Celebrate The Mystery Of You

Length-5 minutes, 0 seconds

Dr. Lara Honos-Webb

Lara Honos-Webb, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in Walnut Creek, CA. She is author of The Gift of ADHD, The Gift of ADHD Activity Book: 101 Ways to Turn Your Child's Problems into Strengths (Companion) New Harbinger Publications (January 2008) and Listening To Depression (New Harbinger, 2006), and more than twenty-five scholarly articles. Her work has been featured in Newsweek,The Wall Street Journal, and Publisher's Weekly as well as newspapers
across the country and local and national radio and television. She specializes in the treatment of ADHD and depression and the psychology of pregnancy and motherhood; she speaks regularly on her areas of
expertise.

Honos-Webb completed a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship at University of California, San Francisco, and was, until recently,  an assistant professor teaching graduate students.She offers telephone therapy to residents anywhere in California.   Visit Dr. Lara's website .  Email

Comments

[Lara Honos-Webb]

What a great question. Research is clear that for any child - ADHD or not - more than 2 hours of screen time can lead to sleep disruption. Sleep disruption has a lot of negative consequences for any child and will lead to behaviors that look like ADHD or make ADHD behaviors much worse.

Does Television watching cause ADHD? No. The research indicates a correlation between TV watching and ADHD. This could be explained by children with ADHD being unmanageable and therefore parents using TV to get a break from difficult parenting. We do not know which direction the causality goes, having ADHD could lead to high levels of TV watching. The diagnosis of ADHD is very unreliable almost all experts agree. High levels of TV watching could disrupt sleep leading to behavior problems that get misdiagnosed as ADHD. The research that points to a strong influence of genetics is causing ADHD is very convincing. I think it is a hardwired difference, and that focusing on the "deficit disorder" instead of the gifts of ADD will create more behavior problems.

[Steven Ang]

Dear Dr. Lara Honos-Webb, as an expert on ADHD, may I have your thoughts about children watching too much television or playing too much video games as a cause of ADHD? As it stands now, there exists two schools of thoughts on such activities but comments from an expert like you would certainly be more credible. Thank You.

Stephen