Kara S. Anderson

Homeschool connection, not perfection.

ADHD: There’s just one kind now, but not really

by Kara S. Anderson Leave a Comment

I mentioned in the first post of this series (yes – I’ve decided to write a whole series and maybe even a book about ADHD and homeschooling! I’m back, baby!), that I was initially operating under some kind of outdated info about ADHD.

For one thing, when I first started trying to find a doctor to diagnose ADHD, I kept referring to it as “ADD or ADHD.”

I would then add a high pitched question mark to the end.

“Hi, um, I’m just wondering if you have a list of doctors you recommend who treat ADD or ADHD or … um …” I would trail off, asking folks at the college where my son was taking dual enrollment classes for help, with all the confidence of a featherless, newborn sparrow.

He was doing really well, but he suspected ADHD, and so our thought was it would be good to find out for sure sooner rather than later in case he could benefit from some accommodations*.

Surprise – There’s Just One Kind of ADHD Now – Kind Of!

ADHD History in Brief: Part I

So I was surprised to learn that the term ADD – Attention Deficit Disorder – is dead.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (known as the DSM), first listed what we know now as ADHD in 1968, but details have changed a few times.

If you’re my age, you may remember people throwing around the term “ADD,” to describe children, primarily boys, who had a hard time focusing in school.

As early as 1980, an updated DSM included a listing for ADHD – Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – and ooh controversy – those goofballs decided to drop plain ol’ ADD.

But you know how these things go. We all still threw around “ADD” to mean not only kids who had high energy, but people who forgot things or had had too much Jolt Cola.

“Ugh Becky, she is SO ADD.”

“I know, Becky. Ugh.”

(This is a from a short play I wrote called Beckies. This is a scene where two Beckies use the term ADD to describe how another Becky had the nerve to forget in which locker at the roller rink she had stored her Liz Claiborne purse.)

(It’s better live. Like Hamilton.)

ADHD History in Brief: Part II

Then, in 1994 – the year of the Lillehammer Winter Olympics and the year the World Wide Web was born, those DSM jokesters were like: Wait.

(Fun fact: Actually, 1,000 people worked on the DSM 4 for 6 years!)

Anyhoo, they said – WAIT. OK, we’ve got it.

We shall call it ADHD.

BUT … there are different flavors!

(They called them “sub-types.”)

  • Predominantly Inattentive
  • Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive
  • And Combined

OK. Good work, team.

ADHD History in Brief: Part III

And then, the DSM 5 came out in 2013, and they were like – can you believe those tools who worked on the DSM 4 called kinds of ADHD “types?” Punks!

Let’s call them “presentations!,” said Dr. Carol Carolson, and the crowd went wild.

They just collectively lost their shit.

Everyone on the ADHD team bought Dr. Carol shots that night, and Carol will forever be remembered for her presentation on presentations.

(She used Power Point, mainly Helvetica font.)

So … wait? Huh?

So the take-aways here are:

  1. There is no ADD anymore. It doesn’t exist. It left right around the time that Post-It Notes** became a thing!
  2. There is just ADHD, but there are three ways it PRESENTS – #thanksCarol

The three presentations are:

  • Predominantly Inattentive
  • Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive
  • And Combined

So no – you DO NOT HAVE ADD.

But you very well could have ADHD even if you … I don’t know …

  • Were a good student
  • Are a great employee
  • Are a generally ‘successful’ person
  • Want to go to bed at 4 p.m.

OK, Well … Then How Come No One Has Ever Brought This Up?

First, a lot of ADHD goes undiagnosed for a long time.

Second, I want to talk about girls and women and how ADHD tends to present differently in us.

So for background:

I was diagnosed at 45 years old, and before I found out I had ADHD, I thought maybe I was dealing with Long Covid or early dementia or really scary peri-menopause symptoms or something else, because suddenly, I could no longer remember which key went into which lock at our house.

I was a little terrified.

In fact as I sat across from the doctor to go over my test results, I said, “I’m actually really hoping it’s ADHD because I’m scared of what else it could be,” and she kindly said, “OK, then I’m not going to make you wait – it’s ADHD.”

And I started crying because I had been holding a lot in for months/45 years.

And for now, that’s where I’m going to step away again, because I want to talk about how a person (statistically more frequently a female person) could go undiagnosed with ADHD for decades.

It’s both fascinating and some hot B.S., I’ll tell you that much.

See you soon.

