good :)

THIS time she brought some cocoa covered coffee beans and asked me to

give him one every time he became jittery. Yes, it worked,although one

every five minutes was given and I ended up running out of them!