The school year is starting soon and in an effort to get ahead I tried out more ADHD gadgets to keep my son focused. One of them was a headset. I thought it would help keep my son’s noise levels down. Let me tell you, not enough is said about the noise levels of hyper little boys. On any given day I’m guaranteed an alternative array of sounds, horses, banshee wailing, Xena the warrior princess’ war cry and indigenous dance songs. I love him to death but if you’re repetitively exposed to this, you can agree it’s grating on your nerves. And his talking voice is very loud. I thought maybe if he wore it when get gets too loud, it would remind him to keep his voice low.

I guess it kind of works because he doesn’t love wearing it so he quiets down when I say to put it on but then the pattern JUST REPATS ITSELF. And then it becomes another thing to nag him about. So it’s no miracle worker. No, pretty much the only thing that is guaranteed to quiet him down is to give him something to do. I know that sounds great to most people because that means my kid is active but sometimes it’s hectic constantly having to assign tasks while I watch a toddler, try to make myself look presentable and make meals in between. Which reminds me, I read someone’s post on his side gig with task rabbit and he concluded people who use it for food are just lazy. They might very well not be lazy and just have to resort to it for food shopping or pick ups on a tough day.

The other things I bought were to help advance his reading level. His reading level is impossible to determine because on some days he reads an entire book on his own and other days he can barely get through a sentence. My only conclusion is that he gets distracted. These rulers are supposed to help him focus on just the line of text he needs to read. The one with the window works so much better.

Since there is a different color for everything but the line he needs to read, it keeps him from getting distracted. The headset is also supposed to come in handy here if there’s just a word he is not pronouncing right and you have to keep repeating it. The idea is they hear themselves say it and it helps them hear what they’re doing wrong. Aside from these tools, the best things for him is writing some lines with me and rereading them. I think it just helps him focus since he has something to do. I may keep on exploring more tools but for now all I can do is try to set time aside every day to work on reading and writing with him. It’s hard and requires a lot of patience but it will be worth it someday.