Book review: Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World
Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World, by Jeffrey Freed, M.A.T., and Laurie Parsons, copyright 1997.
This is a 240 page book directed at parents who are struggling with an ADD or ADHD child. I read most of it, skimming the chapters on choosing the ideal classroom or teacher. My eyes glazed over for the chapter on study tips. For a book written that disparages the left-brained, methodical, organized approach as much as it does, it seems to use that approach a lot!
I read this book in a desire to better understand my son’s (and potentially my daughter’s and boyfriend’s) learning style and what I could do for them. It’s hard for me to say if it helped or not. I feel I am more tolerant and more aware of a visual learning style as something that’s just a difference, rather than a deficiency. On the other hand, I still see it as a feature that handicaps a person in relating to the world. Sort of like being, say, five feet tall - nothing wrong with that, but you’re going to face certain limitations in socializing, career choice (no military for you!), etc. Also, I can’t say I found much I could do for my kids. They are as they are.
The book blames modern culture and entertainment for ADD. My father, who grew up in a dirt-floor, one-room shack (no exaggeration), without electricity or running water, has ADD. I, who grew up mostly outdoors, with the occasional TV show and often with my head buried in books, show a lot of traits of it. We initially tried to keep my son from watching TV at all. He was clearly demonstrating the traits that evolved into ADD well before we gave up on excluding him from the TV room. So for me, the claim that our modern fast-paced, electronic, highly stimulatory society causes or exacerbates ADD doesn’t resonate. I don’t believe it. It smacks too much of the ‘good old days’ nostalgia. The author even related how births today are so often complicated and imperiled, while decades ago, healthy babies were the norm. Tell that to my grandmother, who had 7 miscarriages or stillbirths! The author clearly hasn’t researched actual live birth statistics.
There’s also a lot said about modern schools and how awful they are, how inflexible, how ill-trained the teachers are, how hidebound. I’ll give something of a bye for the book having been written 16 years ago, but even out in the insular, rural environment of Oklahoma, I’ve found this to be far from the truth today. My children’s school (public, though they had similar at the private school my son went to in St. Paul) eagerly embraced setting up an individualized learning program for my son and my daughter. In both cases, it was the school who initiated and carries through with quarterly meetings with me to review progress. The staff seem well-trained and familiar with how to handle and respond to children with these particular challenges. They seem competent and professional, as opposed to the horror cases the author says are the norm. The book talked about how schools have kids line up at lunch and then give out ADD medications “like candy”. WTF? The schools can only dispense what parents send them. They aren’t pharmacies or drug dealers. No child is getting medication unless he has a prescription on hand. This sort of bizarre maligning and blame-shifting happens throughout the book as the authors try to put responsibility for ADD on anyone other than the person who has it.
As for tools to help my kids, there were several chapters on tips for beginning math and reading, both of which boiled down to increased tutoring in short, high-impact sessions, one-on-one, with lots of encouragement and rewards. Frankly, I think that would help anyone, on anything. I already knew that would help, but I have a set proportion of my time and energy that is spent helping my kids in school. Would they perform better if I spent more? Yes, probably. Would I perform worse in other parts of my life if I did that? Yes, probably. Since most of those other parts of my life benefit my kids (my job, my happiness, my health), it’s all a trade-off.
The study tips section did change my approaches a little. For example, my son had to write a paper about the attack on Pearl Harbor. He began by reading the Wikipedia page on it, but found it quickly boring. Plus, he was sitting at his computer, which was an invitation to give up on studying and start playing games. Because the book had touted the effects of visual learning so much (learning by seeing and watching, rather than reading or memorizing), I scanned through Netflix, found a National Geographic documentary on the attack, and had him watch it. He liked it so much he watched it a second time to make sure he had it, then wrote his report. Without reading this book, I wouldn’t have thought that a film was as good a source of learning as an encyclopedia article. But really … it is, and I’m glad I have that preconception out of the way.
In conclusion, I didn’t find the book very useful, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t useful at all. It introduced me to some new ideas and it gave me more tolerance and acceptance of people having different learning styles.