ADHD Series

Post 1: So … We All Have ADHD

NOTES:

*Accommodations – the more we talk about ADHD, the more I’ll use this word. Don’t stress about accommodations for now if you suspect your child has ADHD. I’ll explain more soon.

** Post-It Notes: I was recently on a call where we talked about how important it is to buy quality sticky notes, and why Post-Its really are better because they stick the perfect amount.

But, I do want these.

Also, I will tell you soon about my obsession with transparent sticky notes, and how I’ve been using them to maintain a version of a kanban board on my office door because I am being treated for ADHD and I have so many new tools!

I have so much to tell you!!!!

Back soon! 😘

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

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So 
 We all have AHDH

by Kara S. Anderson 10 Comments

It’s been a while, so let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room: I cut my hair.

That was a year ago now, right after my son’s graduation party, and around the time that I closed down my blog and ran away from social media. Still, I see people and the first thing they say is, “You cut your hair,” and I want to respond: “Yup, and that’s just what you can see, sister.”

This past year has been full of more change than my car ashtray. 

Where Are They Now?

To keep this brief – my oldest, 19, went away to college. My youngest, now 16, started dual enrollment at community college. That sort of marked my retirement as a homeschool mom, but only like 85-87 percent.

I have stayed off of social media, and I don’t miss it. I do miss YOU terribly. All of you who let me spew my feelings into this space for years, and each of you who made me feel like maybe my goof-ups and insecurities had some meaning.

I would tell you about what I thought was some great homeschool failing, and you were there, saying, “YUP. It’s OK.”

And then I grew a little and I was telling you, “Yup. It’s OK,” and then before I knew it, my oldest was moving into an apartment.

He owns a microwave and 50 percent of a rug that he bought with his roommate.

He was accepted into his major of choice (it’s a thing at his school – they are a little fancy-pants đŸŽ© about some things, but I will tell you that his dorm bathroom last year was DISGUSTING), and so one more time for the folks in the back:

Yes, messy, imperfect homeschooling works, if your goal is to make sure your kids can keep going, even when they are 180 miles away. 

(This is the furthest I have personally been able to test this, but I know A LOT of homeschoolers, and their kids are growing beards and becoming people who SAVE LIVES, and traveling to Argentina and otherwise #followingtheirdreams.)

And I know their mamas, and I know they were scared too. Frequently. 

Just like us!

Loving Learning – That Worked Out Well 👍

I’ll also tell you about some feedback my daughter got from her professors after her first semester. They both commented on her enthusiasm for learning.

So this amazing person who used to insist on wearing rainbow dresses and tights and 14 barrettes and 3 ponytails and often went to the grocery store with me dressed as a cheetah with eyeliner drawn-on whiskers, nose and “cat freckles,” was learning not just philosophy and history – she was learning note-taking and how to write papers and how to take tests and about 800 other life skills, and still, both of her professors noted that she seemed to be enjoying it.

You would have thought that THAT finally would be enough for me to walk away like a blackjack dealer, flipping my hands, effectively saying, “Look how done I am with The Worrying.”

Except for one pesky thing.

Last year we found out that all three of us have ADHD.

Yup, All Three of Us (and probably one of our cats) Have ADHD

It went like this:

My son suspected he had ADHD. He is the boy who wouldn’t sit on the line. And when he started dual enrollment classes in person (he initially took classes remotely when the school was shut-down early-pandemic) he started to notice a few things.

Sometimes, it felt hard to focus. Sometimes, the ticking clock made him a little antsy.

He was 17 by this point, and he could sit still, but sometimes his brain was filled with possible song lyrics or the teacher seemed to be talking 
 very 
 slowly 


There were other things, and so I talked to the college department that handles accommodations for stuff like ADHD.

(Younger me flipped out that even our local community college has a whole DEPARTMENT set up for kids with learning differences, anxiety, depression, physical limitations, etc.)

>>If I would have known this earlier, it would have made a lot of difference, so I’m telling you now.<<

Getting Diagnosed

The person I spoke with at the college gave me a list of names of doctors who diagnose ADHD. We found one covered by our insurance!

It was meant to be! We made an appointment, and my son met with the doctor, and came out an hour later. 

“Yes, it seems like ADHD,” Dr. Schmoctor said.

Huh, I thought. I feel like there should be a way to know 


So I called the school and explained that the doctor said “it seemed like ADHD,” and they dug a little and found out he was a doctor of ministry. Maybe the Focus on the Family magazines in the waiting room should have alerted me to this, but I’d brought a book.

“Our list may be a little outdated,” the nice person from the school said.

