Our Grandson

We've got our grandson staying today and overnight.
Simple enough statement for grandparents to make I'm sure but Lewis has ADHD and has had a rough time just lately.
We last saw him in May in Devon, where he lives but his other grandparents are in the area visiting friends so we've got him for a day - and it's been great too.
Day out to Bedford on the train, which he loved and a stroll around then a walk along the river and home.
He behaves so well with us that we really wonder what our kids can't do because in May he was terrible.
Anyway, just thought I'd mention it 'cos we don't see him that often. stevmk2

Re: Our Grandson

Hi Martin nice to hear you had a good day with Lewis.
I would guess the secret is you kept him occupied doing things he enjoyed .

Re: Our Grandson

Yes Meg, it's the attention that he needs, like all the kids that develop this syndrome. OK, most kids want your attention but with Lewis and others that have this syndrome - part of the Autism spectrum - it's essential or the go off into their own little world and you've lost them.
Nobody really understands why some children develop ADHD but I think that it's down to how they are brought up in their early years.
Lewis's mother - our daughter-in-law - is introverted to the point of extremism; she has very little capacity for social interaction although she is highly intelligent.
It's quietly become more and more common and has a lot to do with the laid-back method of bringing up children that really started in the 60s; much as the same thought processes has resulted in the generations of misfits and vandals recently seen on our streets, rioting and destroying property.
To my mind children need discipline and order and learn by example from their immediate carers, be they parents or otherwise. Failure to give them what they need means they turn inwards, to their peers for guidance and learn from THEIR example, so you end up in a downward spiral where miscreants and delinquents pass on their guidance to the next generation ad infinitum, much as young offenders learn from more "experienced" prisoners in our prisons.

Our present government is blind to all this, just as their predecessors were because they do not understand the ordinary working man sufficiently to realise that the ordinary working man needs stability just as everyone else does.
Take away their means of earning a living and supporting their own and they collapse into anarchy; that much is blatantly obvious.
The powers that be have stood idly by while our diverse, industrial backbone and heritage has been dismantled and shipped overseas; where cheap labour outlawed in the West is no problem in the developing world.
Children as young as six make clothes for well-known Western companies in ghastly sweat shops in many countries to provide these companies with cheaper products that they can continue to sell us, supposedly cheaply when the real reason is that their profits are considerably larger by doing so.
My area was well known for the diversity of its light engineering experience but that's all gone and all we have now are huge warehouses handling foreign-made goods where employees are not much better-off than their counterparts overseas. Rates of pay have plummeted to the point where £6.20 per hour is considered to be a "good" rate when in fact it is not - it's a subsistence rate and you would have been paid that rate as a starting rate 5 years ago in a similar warehouse environment.
I know. I spent almost two years working in a warehouse and it is soul destroying.
I worry for my grandchildren now, Lewis included, and I can see nothing for them in the future unless our politicians get their act together and realise that they are selling-off this country for pennies and betraying future generations with their politically-motivated policies. stevmk2

Re: Our Grandson

It's good to hear you had a lovely day out with your grandson, sounds like he really enjoyed it, Martin.