Nature Helps ADHD

The mental benefits of time out in nature cannot be overstated.  I wrote yesterday about how Ansel Adams was kicked out of school at age 7 for hyperactivity and found calm and a career out of doors.  We have found that to be true in our family, as well.  

One of the most wonderful things about nature is that, unlike electronic media, which is flat, nature is layered.  There are layers of awareness in our five senses and if one layer is too much, we have the option of moving into another layer.  Think about the layers of the forest.  There is the canopy, the heights.  Then there is the background - background noise of trees and wind and animals, background greenery, background topography.  In the foreground there are the noises of animals just off the path, flowers right there, the rock or stump to step over next.  But, if one sits still, there is all of that, plus the very close foreground of moss, bugs and grass.  Living in the country, we can experience that exact layering, but living in Chicago we had the same experience at Lincoln Park or on the lakefront of Lake Michigan, as my children had in their backyard in the suburbs.  

For ADHD children, who tend to be very self-involved, nature takes a child out of himself.  There is so much out there that they can choose to focus on that their self-involvement fades.  

We have two children who have been noticeably ADHD.  The first child was Mick.  We used to joke that he could get distracted in an empty, white room.  He would switch from subtraction to addition in the middle of a math problem because he daydreamed his way through it and lost track.  We didn't require him to sit on a chair while doing school, but he did have to TOUCH the chair.  But, he discovered hunting when he was 14 years old.  He learned to sit in the woods for hours.  He is now more capable of being still than any person I know.  

Miriam was our other ADHD child.  She was more of the classic type of hyperactivity combined with impulse control.  She was already angry by the time she was four.  Then she started ballet and she smiled again.  She learned to ride a bike and she was set free.  She gets unhappy and can get downright angry when she is confined to a chair.  She needs exercise and the best place for her to get it is outdoors.  She jumps on the trampoline and rides her bike into town (three miles one way), and goes swimming in the summertime.  But, what is the best for her is working with the animals.  Whether she is grooming and saddling horses and riding or cleaning the alpaca barn or feeding cats, she is at her most content.  Many ADHD kids can feel that they are being yelled at and criticized all the time.  The opportunity to work, be productive and contribute, while using their bodies, can add so much to their self-image, which actually falls under the emotional benefits.  However, that contentment allows both Mick, who is an honors engineering student at UW Platteville, and Miriam, who is in Algebra at the age of 12, to focus on their studies.