My son explained that the doctor (of ministry) had given him his “seems like” diagnosis by asking my son a series of 7 questions in a book including, “do you ever misplace things?” and “do you ever have a hard time keeping things tidy?”

I joked then that by those standards, all of us had ADHD, especially our cat Pablo.

(Don’t buy that book it’s crap, is what I’m saying.)

Still Getting Diagnosed

And so we began an exhaustive search for someone who could actually diagnose ADHD, and who was covered by insurance or at least affordable. We found a nearby university that does testing starting at $1,200, and I made the appointment.

But I continued searching, (this was my summer), and eventually found someone local, more affordable, and with medical degrees and testing practices that are acknowledged by the AMA and therefore schools.

(I respect the man with the degree in ministry. I feel a little skeptical about the book he uses to diagnose “Seems-Like ADHD.” If anything, I think he was still operating under the early 2000s stereotypes of ADHD – just like I was. [More on that in this second post in this series.])

The point is my son ended up taking a number of tests, including the Tova, and was officially diagnosed with ADHD.

And all this time, I was getting my learn on.

Researching Like a Library Ninja

If you’ve seen that meme about worried moms being able to research like they’re in the CIA, worried homeschool moms are the same, except they know how to use the library super well, and have been learning about, collecting, processing and distilling random information for so long, we’re like if James Bond, Sherlock Holmes and Adrian Monk had a kid and that kid had a COLLECTION of clipboards, notebooks, colorful pens, sticky notes and rolly carts.

So ping, ping, ping – of course my daughter probably had ADHD, and we should get her tested too.

And then when she was diagnosed, the doctor looked at me, folding her little hands together – serious, but kind – and said:

“Well. This all comes from somewhere.”

And that is where I will leave you for now, friend. The three of us have ADHD, and I have a lot I finally want to share about that.

Soon 


Next up:

ADHD – There’s just one kind now, but not really

Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay

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It’s not Perfection, it’s Indiana Jones

by Kara S. Anderson

Over the weekend, I made a big announcement: I’ve decided to close my shop here at karasanderson.com.

I know the whole shop closing probably forever thing may have been a little unexpected.

And beyond closing my shop, I’m making some other big changes as well. I’m going to put my blog and social media on hiatus soon too.

(The plan right now is that my blog posts will remain available, but any free downloads on posts might not be available because I’m pausing my email service.)

***

As many of you know, my son started college in September. You don’t know that my daughter has grown up so much in the past couple of months – driving, getting her braces off, getting a job, plus she has big plans to start dual enrollment classes in January.

And so things here are changing drastically.

For a while, I was telling people life felt like that game Perfection. Do you remember? You had 60 seconds to get all the pieces into place or the game would “pop,” and you had to start over. (Dear Lord, they still make it.)

Sidenote: I feel like this game is at least partially responsible for the perfectionism and anxiety I have dealt with since I was 6.

***

But recently I was doing a speaking thing, and realized it’s not the game Perfection – it’s that scene from the third Indiana Jones movie:

Indy is rushing through a series of secret rituals in hopes of retrieving the holy grail, a cup that can be filled with water. One drink grants eternal life, and in this case, the grail will also save Indy’s father, who has been shot.

Indy has to make a literal leap of faith, and when he does, the path appears.

***

And so THAT is really more what it’s like, friends. I don’t have to put all the pieces in place. I just need to have faith and take the next step.

I will tell you since beginning this process, I have felt so much lighter. I don’t necessarily see a path ahead, but I feel it. And for now, that’s enough.

My whole deal – writing, podcasting, my book – they’re all about homeschooling with you. I’ve never been an expert offering advice. I’ve always felt more like a big sister – sharing the raw truth with you, and trying to remind you to be kinder to yourself, more patient, gentler …

***

Right now, I need those things.

I need slow.

I need to knit, and read, and drink tea and yes, write, but maybe not for public consumption just yet.

***

So please know, that as I find my way, I will miss you.

A few people have said “Kara, maybe THIS is the next step – maybe you help mamas navigate what to do as their children grow up and move on.”

And maybe. Maybe at some point.

But it’s all so raw and new – it would feel like serving you cruditĂ© instead of a lovingly slow-cooked, nourishing vegetable soup.

It would be fine, but you’d be hungry again in a half-hour.

***

That said, I’ll share a few things that are helping me:

In fact, during that speaking thing last week, the host asked where people could find me and I answered “therapy.”

It’s true. Therapy is a tremendous help.

