ADHD & Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table

ADHD & Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table
by Blake E. S. Taylor

ADHD & Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table
List Price: $14.95
Category: Book
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Book Summary Information

Author: Blake E. S. Taylor
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-02-02
ISBN: 1572245220
Number of pages: 176
Publisher: New Harbinger Pubns
Product features:

Book Reviews of ADHD & Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table

Book Review: One Person's Experience
Summary: 3 Stars

There is a lot to like about this book. The author seems to be an intelligent, well-intentioned person who wants to use his own experiences to help other kids. This is all to the good. What's not is the degree to which he presents himself as a typical kid with ADD/ADHD. His particular case is affected by many factors other kids with the diagnosis may not share (tics being one of the most obvious; although more common in kids with ADD, they do not afflict the majority), and he doesn't seem aware that his being a guy makes a difference. He comes from an extremely privileged background (housekeepers, executive parents, exclusive suburb, prep school, years of sailing camp) and suggests things like kids having their parents enroll them in a school where they will have smaller, more personal classes -- without even a hint of irony. (I had the definite sense that his parents never sweated over an IEP.) I found it peculiar that he stated many times that nothing/little was known about ADD when he was in school, but I find this almost impossible to believe, based both on copyrights of seminal books on ADD and the types of schools his background would make available to him. The bottom line is that this is a book worth reading, but I suspect it will be more helpful to boys than girls. An excellent book for girls is "Attention, Girls!: A Guide to Learn All About Your Ad/Hd by Patricia O. Quinn."

Summary of ADHD & Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table

Blake Taylor's memoir, written when he was 17, offers, for the first time, a young person's account of what it's like to live and grow up with this common condition. Join Blake as he foils bullies, confronts unfair teachers, struggles with distraction and disorganization on exams, and goes sailing out-of-bounds and ends up with a boatload of spiders. It will be an inspiration and companion to the millions of others like him who must find a way to thrive with a different perspective than many of us.

The book features an introduction by psychologist Lara Honos-Webb, author of The Gift of ADHD, and a leading advocate for kids with ADHD.

Blake's mother first suspected he had ADHD when he, at only three years of age, tried to push his infant sister in her carrier off the kitchen table. As time went by, Blake developed a reputation for being hyperactive and impulsive. He launched rockets (accidentally) into neighbor's swimming pools and set off alarms in museums. Blake was diagnosed formally with ADHD when he was five years old. In this book, he tells about the next twelve years as he learns to live with both the good and bad sides of life with ADHD.

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