Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
When a parent is set on something that will not hold, one honest story often lands better than a pile of studies. A family finished the better part of a year of neurofeedback and watched their child slide back to where he started within weeks.
Told plainly, with no note of triumph in it, a story like that raises durability without telling a parent they were foolish. They were not foolish. They were doing what love does, which is to try. Leave room for them to reach the conclusion themselves and most of them will.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear (Quran 2:286). A family that has already carried a lot does not need shame added on top of the disappointment.
لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا وُسۡعَهَاۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَيۡهَا مَا ٱكۡتَسَبَتۡۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوۡ أَخۡطَأۡنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَيۡنَآ إِصۡرࣰ ا كَمَا حَمَلۡتَهُۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآۚ أَنتَ مَوۡلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرۡنَا عَلَى ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلۡكَٰفِرِينَ
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear: each gains whatever good it has done, and suffers its bad- ‘ Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes. Lord, do not burden us as You burdened those before us. Lord, do not burden us with more than we have strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Protector, so help us against the disbelievers.’
Qur’an 2:286read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
There is a reason improvement seen at home can vanish in the data. A meta-analysis of cognitive training in ADHD found gains on some neuropsychological measures, but effects on core symptoms largely disappeared once the raters did not know who had been treated. Parents who have driven to appointments for months are not neutral observers, and that is human rather than dishonest.
Cortese S, Ferrin M, Brandeis D, Buitelaar J, Daley D, Dittmann RW, Holtmann M, Santosh P, Stevenson J, Stringaris A, Zuddas A, Sonuga-Barke EJ, European ADHD Guidelines Group (EAGG). (2015). Cognitive training for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: meta-analysis of clinical and neuropsychological outcomes from randomized controlled trials.. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A story lets someone see the ending for themselves, which is easier to take than being corrected.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Balance difficulties do turn up more often in ADHD, by something like half again. That is a fact about company, not about cause, and it does not turn balance training into a treatment.
Since 1994, supplements have not had to satisfy a regulator before going on sale. Nobody checked the bottle in your hand the way they check a prescription.
If you are going to take supplements, it is worth paying a small subscription to a service that assays what is actually in them. ConsumerLab is one, at roughly sixty dollars a year.