And you know what my therapist asks me every session …

She asks what I am doing for self-care.

Self-care is a big deal to me, because I didn’t think I had time for it for a long time, but what was really going on was that I didn’t think I was worthy of it and also, I thought that to be a good mom, I had to give my kids every ounce of me.

That is not the recipe.

The actual recipe should go more like, give your kids some of you and then take REALLY good care of yourself so you can wake up tomorrow and have something more to give.

I’ve written a lot about self-care over the years, mostly because I’ve been trying to figure it out.

It isn’t easy. It’s a practice.

***

 

Which brings me back to perfection … the life-choking trait, not the game.

A long time ago now, I changed my tagline on this blog to “Connection, Not Perfection.”

And here I am, seemingly disconnecting.

What the heck, Kara?

So let me tell you this: This is the part of the movie where the hero (YOU!) realizes that she has had everything she needed inside her this whole time. The other character, let’s call her Dumbledore, was just there as a guide for a while.

And it still stands – what I hope for you and your family is connection, not perfection.

Friends, let connection be the lighthouse you seek when the seas get rough, and you’re not sure how to get home again.

I can’t tell you if I’ll be back, or when, but I can tell you – it’s never been about perfection, Dear Heart.

It’s about courage and showing up and continuing to show up, and connecting and reconnecting, and then knowing when it’s time to let go.

So much love to you,

Kara

P.S. A lot of you have asked about my book. It’s not going anywhere. You can still grab it in paperback, ebook or audio.

In fact, play this if you need a little hug:

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Transcripts for college when you are unschooly

by Kara S. Anderson

I got a message this weekend that reminded me that I keep promising to write a thing about transcripts when you are unschooly.

(Thank you, Stephanie! 💙)

Transcripts make every homeschooler I know sweat, but there is a specific concern when you are what I call “unschooly.”

I use that term to describe homeschool families who follow their kids’ lead, and do not necessarily follow a certain curriculum, but may make use of curriculum materials, classes, or other “formal” modes of learning.

(I’m not sure how this lines up with true unschooling as defined by John Holt, so for the purposes of this post, I’m going to avoid using the terms unschoolers or unschooling to refer to what we do. I do however strongly recommend John Holt’s books for further exploration.)

It’s All Going to Be OK

As you can imagine, when you are unschooly (or “relaxed homeschoolers”) learning can be a little hard to track, and often doesn’t follow a consistent routine.

And yet I promise, our kids learn.

So before I jump in, I’d like to say that it’s probably all going to be OK.

My son was definitely unschooly, and I would say even resistant to a lot of formal learning growing up, and he still started classes at our local college at age 16 through early enrollment, and got into his first college of choice at a competitive school.

So I want to reassure you that it can work out – your unschooly kid can get into college if that’s their desire.*

This post will outline what we did.

Start Early

I have a funny story in my book about how I wanted to start keeping a transcript in middle school, because as with so many homeschooled kids, mine sometimes took classes or were exploring interests that could easily count toward high school credits – like foreign language or science classes.

The punchline to this story is that I was very concerned about starting this in 7th grade, and technically middle school starts here in 6th grade.

But my advice is to begin to track your child’s learning around 7th or 8th grade.

This doesn’t have to be anything complicated – you can just keep a record somewhere (I like a spreadsheet for this, but it can also be handwritten) of what classes and learning your kids do. If it’s a class, keep track of the class name, dates and a simple description.

I promise, this will be so helpful later.

In our case, we literally were required to enter each class one at a time on the college’s site as part of the application process. I would have been lost without notes.

This is not a formal transcript, but a look at notes I kept for one of my children. 1 = a full year class and .5 = a semester. Please note how NOT FANCY this is.

Calculating Credits and Units

When I started to feel stressed about keeping a transcript, I reached out to my friend Melissa who is more firmly in the Unschooling camp. I asked her for advice on how to keep track of what my kids were learning when it all seemed very nebulous.

She introduced me to a system that has helped us be able to better track my kids’ interest-led learning:

From Melissa:

“A year-long class is one ‘unit,’ a semester-long class is Âœ unit.

A unit = between 120-180 ‘Carnegie units’

A Carnegie unit = 1 hour of instruction or 2 of practice

We counted reading, YouTube videos, curriculum, any kind of lessons, and discussion as ‘instruction.’ We counted hands-on stuff that didn’t involve new learning or processing as ‘practice.’”

By following this system, you can start to see how to track what your kids are learning and how to begin building a transcript.

