Customer Reviews
Best book I've read on the subject! 
2006-02-14
This is the first product I've ever written a review about--that should tell you something!
I first borrowed this book from a family member. My wife and I read it together early in our marriage. We read it aloud together and discussed the content. Pretty soon you realize the ideas presented in this book are unlike any other. We found ourselves nodding and whispering "amen" at nearly every page turn.
I highly reccomend this book to anyone who associates with or has ADD. I now view the "disorder" as a strength instead of a handicap.
I Owe This to the Author 2005-11-29
Your reviewers experience: a few short years ago my youngest son was in real trouble. Skipping school and failing I had him tested at his therapist's request. Near genius IQ. In eight grade his math aptitude (which he failed through most of school) was above 12th grade. He was miserable and so was our family. In search of answers he was diagnosed as ADD. It was a dark dark time for me to the point I believed I might lose this child.
The book is a well written argument that the child is not defective, but rather these ADD "hunters" are forced into a "farmer" environment we have grown to demand of public school system children. It also offers helpful advice on how to deal with this issue.
The book allowed me to see that my son wasn't "broken" and if he had a disability it was because he was ill suited to the public school environment which demanded dull witted compliant students and wasn't interested at all in offering any alternative. Reading this book allowed me decide the world wasn't on my son's side, but I had to be, and have confidence that when I could help get him into a different environment it would be better.
I can now report he dropped out of high school, a thing I came to look forward to. He immediately went to take the GED and passed most scores with 99th percentile (nothing below 93rd percentile), finished his Eagle scout badge, and is starting his own craft business doing glass work. I believe the result could have been much different without the perspective of the author and thank him for it.
Simple Easy to Understand 2005-10-17
Thom Hartmann has written a series of books related to ADD/ADHD.
They all are wonderful easy to understand and useful books.
They introduce a powerful perspective to those labeled ADD/ADHD. ADD/ADHD, being based on labeling behaviors is challenged in many ways by these books of Hartmaan's.
Thom Hartmann's books provide a useful tool to help people recognize the psychological coping mechanism that are associated with ADD patterns of behavior. This was very helpful to me since I am not ADD/ADHD and had no idea how to relate or what I was relating to!!!
Bottom-line these books helped several people I know and love.
So this review is one of a personal point of "been there done that!" I learned much as did my family and friends.
These books of his help!!!
Yours in good health
nieema
Attention Deficit Disorder : A Different Perception 2005-08-25
This book not only addresses a different perspective, but it offers a more positive perspective regarding ADD.
Easy to read and understand 2004-03-05
This author most certainly understands people with ADD and writes in such a way that makes it accessible to them. This book will leave you feeling hopeful with a sense of direction. Thank you whoever you are!
An Eye Opener on ADD 2008-02-05
This book is excellent and gives you a powerful new insight to ADD and an understanding of what living with ADD is like for the people who have it and those who love them or work with them.
Attention Deficit Disorder : A Different Perception
Change the World 2008-01-29
Thom Hartmann is trying to change the world one book at a time, one ADDer child at a time and one adult ADDer at a time. He's right though, ADD is just another way of looking at the world and 200 years ago it was probably more of a benefit than anything else. Kids didn't sit in schools all day; they were out working and becoming apprenticed. The world has changed and some of us have minds that have not yet adapted to the change and therefore we are seen as outcasts and therefore we have problems and therefore we need medication etc... The thing is, ADDers suffer and it's mostly from an educational system that is too standard and a society that is unforgiving. Thom's theories are great, he needs a book that transcends just those with ADD and ADHD, but reaches out to society - a book anyone will read and benefit from. Great read with great insights!
One Boy's Struggle: A Memoir: Surviving Life with Undiagnosed ADD
Attention Deficit Disorder : A Different Perception 2008-01-07
How exciting to finally read that I don't have a disorder.........but that everyone else. This book has a wonderful way of discribing how a person with attention deficit sees the world and how that unique quality is vital in our existence. Every teacher should have this book as required reading. I am a "Hunter", living in a "Farmers" world.
