The school year got off to a rough start for our six year-old son this year. After a rocky few months we ended up pulling him from public school and placing him in a nearby private Montessori school, where he is doing much better.
Last fall we also began meeting with professionals to help us diagnose what was going on. We had him tested for every kind of allergy, sight, hearing, etc.
What we have learned so far is that he has ADHD. It has been an interesting experience. There seem to be as many perceptions of ADHD, medication and behavioral modification approaches for the diagnosis, as there are people.
It’s a little overwhelming for busy parents who only want to do the best thing for their child.
We’ve been to workshops — free ones and ones you pay for — we’ve read-up and joined social support groups.
This still doesn’t change the day-to-day coping and living with a hyper-sensitive child, and all that goes along with ADHD.
Knowing what I know now, I suspect I either had or perhaps still have ADHD myself, although I haven’t taken a test to confirm that. I wonder why the diagnosis and treatment is so much more common now than it was when I was a kid? I guess medicine advances with time or culture is inclined to accept certain trends.
My purpose in writing this isn’t to disclose some deep, dark family secret. Obviously if it was a secret, I wouldn’t be blogging about it. Nor is my purpose to state what we’ve done, and then outline what’s working. Instead, I’m interested in hearing from others, either publicly through this post’s comments or privately, about receiving and living with an ADHD diagnosis.
Helpful tips and suggestions based on personal experience would be appreciated.
5 comments:
Two of my sons have been diagnosed with ADHD and I suspect that my third son will receive a diagnosis soon.
I can tell you it was really hard at first to get their diagnoses. Both my husband and I really struggled with the way the media and a lot of people talk about ADHD. A lot of the misperceptions can be quite crushing.
We have a doctor who is enormously supportive of our rights as parents to choose what is best for our children. He has never pushed a particular treatment but has rather given us good information and then respected our decisions.
Our eldest son has really benefitted from strict routines. He has been diagnosed for 3 years and I see signficant improvement. My other son does take medication as part of his treatment. The decision we made to use medication came after a lot of study and discussion about his particular issues. I can say that he is also doing well.
I know longer feel hopeless or scared when looking at what is happening with my sons. I think they have bright futures ahead of them.
I like to counter negative discussions about ADHD by reminding people that if they don't have a child with ADHD, they simply do not have any idea what it is like to parent that child, and to kindly keep their negative opinions to themselves.
Best wishes to you and your family during this journey.
I don't have any children, much less one with ADHD, so I can't really comment on the coping aspect.
But you did mention you wonder why the diagnoses and treatment is more common than it used to be. I don't have an exact answer, but it's something I wonder about with a lot of things. Is it really more common, or are we just noticing it more because we know what to look for and have better technology to find it? I find mental health/behavioral/psychological issues fascinating because no two cases are really the same, either to diagnose or treat.
I really hope that you and your family are able to find something that works for you.
You mentioned that you had his sight checked. This is good, but what exactly was tested? Just as having blood pressure of 120/80 doesn't mean that you're completely healthy, neither does 20/20 in each eye mean that your eyes are working well together. It is important that the eyes work well together as a team and when they don't a person can have many symptoms that overlap with ADHD and other behavioral and learning issues. Not all eye doctors test for these type of functional problems. I suggest you check to see if your eye doctor did and if he or she didn't, find an optometrist that specializes in behavioral optometry and/or binocular vision. COVD.org can help you locate such a doctor. Good luck!
I'll come back and comment in more detail, but I just wanted to say that I feel you. I am a 36 year old male with multiple graduate degrees, and I was recently diagnosed with ADHD. The experience has been life-altering and amazing, and profoundly affected my professional life and my family. I've done a lot of reading, since scholarship is my thing, and could go on for hours. For now, let me just say this: if you haven't already, I would strongly recommend having a diagnosis done not by your family practice physician, but by a psychiatrist with expertise in the area. ADHD is commonly mis-diagnosed because many other conditions have very similar symptoms, and also very commonly co-present with other issues. It has been tremendously comforting to me that I happen to have had university medical insurance and so was diagnosed by a great team of university psychologists and psychiatrists. In those moments where I feel like this is just crazy, and the diagnosis is ridiculous, and I'm fine and don't need to take amphetamines to be successful, it has been very reassuring to feel like the foundation on which I'm building a new life is solid. You're no doubt going to find yourselves in deep waters, and making choices with enormous consequences (about medicating or not, for example), and you'll want to feel as sure as you can be about the foundational diagnosis. It will give you peace of mind. I hope this is helpful.
Thank you for these comments. I appreciate the feedback. Our son was diagnosed by a psychologist and psychiatrist at the University of Utah. They were very helpful and spent a lot of time with our son and us as we went through the testing. They're both very well known for treating children with ADHD. We continue to meet with the psychologist to work on behavioral training. We have seen a lot of improvement so far and believe our son will have every opportunity for success in his future - at least that's what we'll all work towards. We all have challenges and opportunities for growth. At least in this instance we know it's called ADHD, and sometimes it's at least easier to know what it is you're dealing with.
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