By Town Crier Staff

The way Dr. Edward Hallowell sees it, many parents are missing the point of childhood. The pressure put on children to succeed often puts them on the road to a lifestyle that results in career burnout by age 35.

The acclaimed psychiatrist, who scored with his 1994 bestseller “Driven to Distraction,” will be speaking Tuesday at Hyatt Rickeys Hotel in Palo Alto on the heels of a new book, “The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness: Five Steps to Help Kids Create and Sustain Lifelong Joy.”

Hallowell, whose “distraction” brought attention to Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder in adults, will talk on “ADHD: Meeting the Challenges, Embracing the Opportunities.” The lecture is part of Bay Area Parent magazine’s new “Tools for Parents” lecture series.

Hallowell, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, applies both his personal and professional expertise. Both he and his daughter have ADHD, a disorder with symptoms that include a lack of focus and a need for excitement, but also creativity and spontaneity. When “Driven to Distraction” came out, most people had not heard of the disorder, and Hallowell says, “most people are still misinformed about what it is.”

He will discuss the intergenerational aspects of ADHD and look at ways parents and teachers can foster the emotional well-being and academic success of the 4 percent to 12 percent of school-age children with ADHD. He’ll also share his perspective on the positive attributes that can accompany the challenges of attention deficit disorder.

“I’m trying to give a research-based formula of what they need as opposed to what they don’t need,” Hallowell said last week.

Instead of forcing children into a life based on achieving high test scores and going to the best colleges, Hallowell suggested creating an atmosphere that allows children to find their interests. He listed five important elements to a successful childhood: connectedness, play, practice, mastery and recognition.

With connectedness, Hallowell points to an environment in which children are secure with school life, friends and a family that offers unconditional love. He said children should be allowed ample time to play, which allows for discovery and imagination. Play, he said, is driven by enthusiasm. “That’s what makes for super achieving people,” he said.

Play leads to finding interests, which lead to practice and then mastery, the root of self-esteem and confidence, Hallowell said. This mastery leads to recognition, which “encourages moral behavior,” according to Hallowell.

Drilling children for high test scores is “so counterproductive” to actual learning, said Hallowell, a father of three. “It’s a curse — it doesn’t allow them to develop their creativity. If you want a kid to be ready for the hyper-competitive world, the way to do it is not to force-feed them high-level mathematics in the first grade.”

The lecture is scheduled for 7-9 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance, $18 at the door, and can be purchased online at www.toolsforparents.com or by calling (800) 657-0288. The lecture is part of the Tools for Parents annual spring series presenting lectures by authors and experts on a range of child-development and parenting issues. The Bay Area Tools for Parents series is presented in partnership by Bay Area Parent magazine and Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.