Attention Deficit Disorder : A Different Perception
This book saved our son 2007-02-28
I read this book many years ago and have been recommending it at every opportunity. I remember as I finished this book, my son was sitting at the table just struggling to finish his homework. He was bumping his head against the table in utter frustration! I had to laugh! What was I thinking? He was so creative and smart, he read to me at age three. I discussed the book with my husband and we called his dean and arranged to have all of his teachers in a room at the same time. I carried every book I had on ADD and plopped them down on the table. When they arrived, I asked how many believed there was such a thing as ADD, all but two raised their hands. I asked what courses the two taught and asked the dean to move my son to a different teacher. They were replaced. Not one of the teachers had read any of the books on the table. I said "I have one son, he is all I care about. I am his only cheerleader. I see $360,000 tax dollars worth of teachers with Masters degrees in this room and as far as I was concerned, they had to teach one son. My expectation is that you can teach him. Is there anyone in the room who didn't think it was possible?" No one raised their hand. For the first time I felt I was in control. I was empowered because this book empowered me. I did what I had to do to get my hunter out of that school as fast as I could. My son got a day off of school for every A he brought home. He was astonished at that. He got straight A's for the remainder of high school, graduated 6 months early, and will graduate with honors from Columbia this June. He felt I was on his side, me and him against the system. I could not have helped him if it weren't for the words in this book, so thank-you Thom, you have no idea how this helped us.
Hartmann and Drugs 2006-05-05
Hartmann is a successful multitasker: not only does he write popular books on ADD/ADHD, he has published numerous books of poetry, has opened four hospitals in Third World countries, and so on. His point is that ADD/ADHD is a curse if it is not channeled properly, but can be a great blessing, and an enormous goad (and even key) to success if the "sufferer" learns to handle it, learns to cope with it.
As someone who was bored in school not just because it was repetitive, not just because teachers spent way too much time on task for the attention spans of children, but because it was all too EASY, I recognized myself in Hartmann's case studies immediately. But I was never diagnosed with ADD or ADHD because I learned to cope early. I taught myself to stay on task long enough to finish projects. And as Hartmann stresses, that's the key: finishing projects. When you're ADD, or a "hunter," it requires an extra effort of focus to do it, at first--not just a burst of focus, but a willingness to keep your nose to the grindstone for long periods of time (HOURS! DAYS!) no matter how much it hurts--but soon enough the effort is internalized and success on the world's terms becomes much easier.
Not that the "farmers" will necessarily understand that success. My colleagues say I publish "too much." I'll be working on a scholarly book and a play and a translation at once, and they'll all get done, pretty quickly, within months, because I know I have to push hard to finish or I'll lose interest. As a result I've published something like 15 books, and have a hard drive full of unpublished and unproduced manuscripts as well. I can't understand people who spend fifteen years writing a single magnum opus. Don't they get BORED?
I do want to take issue with one unnamed reviewer, though:
"While I can agree with the point in this book that ADHD to some extent is situational (a hunter temperament within a farmer society) I have to raise obvious concerns about the outcome of any book not giving full credit to the metabolic issue and medications. ... It is an extremely painful experience for many parents of ADHD students to NOT provide medication or alternatives to medication while students continue to be hyperactive, unfocused, extremely distractible, while exercising little impulse control."
This sort of review is irresponsible. The reviewer clearly did not pay attention while reading Hartmann's book (easily distracted? ADD?). Hartmann stresses specifically that ADD/ADHD is painful, stressful, traumatic for many children, and that Ritalin or some other chemical intervention may in many cases be not only necessary but life-saving. But he also stresses that long-term Ritalin use is not the solution--that what children need is instruction in coping with ADD, in channeling their impulses in productive ways. In effect, what he is calling for is help for children with ADD/ADHD who need to learn to produce Ritalin analogs in their own brain chemistry, without external intervention.
