The Edison Gene

Thom Hartmann is the award-winning, bestselling author of over a dozen books, including Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception and The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. A former psychotherapist and founder of the Hunter School, a residential and day school for children with ADHD, he lives in central Vermont.

Foreword by Lucy Jo Palladino, Ph.D

Acknowledgments

Introduction: A New View for Our Children
Genetics and Differences • 1993: The Hunter Gene • Distractibility • Impulsivity • Risk-Taking • Where Have All the Hunters Gone? • Indigenous Hunters Today • The Agricultural Revolution • Our Society's Hunters • The Edison Gene • The Crisis-Survival Gene • Hunters Before the Holocene • Adapted to Adversity and Change

Part 1: The Past

1. The World of the Edison-Gene Child
The Ancient World • The Salt Pump • The Great Ice Age • Heated by the Great Conveyor Belt

2. The Dawn of Civilization
What Made Us Human? • The Bacteria That Took Over the World • The Human Bottleneck • Before the Bottleneck

3. Three Ways Humans Were Killed Off by Weather
Warming by the Sun • Vulcan's Hammer • Survivors: AIDS Chimps and the Black Plague • Creativity Saves the Day • ADHD and Creativity • The Beads: Clue to the First Edisons

Part 2: The Present

4. Anatomy of a Diagnosis
How Edison-Gene Children Are Different • Are They Disordered? • Anthropology Meets Psychology • From Hunters to Inventors

5. The Mystery of Novelty-Seeking Behavior
The "Novelty Gene" • The Novelty Gene and ADHD

6. Genes Move Around and Turn On and Off
The Genetics of Behavior • Turning on Genes • Codominant Genes • Turning on Edison Characteristics

7. Other Genes and Influences
Neurotransmitters and Personality Characteristics • The Reasons for Genetic Variations • Culture and Genes

8. Scientists Find the "Adaptive" Edison Gene
But Some Say It's a Disease • Is It a Disorder? • Novelty Seeking

9. The ADHD Gene and the Dawn of Human Civilization
The Time Machine • The News Hits the Streets • The Edison Gene and Democracy

10. Brain Development and the Edison-Gene Child
Sense of Self • A Process that Mirrors Evolution • The Reptilian Brain • The Limbic Brain • The "New" Brain • The Unique Prefrontal Brain • The Brain Develops After Birth, Too • The First Pruning of the Brain • The Impact of Stress • The Brain in the Birth Period • The Brain in the Toddler Period • The Brain in the Early Childhood Period • The Brain in the Teenage Period • The Brain in the Early Adult Years • Adult Memory of the Stages of Brain Development • Intuition versus Information • The Loss of Intuition • The Tragedy of Lost Potential • Invasion of the Lizard People? • Are We Stuck in a Loop? • Triggering Events • Raising Fully Human Children • Schools May Be the Key • School as Torture • Condemnation • School as Work • Comorbidities • Applying Comorbidities to Edison-Gene Children • Breaking the Loop • Offering a New Story

11. The Edison Gene, Drugs, Exercise, and Nutrition
Nutritional Deficiencies Are Rampant • Environmental Toxins • Nutriceuticals • Yerba Maté: Nature's Ritalin • Drugs for Edison-Gene Children • Medications Bite Back • Burning Out Brain Cells? • Do Drugs Help Over the Long Term? • The Loss of Play • EEG Neurofeedback • Exercise: The Optimal "Treatment"?

12. Providing Discipline and Structure for the Edison-Gene Child
Nurturing the Hunters • Reward/Punishment versus Inclusion/Interdependence • Separating Person from Behavior • Break the Pattern with a Positive Message • Watch for Islands of Success • The Importance of Mastery • Turn Off the Television

13. Alfred Adler's Principles for Raising Children
Promote Mutual Respect • Encourage • Foster Security • Avoid Reward and Punishment • Use Natural and Logical Consequences • Act Instead of Talk in Conflict Situations • Use Withdrawal as a Counteraction • Withdraw from the Provocation, Not from the Child • Don't Interfere in Children's Fights • Fighting Requires Cooperation • Take Time to Teach Essential Skills and Habits • Never Do for a Child What He Can Do for Himself • Don't Overprotect • Avoid Being Overly Responsible • Distinguish Between Positive and Negative Attention • Understand the Child's Goal • A Habit Is Maintained If It Achieves Its Purpose • Minimize Mistakes • Try a Family Council and Have Fun Together • The Edison-Gene Family

14. Educating the Edison-Gene Child
Learned Helplessness • Reframing Identity = Success in Learning • Government Studies Pronounce on Medication • They Ignored the Environment • The Study Proved Ritalin Doesn't Improve Learning • But It Makes the Teachers Happy • Lighting a Fire for Learning • Education and Testing Corporations • How Modern Education Came About • German Schools Come to America • American Education and the Catholic Problem • Backlash Against the Authoritarian Model of Public Education • Maria Montessori • Rudolf Steiner • Free and Alternative Schools • Homeschooling and Internet Schooling • But What About Socialization? • Why Homeschooling Works for Edison-Gene Children • The Edison Gene through the College Years • Find a Mentor or a Coach

15. Edison-Gene Girls and Women
Be a Good Girl • Cinderella in a Hostile World • Cultural Barriers • Cultural Programming and Expectations • Healing the Wounds

16. Spirituality and the Edison-Gene Child
Edison-Gene Mystics • The Hunter's Reality • The World of the Hunter's Dreams • Dreaming with the Natives • Learning to Know • Understanding the Real World • Wild People and Tame People • The Loss of True Wisdom • When Access to Personal Spirituality is Lost

Part 3: The Future

17. How Edison-Gene Children May Change the World
Glimmers of How Culture Works • What Causes Culture? • The Biology of Culture • Primal Human Cultures • Cultural and Genetic Selection

18. Is Human Evolution Finally Over?
As Good As It Gets • We're Going Downhill • It's the Fault of Those People with ADHD! • Are We Standing Still? • Distant Bottleneck Events

19. One Generation to Save the World
Climate Flip-Flops to the Next Ice Age • A Global-Warming Bottleneck

Afterword: Yesterday's Child by Janie Bowman

Notes

Index