Self-Management™
People who are successful in life, are successful at Self-Management™
Self-Management™ is an important skill for achieving success in all aspects of life. Good self-managers are able to set goals, meet objectives, and achieve emotional balance and stability in their lives.
Self-Management™ is more than "executive" functions of the brain, which monitors and processes internal and external information. It helps you weigh that information to develop a good strategy, and then carry out a plan that best fits the situation. It also helps you figure out what worked and what didn't, so you can perform better in the future. ADHD is a biological barrier to self-management. There are other disorders, such as Tourettes, Oppositional-Defiant Disorder, and Conduct Disorder, which also impair self-management. These barriers can be overcome.
Self-Management™ Skills:
- Organizing, prioritizing, and motivating self to work
- Focusing, sustaining focus, and shifting focus to tasks
- Regulating alertness, sustaining effort, and processing
- Managing frustration and modulating emotions
- Working memory and assessing recall
- Monitoring and self-regulating action
Brown, I.E. Manual for ADHD Scales, Psych Corp 2001
The development of effective Self-Management™ is impaired to a certain degree in all ADDers, but each person has a different pattern of difficulty. The goal of our comprehensive ADHD Self-Management™ program is to assess each patient's unique set of Self-Management™ skills and establish when they are effective/ineffective in their everyday life. During our evaluation phase, we look at the whole person within the context of family, school history (or work history), peer relationships, and biological issues.
One Self-Management™ analogy can be likened to a baby learning to eat. At first, the infant is bottle-fed, then spoon-fed, with the ultimate goal being that the child will feed themself. As parents, we hope our children will eventually pick up the spoon without relying on someone else to do so. Throughout all the phases of development, one must learn to use the appropriate tools to progress on to the next stage of life. Thus, a competent Self-Manager is one who can manage themselves consistently without an over-reliance on others to manage them.
In the final analysis, Self-Management™ is the ability to be self aware, plan, and organize. Self-Management™ training is not just one particular technique or a simple gimmick...it is a total mindset, or philosophy, that parents and teachers can adopt to guide children with ADD.
Self-management Deficiencies in ADHD
Organize, prioritize, and motivate
People with ADHD have difficulty getting started on tasks, organizing tasks, misunderstanding directions, not listening to directions, missing the details, difficulty in being flexible, difficulty in persisting, problems motivating themselves to do things, especially if they are mundane or boring in nature.
Attention, focus, and shift attention
A major problem is being able to focus when needed. Theses patients lose focus when trying to listen or plan. They forget what was read and need to reread. ADDers are easily distracted both by internal and external stimuli.
Sustain alertness, effort, and processing speed
Patients have difficulty being consistent in their work output, because of difficulties with sustaining alertness and effort. The person loses interest in tasks and has difficulty in completing tasks on time.
Managing frustration and modulate emotions
The management of feelings and frustration is a major problem. They overreact and get controlled by their emotions, hurts, and worries. They have difficulties with self-soothing and being able to get "with" things. The ADDer can't put things to the back of their minds. They get in trouble because of their difficulty delaying gratification, thus there is higher incidence of addictions.
Use working memory and access recall
School is a major problem for these patients. They have difficulty recalling learned material. There is a constant searching for lost papers and belongings. Many tasks are forgotten because of the lack of planning. They have difficulty seeing cause and effect, and thereby have difficulty in taking responsibility for their actions, seeing what others are doing wrong, but not their own actions.
Monitor and regulate actions
It is a problem for ADDers to manage their activity level. They have difficulty sitting still or being quiet. Tasks are done too rapidly and not carefully enough. When they try to do a task, they experience frequent interruptions of themselves and others. Their impulsivity leads to inappropriate behaviors.
Brown, I.E. Manual for ADHD Scales, Psych Corp 2001