Plan From Behind AKA ‘Cactus Schooling’

This system works well with what many relaxed homeschoolers refer to as “planning from behind.”

Planning from behind is essentially writing down what your kids do after they do it, instead of planning FOR your kids.

In our home, this morphed into what we call “Cactus Schooling,” wherein I create a plan, but hold it loosely, like you’d hold a cactus.

Cactus Schooling has allowed us to set goals together and to “fill gaps,” necessary for graduation, but also for my kids to follow their passions, which I believe leads to learning that really “sticks.”

Graduation Requirements

Now speaking of graduation requirements, it might be helpful to look into two things:

  1. graduation requirements in your state/school district
  2. any specific requirements if your child has a specific major and/or school in mind

For Step 1, we looked at our local board of education’s requirements to figure out what it takes to “graduate” your child. I literally Googled the name of my school district +” graduation requirements.”

This gave us any idea of how many years of math, science, history, etc. were required here, for public schooled kids (meaning this was just for reference).

To give you an idea, in our school district, this is the breakdown:

  • 4 years of English
  • 3 years of Social Studies
    • 1 year global studies
    • 1 year U.S. History
    • 1 semester Civics and Government
    • 1 semester Economics
  • 3 years Math
  • 3 years Science
  • 3.5 years Physical Education
  • 1 semester Health
  • 1 year Art, Music, World Language (including American Sign Language)
  • Plus Electives to bring your total to 48 total credits

We did not tailor my son’s learning to the requirements of a specific school or major, but based on credits required, you can probably see where you could add advanced classes or study in a special area to help prepare your child for a certain college or further course of study.

An example of a basic high school transcript.

Flipping things around (remember, you homeschool)

I was telling a friend last night about this post and researching what our board of education requires for graduation from public school, and she told me that in her area, high school graduation requires just one semester of physical education.

So this leads me to two points:

  1. Don’t get too hung up on what your local board of education requires, because your child may want to go to a college in another state (or at least another school district) where everything is different. None of this is universal.
  2. There’s another way to look at things altogether – you do not have to follow your state board of education’s requirements at all because your child doesn’t go to a public school and you are not trying to graduate them with a public school diploma. In fact, in certain states like New York, homeschooled kids can’t even legally be issued diplomas.

But don’t worry about that. Homeschoolers don’t need diplomas – what they need instead is a way to show what they’ve been learning, which is where transcripts come in.

 

An example of how to show classes in progress or dual enrollment classes.

What Do I Call It?

That can be a little challenging to create when you have unschooly kids, because some of what they do might be really hard to classify. You may not know what to call a given “class.”

Can I suggest here that unless your kid is going to a very fancy or very small school, probably no one is looking that closely?

For instance, I share in my book that my kids have never really loved math. Plus, we practice more of a “mastery method” here, meaning we don’t move on until my kids really understand the concept.

So my friend Shawna suggested using the term “integrative math,” on transcripts.

(Later we started Mr. D Math and this solved the bigger issue of a math-phobic mom trying to teach math.)

My advice is to simply do what works in your family, and classify how you need to for transcript purposes.

Did you do a Shakespeare Unit? Call it “Shakespeare Study” or “English Year 2, Semester 1 – Studying the Plays of Shakespeare.”

Is your child taking ceramics?

Call it Ceramics I (first semester) and Ceramics 2 (second semester) or “Art – Study of Ceramics.”

The right school will see this stuff as interesting and making your child unique and a cool contribution to the student body.

What’s the Goal for College?

Sometimes, I think we get so wrapped up in trying to help our kids’ dreams come true, that we forget some simple truths.

College is expensive. It’s a huge commitment. So my advice is don’t make the goal to make it into a specific school, or even to get your child started in a specific major (unless they are really, really all-in on something.)

If you are relaxed homeschoolers you’ve probably eschewed “standards” for years so that your kids could learn how they learn best.

So stop trying to make your child fit a school, and instead look for schools that fit your kid. 

This book provides great inspiration in that exact area.

Extra Resources:

A couple of places to head for more help include HSLDA.org, where you can look at your state/country’s requirements for homeschooling and my friend Heather, who specializes in helping out-of-the-box kids get into college.

Here is a tool to help you calculate a cumulative GPA.

Best of luck! 💙

 

* Just a note that I know all kids do not want to pursue college and some may choose to take a gap year or six. I still think it might be helpful to keep a transcript for your kids even if they don’t plan to pursue college. Things might change down the line, or they may need a transcript for an apprenticeship or something else. You never know.

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