Buzz : a year of paying attention

Title:

Author:

Ellison, Katherine, 1957-

Personal Author:

Ellison, Katherine, 1957-

ISBN:

9781401340889

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

New York : Voice, c2010.

Physical Description:

ix, 289 p. ; 25 cm.

Contents:

The predicament: "Understand me!" -- History: stuck on input -- Emergency: crossing lines in the Ritalin wars -- Biology: the anatomy of distraction -- Relationships: the cookie of peace -- Society: the attack of the chronophages -- Education: the rules of engagement -- Add-vocacy: the strength in numbers -- Wired: braving the new world of neurofeedback -- Meditation: "No one ever died of restlessness" -- The white contender -- Knots to undo -- What else worked.

Abstract:

The author recounts her journey to understand and reconnect with her twelve-year-old son after they were both diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Personal Subject:

Ellison, Katherine, 1957-

Subject Term:

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder -- Diagnosis.

Mothers and sons.

Summary:

The author recounts her journey to understand and reconnect with her twelve-year-old son after they were both diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Main Library	Book	618.928 E47	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

"An absorbing, sharply observed memoir." -- Kirkus Reviews

A hilarious and heartrending account of one mother's journey to understand and reconnect with her high-spirited preteen son-a true story sure to beguile parents grappling with a child's bewildering behavior.

Popular literature is filled with the stories of self-sacrificing mothers bravely tending to their challenging children. Katherine Ellison offers a different kind of tale. Shortly after Ellison, an award-winning investigative reporter, and her twelve-year-old son, Buzz, were both diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, she found herself making such a hash of parenting that the two of them faced three alternatives: he'd go to boarding school; she'd go AWOL; or they'd make it their full-time job to work out their problems together. They decided to search for a solution while Ellison investigated what genuine relief, if any, might be found in the confusing array of goods sold by the modern mental health industry.

The number of diagnoses for childhood attention and behavior issues is exploding, leaving parents and educators on a confusing chase to find the best kind of help for each child. Buzz , a page-turner of a memoir, brings much relief. It is immensely engaging, laugh-out-loud funny, and honest-and packed with helpful insights.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

Pulitzer Prizewinning investigative journalist Ellison (The Mommy Brain: How MotherhoodMakes Us Smarter, 2005, etc.) writes about her life on the ADHD battlefront.When the author's son Buzz entered second grade, her world began to collapse as he became more unmanageable at home and in school. Forced to admit that something was seriously wrong, Ellison heeded school authorities who were urging her to seek psychiatric help for her son, despite her initial reluctance to medicate him. Not only was her son's behavior becoming increasingly uncontrollable, but she realized that she was exacerbating his problems by her tendency to fly off the handle when provoked. She wondered if he inherited his ADHD, "the hallmark obsession of our frazzled era," from her, and she examined her career, which was filled with "heady success" but built upon "constant cravings for conflict and caffeine" and marred by a number of careless blunders. After both she and her son received a positive diagnosis, Ellison decided to spend a year exploring a range of treatmentsmedication, therapy and family counseling, meditation, biofeedbackto fully understand the pitfalls of her interaction with her sons. Although she is no longer an opponent of medication, from which her son benefitted, she is still critical of the failure of the one-size-fits-all public-education model, made more problematic by staff cutbacks and increasing class sizes. Despite the fact that she did not find a silver-bullet cure, Ellison sums up her year as positive: Buzz has had fewer outbursts at home and at school, and she has learned to slow down and not react negatively to his provocations.An absorbing, sharply observed memoir.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.