In the Mirror of My Grandson

This morning while I was checking email, catching up on blogs, and playing solitaire, my grandson was working at the task of writing a page of ones. You would think his mother had sentenced him to a life of hard labor. My daughter has tried everything to motivate him and keep him on task. You name it, she's tried it. He works for a while then disappears into the land of imagination.

Watching him, I have on several occasions had to ask myself if the child has a attentional problem. Not. As a psychologist and a child specialist I observed and screened for the disorder. My concern was not so much that the disoder might be present, but more if it is a factor, then what we are asking him to do is beyond his control and he needs our help.

He doesn't have an attentional problem but an intentional one. He says, Nana, I don't want to write my ones. I want to go outside and play. Boy do I understand that one. I don't want to write. I want to call my friends, play solitaire, read books, watch television. Neither of these things is necessarily a problem except when I find myself doing either one of them for huge chunks of time and not writing even one sentence.

My grandson and I have so much in common when it comes to Intensional Deficit Disorder. So I have to work hard to battle IDD and get my work done, him too. It won't be easy for either of us but we'll try.

Anybody else out there with IDD?