Adult ADHD: How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmer's World

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Schools, employers and families are missing out on what could be attained if these individuals were provided with what they need to attain their potential.

Does school, compared to home, provide a unique adaptive context for children's ADHD-associated behaviors? Providing a supportive "survival" guide to help fine tune your natural skill set, rather than suppress it, Hartmann shows that each mind--whether hunter, farmer, or somewhere in between--has value and great potential waiting to be tapped. It is my hope that this book will help us remove the stigma of “illness” or “deficit” associated with a diagnosis of ADHD and related conditions. This book does a great job of laying out the facts and helping you realize that you are just wired a little differently.Having been trained to look at the positive aspects of ADHD by homeschool author Carol Barnier, I enjoyed this book for the most part and found its approach helpful. Many of the adults who take Ritalin for ADHD swear that they wished they had discovered this medication long before because of how it has made their life so much easier.

With our structured public schools, office workplaces, and factories those who inherit a surplus of “hunter skills” are often left frustrated in a world that doesn’t understand or support them. Failure to be fully aware of the environment and notice the faint sound might mean a swift and painful death or the difference between a full belly and hunger. For those with TSDD it opens easily, maybe too easily, and they seek stimulation with greater caution.

He does spend time talking about the high incidence of ADHD in prisons, outside of a very brief paragraph he avoids discussing the systemic reasons that people of color, and people in poverty are less likely to get treatment for ADHD, and more likely to have harsh sentences for crime.

Learning to concentrate can be very difficult for the Hunter without consistent feedback, feedback that can be available in the classroom from the teacher. In considering ADHD in an evolutionary context, Thom was the first to point out the survival advantages of ADHD in hunter-gatherer societies and also the first to identify the link between ADHD and creativity. Again, Hartmann offers a number to strategies for the Hunter to find ways to sleep in the current Farmer’s world, strategies often hypnotic in nature.

If the wild boar vanishes into the brush, and a rabbit appears, the Hunter is off in a new direction. They can throw an incredible burst of energy into the hunt, so much so that they often injure themselves or exceed “normal” capabilities, without realizing it until later. The money from pharmaceutical companies continues to suggest that ADHD is a failure of genetics or neurochemistry, but by learning that you have a gene of the Hunter and that it was an advantage to the Hunter, you may become open to a positive side of ADHD. In the workplace, the expectations of the Hunter need to be defined in measurable short-term goals given when possible only one at a time.

I agree that those with hyperactivity and high energy would be the hunters, but what about those of us with inattentive ADHD? They gradually moved west across what is now Europe and North Africa, and eventually across the Atlantic into North America. Wish it had more in-text references, perhaps it's the academic in me, but at times it's hard to tell what's theory and what's been proven. These conclusions, however, are still compatible with the theory: "Overall, our results are compatible with the mismatch theory for ADHD but suggest a much older time frame for the evolution of ADHD-associated alleles compared to previous hypotheses. As someone who has been confirmed to have a lot of ADHD traits, I found this book fascinating, inspiring and easy to read.Thom Hartmann is a progressive radio talk show host, author, and retired businessman who was born and grew up in Michigan. Wright posits that all of human behavior is based on a single motivation---will this behavior continue my gene pool.