Brad Franklin thought he was just having fun, chowing down on pizza and playing basketball in the gym. He didn’t think of it as therapy.
Twice a week for eight weeks this spring, Brad and six other children who’ve been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder got together at a gym in Overland Park, Kan., and ran and stretched and talked together with Tom Scott, a counseling psychologist.
Scott’s theory: Physical activity, melded with supportive group interaction, can restrain the impulsiveness and focus the scattered thinking of the child with an attention disorder.
Scott is going on the basis of personal experience. The Overland Park therapist says he has attention deficit disorder.
“Running was very, very helpful for me in the 8th grade and still is today,” Scott said. “It’s a self-medicative behavior. It helps you develop more confidence. It’s a way to learn to decompress your system.”
Scott launched his first series of sessions in June and has had others since with some children repeating. They are all between 7 and 11 years of age.
The organized running and other physical activities helped 10-year-old Brad to release “that tension that I think they build up a lot,” said his mother, Lori Clark of Prairie Village, Kan. “Brad seemed to respond in a very positive way.”
The combination of physical activity and emotional disclosure within the group fortified Brad’s self-image and helped him identify avenues other than “acting out” to ventilate his frustrations, she said.
“It’s given him some feedback about himself.”
Scott bases his exercise/therapy session on his belief that “a fatigued muscle is a relaxed muscle.” He takes care not to go too far.
“Kids with ADD have a way of overdoing almost everything they attempt,” Scott said. He tries to help them recognize their “fatigue point,” where their exertion turns from constructive to destructive.
Relaxation paves the way for emotional sharing and feedback, another major piece of Scott’s program.
“We talk about the events of people’s week and what we can do about things that are uncomfortable. It’s interesting how you’ll see kids really come to bat for other kids. We created a cohesive group where the kids were concerned about the well-being of others.”
People with ADD tend to have very negative self-images, he pointed out, because other people often reject or correct them.
Scott thinks his running-based program gives children an opportunity to succeed. Each of the children defines his or her own goals, sets his or her own agenda.
In that way, Scott said, they will almost certainly experience the success–and a boost to their self-esteem–that so often eludes them in life. Too often, children with attention deficit get lots of criticism for fidgety, distracted behavior.
In his practice with the Responsive Centers for Psychology and Learning, a private counseling center in Overland Park, Scott has seen many attention-disordered children with a “dire need for approval.”
He plans to give it to them.
“We’re starting with the premise that they are OK. And we’re going to give them alternatives to some of the behaviors and mindsets and distorted beliefs they have about themselves.”
He hopes to help them listen, respond to the needs of other people and to laugh “with unself-conscious abandon.”
The kids will have time “to let loose,” but also will be expected to develop more tolerance, resourcefulness, patience, self-motivation and self-discipline.
Although Scott focuses on such “cognitive” approaches, he doesn’t completely dismiss the value of medications such as Ritalin. Nor should he, according to Eric Vernberg, an associate professor of psychology and human development and family life at the University of Kansas.
“It seems that kids should be able to learn to control themselves, but it’s hard to muster evidence so far that works,” he said.
What has proven effective, in 80 percent of cases, is medication, he said.
But other strategies could help and have. Physical activity has been tried as the basis for therapeutic programs for children with attention disorders, Vernberg said, including a summer camp for such children in Buffalo built around baseball.
Vernberg noted, however, that running might be somewhat less effective because it is a basically solitary pursuit and doesn’t require the cooperation and compliance with rules that are built into the baseball camp.
Nevertheless, Vernberg said he thought the running program could provide children with “a sense of accomplishment.”
“Certainly having positive relationships with people, with someone who believes in them, seem to be good things.”
