Pilkey prefers to call ADHD \u201cAttention Deficit Hyperactivity Delightful\u201d, then adds that he doesn\u2019t like the term \u201cdeficit\u201d either, preferring to think of it as \u201cdynamic attention\u201d because of the power people with ADHD have to hyperfocus. It\u2019s a power he says he puts to use every day in his own work, working in spells of six to eight hours, whether he feels inspired or not. It\u2019s an alternative message about ADHD that he says is important for kids and parents to hear.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bunch of experts came up with that term and any time you get a bunch of experts together, you know they\u2019re going to get it wrong. I feel like perhaps they were well-meaning, but maybe they didn\u2019t get the full picture. I think there\u2019s much, much more to it than meets the eye.\u201d<\/p>\n
The years from second grade to fifth grade were, he says, the worst of his life. He\u2019d frequently come home crying, asking himself questions like, \u201cWhy me?\u201d and \u201cHow come nobody else has these problems?\u201d<\/p>\n
He credits his mother with helping to turn his thinking around.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe always believed that something good can come out of any situation if you just look for it. And that positivity rubs off after a while. So I started to behave like that and to ask those questions, like \u2018How can I turn this into something good?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Each week, his mother would take him to the library and let him pick whatever books he wanted. There was zero judgment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t matter if the books were below my reading level or if I\u2019d read them a million times already. She just wanted me to read what I loved and eventually I learned to love to read because I practised so much and because my mum was such a good support system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, as one of the world\u2019s most successful authors, he tries to offer that same sort of support to the kids whose lives he touches in marathon meet and greets that can run as long as five hours. He sees it as his purpose to inspire kids who are struggling with reading, as he once did. He wants them to see it as fun. He hopes that by meeting someone else who struggled and turned out okay, they will feel less alone.<\/p>\n
Children dressing up as characters from Dav Pilkey’s novels. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
At a recent event, he says, he told a little girl who was struggling that she had a mum who loved her very much and she was going to be just fine. The girl started crying and so did her mother and so did he: \u201cEverybody was crying,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it was just a lovely thing. And that happens so much you wouldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s made peace with his past. He doesn\u2019t begrudge the teachers who made his life so awful in those early school years. Given the chance to go back and change his experience, he says he wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t change a thing, to be honest,\u201d he says. \u201cThose struggles helped me to become who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
By most measures, there\u2019s nothing left for him to achieve. But he\u2019s not interested in most measures. When asked about his legacy, he doesn\u2019t mention his sales or cultural significance or the hit shows and movies and other baubles of fame that have sprung from his books.<\/p>\n
He says: \u201cI hope that I have inspired a lot of kids to read and I hope that perhaps my art or my stories have inspired kids to create the way that so many artists have inspired me to create \u2026 I hope that I can be an inspiration to others in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Auckland Live presents Dog Man: The Musical at the Bruce Mason Centre, July 14-18. More information at aucklandlive.co.nz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pilkey prefers to call ADHD \u201cAttention Deficit Hyperactivity Delightful\u201d, then adds that he doesn\u2019t like the term \u201cdeficit\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3867,95,22087,138037,9219,5810,156,221,5158,111,139,69,138038,27302,3502,223],"class_list":["post-452180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-adhd","tag-and","tag-authors","tag-dav","tag-dog","tag-dyslexia","tag-entertainment","tag-how","tag-man","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pilkey","tag-shaped","tag-success","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}