About Us
Hello and Welcome,
It’s really nice that you’ve called in. To learn more about us, continue reading and you’ll see what we are about, and why we have a burning desire to share all our knowledge, strategies, techniques and tips. We have gathered all these along our journey to be in control of ADHD symptoms (Gloria) and ADD symptoms (Alpha) to live this blessed life we have.
What we offer you is based on the latest proven research and personal experience, saving you having to search through the myriad of websites on the topic of ADHD and its offshoots.
We also have a website: http://adhddrugfreesolutions.com – feel free to explore it.
“We have always been a fairly normal family in that, although we have had our share of major and minor dramas, we genuinely consider ourselves to be blessed and are very grateful for the life we have had and still have.
However, it wasn’t always that way.
But let me start much earlier on, when I was young.
I was parented by my mother and my step-father, both of whom came from very conservative cultures and turbulent backgrounds.
When we migrated to Australia in late 1950, their greatest desire was to fit into and be accepted by the new environment that they found themselves in.
All the “Ts” were crossed, and the “Is” dotted, and they took on the mannerisms and behavioural expectations of the society they had moved into.
Coming from central Europe, we had different table manners, different social norms of speech and social repartee. All previous ways of behaving were discarded and these new ones adopted.
Let me point out that Brisbane then was a totally different world from what it is now. It was a very quiet city; children were seen and not heard, no one spoke loudly; to act assertively was a big no-no; opinions were not expressed; you only spoke about the weather; you only mentioned the score of a sporting game, nothing else.
I was almost seven years old we arrived in Australia.
Apart from when I was a baby, my years till then had been spent in Paris going to school where the nuns were fun-loving and free, encouraging us to speak up, develop all our intellectual faculties and be happy.
You can imagine how I couldn’t work out what was going on. Why had things changed so drastically?
My every move was wrong, I spoke too loudly, suddenly all my manners that had been approved of were bad.
I would bring friends home from school and they were screened to fit into this new social class we belonged to.
I was also learning English which made things a bit of a challenge.
As I came from European stock, I also developed physically much earlier than the Anglo-Saxon girls.
Life was a series of being teased at school and reprimanded at home and being a disappointment to my parents.
As a highly intelligent, strong-willed child, there was only one way to keep my identity and that was to fight all these new expectations – not physically but with doing things my way.
Well, new names were given to my behaviours – hyperactive, inability to sit still, unable to concentrate, flitting from one topic to the next, disorganized, wild, and so on.
Recognise the symptoms? They didn’t have a label in those days.
All report cards had the same wording: “Gloria is a very intelligent girl, but she should concentrate more”, “Gloria is a very intelligent girl, but she should pay better attention.”
Every single school report card had the “but she should…… There were only two teachers who saw me for who I really was, both were music teachers.
Fast forward to seven years into my marriage when I had Alpha.
From very early on, Alpha was day-dreamy, going off into her own world for hours and hours.
This became even more noticeable when she started primary school. Comments came back from her teachers about her inattentiveness, her day-dreaming. In their opinion, she was also immaturity.
Do these symptoms sound familiar? Again, they didn’t have a label for these then.
They kept advising me to have her repeat a class, to hold her back a year.
I knew there was nothing wrong with her, and so, I insisted on her going up a class each year.
I decided that I had to do something to get her into attentive-mode and out of her day-dreaminess.
So I filled every non-school hour to keep her busy.
At different times she would be enrolled in karate, French, German, Chinese classes, piano and violin lessons. During school holidays, she would attend theatre classes.
The only day of the week she didn’t have activities was Sunday, then we would do family and friend things.
To make sure her homework for school and these activities would get done, after school was structured and kindly supervised.
I have to say, that I was more ambitious for her than she was for herself, but then, she was only a child. I was an adult who realised that I hadn’t reached my full potential because I didn’t have that parental support.
When she was at the end of her 6th year of age, she started ice skating. She really enjoyed that so everything, other than piano, was dropped.
We would leave home every morning, Monday to Friday, at 5.00am so that she could do Figures training. Every afternoon after school, we would go back to the ice rink for Freeskate training.
Saturday morning also had training sessions.
This structured life proved to be just what she needed, and she became very good at organising her time herself.
Although she is highly intelligent, her school results didn’t reflect this, and because of her day-dreaminess and her tendency to be a loner at school, no one really got to know her.
She did very well at ice skating and made a lot of friends there. Although the training was rigorous and very structured, she shone, so different from at school.
This earlier ‘training’ meant that she was better-prepared for secondary school and started to do better and be respected by her teachers. She was voted as one of the school leaders by the time she was in year 12.
It was then at University that she excelled.
Alpha has two graduate degrees, a Masters, 2 Diplomas, won the Griffith University Ethics Prize, and tutored for the University at both the Brisbane and Gold Coast Campuses. She has since had very successful careers, leaving each because of either being head-hunted or by choice.
Alpha and I are in several businesses together now which are showing positive signs of being successful, and we have a wonderful mother-daughter relationship.
We have both experienced what it is like to be judged by symptoms that do not fit societal norms and how, if we had let it, would have held us back.
We lead a magnificent life full of health, a loving relationship, successful careers, friends and limitless opportunities.
These are the strategies, techniques and processes we are offering parents whose children exhibit the same or similar symptoms we had, to bring up their children so that they will also lead empowering, loving and fulfilling lives as adults. ”
We’d love to hear from you about what information you would like to see on this Blog.
Please contact us:
support@adhddrugfreesolutions.com
Yours in total support and commitment,
Gloria and Alpha
Ps: Don’t forget to have a look at out website: http://adhddrugfreesolutions.com
