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My nephew was making my sister and her husband crazy. He was fidgety, he couldn’t keep his hands to himself, and he was always losing things. His grades weren’t very good and his teachers were frustrated because he was constantly distracting other kids. He would do impulsive things that ended up with him breaking things or getting hurt.

My sister took him to be evaluated. It was determined that he was suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and he was put on medicine to help control it. That was several years ago. He is a sophomore in high
school now and he is doing much better. On occasion, he still does impulsive things that get him into trouble. My sister isn’t sure if that is due to his ADHD or just that he is a teenager doing teenager things.

When I decided to write on this topic, I called him up and asked him about his ADHD. I asked him to think
back before his diagnosis and what that was like. He said it was like his mind was bouncing around a lot. It was really difficult for him to stay on one topic. School was torture for him. The teachers would want him to do his work, but his mind was off somewhere else. He would try to bring his focus back, but then his thoughts would turn to something else.

I asked him if he ever felt that something was wrong or not normal. He said at times he couldn’t understand why he kept doing things that were getting him in trouble. It was upsetting to him when everyone was angry with him. He was
angry with himself whenever he got in to trouble, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. It wasn’t until he was put on medicine that he finally felt like he could think more clearly. He was surprised at how much easier it was to keep his focus on his tasks. The fact that his teachers and parents aren’t getting angry with him so much anymore is a relief.

Finally, I asked him how he felt about having to take medicine to control his ADHD. He admitted he does not like taking the medicine, but he knows that the medicine is important to help him keep in control. He feels good when he gets good grades now. He likes that he can stay focused enough to be on sports teams and participate in other school activities. If it hadn’t been for the medicine helping him to stay focused, he doubts that his parents would have trusted him to get his driver’s license.

As of 2006, 4.5 million children 5-17 years of age have been diagnosed with ADHD. It isn’t just kids who suffer from ADHD. Adults do too. If you, or someone you know has been diagnosed with ADHD, you may want to check out these resources:

• Center’s for Disease Control and Prevention has information on Diagnosing ADHD, Data and Statistics, and Take the Next Step After Diagnosis.
• Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) has a list of blogs on ADHD, a finding support section, and a list of conferences and training programs to help professionals, parents, and individuals dealing with ADHD.
• Medlineplus.gov has compiled ADHD resources for you, including information on Managing ADHD, Treatments, and Related Issues. They also have many links to materials written in Spanish.
• National Institute of Mental Health has publications on ADHD.
• National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has information on ADHD.
• National Resource Center on ADHD has an “Ask the Expert” Online Chat where you can get answers to your questions. Or you can call 1-800-233-4050. They have an FAQs section, and a large library of books, scientific articles and other materials so you can conduct your own research. Sometimes kids grow into adulthood having not been diagnosed. If you are an adult who suspects you may be suffering from ADHD, here is an article on Diagnosing ADHD in Adults.
• Usa.gov’s ADHD results page.

Understanding the Largest Federal Assistance Program

Social Security is the federal government’s largest single program. Created in 1935, the program now consists of two parts: Old-Age and Survivors Insurance pays benefits to retired workers and to their dependents and survivors.

Disability Insurance (DI) makes payments to disabled workers who are younger than the normal retirement age and to their dependents. In all, about 50 million people now receive Social Security benefits.

During the program’s first four decades, spending for Social Security benefits steadily increased relative to the size of the economy, reaching about 4 percent of gross domestic product in the mid-1970s. That spending was driven largely by repeated expansions of the program.

Since then, spending for Social Security benefits has mostly fluctuated between 4.1 percent and 4.5 percent of GDP. In fiscal year 2007, it accounted for 4.3 percent of GDP.

How Social Security Works

In general, workers are eligible for retirement benefits if they are age 62 or older and have paid sufficient Social Security taxes for at least 10 years. Workers whose employment has been limited because of a physical or mental disability can become eligible for DI benefits at an earlier age and often with a shorter employment history.Various rules for determining eligibility and benefit amounts apply to family members of retired, disabled, or deceased workers.

When retired or disabled workers first claim Social Security benefits, they receive payments based on their average earnings over their working lifetime; those payments are subsequently adjusted to reflect annual changes in the cost of living. The formula used to translate average earnings into benefits is progressive.

In other words, it replaces a larger share of preretirement earnings for people with lower average earnings than it does for people with higher earnings. Both the earnings history and the specific dollar amounts included in the formula are indexed to changes in average annual earnings for the labor force as a whole.

Because average national earnings generally grow faster than the rate of inflation, that indexation causes initial benefits for future recipients to grow in real (inflation-adjusted) terms.

For retirement benefits, a final adjustment is made on the basis of the age at which a recipient chooses to start claiming benefits: The longer a person waits (up to age 70), the higher the benefits will be. That final adjustment is intended to be “actuarially fair,” so that an individual’s total lifetime benefits will be approximately equally valuable regardless of when he or she begins collecting them.

For workers born before 1938, the age of eligibility for full retirement benefits—referred to as Social Security’s normal retirement age—is 65. Under current law, that age is gradually increasing and will be 67 for people born in 1960 or later.

Specifically, the normal retirement age rises by two months per birth year for people born from 1938 through 1943 and again by two months per year for people born from 1955 through 1960. The age at which workers may start receiving reduced benefits—age 62—remains the same.

The Social Security Administration estimates that workers who retire at age 65 in 2008 having had average earnings throughout their career will be eligible for an annual benefit of about $15,000. That amount will replace nearly 40 percent of their preretirement earnings.

In later decades, the replacement rate will be less for workers with average earnings who retire at age 65, mainly because of the scheduled increase in the normal retirement age. Nevertheless, because initial benefits are indexed to average wages, which grow over time, the real value of those benefits will continue to rise.

Although Social Security is often characterized as a retirement program, it also provides other benefits. Indeed, only about 63 percent of its beneficiaries receive their payments as retired workers. As of September 2007, 14 percent of beneficiaries were disabled workers, 13 percent were survivors of deceased workers, and the remaining 10 percent were spouses or children of retired or disabled workers.

Source: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8877/Chapter3.6.1.shtml