JR is trying out a karate class this afternoon after school. We have been a long time in finding the right activity for him--"right" here being a combination of his desires, cost, location and time. At this point, it was a toss up between karate and swimming, and we got a phone call last night from a friend whose son (one of Claire's classmates) had been considering karate as well--they found a place, not too far away, not terribly expensive, and they could take JR with them to try and it, and later for classes, if we wanted/needed. All this happened in the blink of an eye last night, and voila, he'll be headed there after school today.
It ends up that karate and other martial arts are fantastic activities for children with ADHD. It requires intense mental and physical focus, clear rules to follow, positive role models and interaction with peers. For JR, it is also not a team sport, necessarily--that is, each person advances at his or her own level, which takes a certain performance pressure off.
The hope, of course, is that JR likes it. Especially once he realizes that it isn't all Jackie Chan and Avatar: The Last Airbender moves.
1 comments:
This often comes up in my ADHD workshops. I'm gonna tweet this post, and would love to hear followup's about the karate class, from a mom's perspective!
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