Therapeutic Listening

As I’ve written before in my parenting ADHD children blog, my attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) daughter, Natalie, often has trouble getting to sleep at night. At our last visit, our pediatrician suggested we try an occasional Benadryl, and that if that wasn’t enough, she’d prescribe medication for Natalie to take nightly.

The Benadryl does seem to help, but we’re needing to use it more than occasionally, and, by it’s usually 10:30 pm before I give up and give it to Nat, so . . .

This morning, I mentioned to Summer, Nat’s occupational therapist, that I couldn’t decide whether or not to ask Dr. Halbur for medication, and in doing so, offered her a perfect segue. She had an idea that might help, and was planning to bring it up with me today anyway. Would I be willing to try therapeutic listening again?

I’m not even going to try to explain what therapeutic listening is, because I won’t do so accurately. You can learn about it at Vitalsounds.com.

We’d tried it before, and I had trouble following through. The protocol involves having your child listen to specially made CDs through a specific type of headphones, for 30 minutes twice a day. Each listening session must be at least three hours apart. Nat didn’t like doing it, and I didn’t have the energy to make her, twice a day, every single day. We’ve tried, and quit, at least three times. It’s time to try again.

I do believe it will make a difference. After one two-week stint, Nat’s handwriting improved dramatically. If Summer says it will help her sleep, it will help her sleep. If she can do so naturally, rather than relying on medication, that would be huge.

So, I’ll be buying another portable CD player (Nat’s broken 3 of them), finding our headphones and CDs, finding Nat’s CD player belt, and starting again. I simply have to commit to this program, no matter how hard it is.

Has anyone else used it? If so, how did it work?