ADHD: Is there hope for my son?

Recently, someone commented right here on my blog. She wanted to know how my son is doing right now. I've heard the question before. The parent may change. The situation may change slightly. But I think I know exactly why a parent would ask this. Why? Because I've been there. And I know that the question is loaded; the real question is, "Is there hope for my child? Well, to understand where my son is today, at age 18, you have to get a picture of him as a young boy.

William is my third child, so I had two children to compare him to. He was never like his siblings at all. He climbed out of his crib before he could even stand. He ran before he walked, and his sense of independence was fierce. In short, he was a very difficult child. He had no filter when it came to what he thought about doing and what he did. Our family quit going out in public. We quit going to restaurants where he'd bang silverware and talk loudly. My husband and I took turns guarding him (aka staying home with him), rather than go to something as simple as the grocery store with him.

When we had company over, we were mortified at his behavior. We got used to things being broken by him, his constant running and jumping and generally moving about as if he was one of the Energizer Bunnies. One thing I want to add here is that my William was never mean. People often equate being angry or mean with ADHD. I don't believe that. William didn't mean to get into trouble, and in fact was often baffled when he was reprimanded. His lack of impulse control might have caused him to impulsively do something - but it was never with the intention of hurting someone.

Knowing that this was her last grandchild, my wonderfully loving and compassionate mother said she felt she'd been robbed of her last grandchild. She acknowledged that she felt like William wouldn't be able to overcome this - that he could never succeed in life - unless some miracle happened. It hurt to hear that, but I had to accept that I too had had those thoughts.

Channel ADHD energy into sports.

Fast forward to today and you'll see a very different young man. He still has ADHD. But he doesn't bounce off walls, doesn't run and jump 24-7, and many of the other traits of ADHD are now hidden. He plays sports - namely football. In sports, he can channel his energy into something physical that he loves, and this in turn has helped him to develop impulse control.  After a short time on meds when he was learning to read, he hasn't been on meds again until this year. It was his decision to go on them, and he's amazed at how "normal" (his words) he feels. He went from a low "C" GPA to almost a "B" GPA. He has applied to colleges and hopes to walk-on as a punter for the football team. He wants to be a teacher and high school level coach. He has a good group of friends who do things like play ultimate frisbee after school. He works out at the gym, doing High Intensity Training (HIT) nearly every day. He still isn't crazy about sitting down to watch T.V. or anything like that, but has found that video games are an awful lot of fun. About half of his teachers don't even recognize that he has ADHD, but that depends on the teacher and subject.

So, how did we get to this point? I think it was a combination of several things, and I plan to share those in the coming months. But the short version is this; we worked with William and his teachers/coaches constantly. We taught him the skills he needed to know and reinforced them regularly. We put him in activities that encouraged him to use his ADHD skills in an appropriate manner. We used medication sparingly and only when we saw a purpose for it - we also realized that without the medication, our very bright child may only be able to pull B's and C's. It was a trade-off. We enlisted the help of our close family and friends. And as he has gotten older, we've worked to transition him to advocating his needs on his own And the list goes on.

Bottom line is this; in answer to the question that started this post, yes - there is hope. What you see when your child is 6 or 8 or 10 is not what will define their future. In fact, I think that children with AD/HD have more potential to change than typically developing children. Many of the traits that drive us crazy when they're young, are traits that are positive and powerful as teens and adults. That child who wouldn't give up on a locked door until he figured it out, is now persistent in his studies. He doesn't take no for an answer.

Yes, there is hope. There is always hope! As parents, sometimes we're just trying to make it through the next day, the next hour, or minute. But try to always keep the future in mind. Your goal is to raise a well-adjusted and successful child. If you can make that your focus, your child will follow suit.

My Best, Karen

Child First - ADHD Second

Your child comes home from school with a little envelope. He can't wait to show you what's inside. But you already know - his bouncy disposition speaks volumes.

Birthday Party.

Ah, the joys of birthday parties!

For parents of a child with ADHD, those two words send a shiver of dread down our spines. While other parents look forward to dropping their little darling off in their Sunday best, a brightly wrapped package in their arms, we feel no such joy.

No, our experience will be different. We'll be careful that our child doesn't eat or drink sugar before he goes. We'll struggle to get him into his birthday best, and then struggle even more to keep him from spoiling it with stains before we leave. And no matter how late we dress him, this always happens. We make sure that the present he gives isn't something he loves himself - the last time we did this, he threw a fit until the birthday boy's mother made her son share the coveted toy. And the present must be something that isn't in the least bit fragile, because by the time he makes it to the front door, it will have been tossed in the air several times, and caught only a few.

As parents drop off their squeaky clean youngsters, you'll linger, trying to decide whether to tell Mommy that your boy can be, "quite a handful." You'll stay at the party with him to put out any fires he starts - figuratively speaking - but literal fires are always a possibility too. Mommy will probably insist that, "He'll be fine." She clearly doesn't know your child.

Now, let me tell you about a personal "Aha!" moment that happened at one such birthday party;

Caleb was about seven. I watched with an eagle eye, through the games, the cake, candy and punch, through the present-opening and playing outside on the swing set. I intervened when he seemed to be getting too wound up, when he grabbed another boy by the jacket and swung him around like ball on a tether. I reminded him how to ask nicely for a second cup of punch. When Mommy attempted polite conversation, I was distracted, afraid I'd miss something my son would surely do. I looked at my watch. It was almost time for the party to be over. We'd almost made it. Then the unruly bunch decided to play one more round of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.

Each child got a chance to be blindfolded and spun around by another child, before being aimed at the plastic donkey, plastic donkey tail in their hand. When it was Caleb's turn to spin his friend, the group counted the spins as usual...1...2...3... That should have been the end. But Caleb kept going, 4...5...6...7... Before I could intervene, the little boy was so dizzy he couldn't stand. "Caleb," I scolded. "That's not how you play the game." I helped the little boy up and pointed him toward the donkey, then stayed close to Caleb for a moment before backing off.

Mommy came to stand by me. "He really is fine, you know."

I nodded politely. Obviously she was delusional.

Then something happened.

I watched as time after time, the little boys copied Caleb's version of the game, spinning each child until they were dizzy and crawling on the floor...laughing hysterically. I couldn't help but smile. I looked at Mommy and we started to laugh. The boys were having more fun rolling around on the floor than playing the game. Pure joy-filled fun!

Mommy elbowed me gently. "Boys..." she laughed. "What're you gonna do?"

Maybe she wasn't so delusional after all. 

For the remainder of the party, I stepped outside of my parent-of-a-kid-with-ADHD role. I took in the whole scene. Caleb wasn't all that different from the other little boys. They were all wound up and a little too rowdy. But in this moment, in this setting, he was absolutely normal. He was a seven year old boy and he was acting like every other boy at that party.

I learned something that day that I would revisit many, many times over the next several years. Since his diagnosis, I'd forgotten how to see my son as a little boy. Life with Caleb had been so difficult and so very different than his siblings, that the focus had become the diagnosis, and not the child. He still had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and there were behaviors associated with that. But from that day on, I changed my thought process. My son was a child first, and a child with ADHD second.

He is a teenager now and I still use the same mantra; Child First - ADHD Second. God knows it's just as relevant as a teenager as it was when he was seven.

So, what do you think? Have you had similar experiences? How do you decide when to intervene and when to back off?

ADHD: My Son Does Not Need Fixing!

I recently read on WebMd that if a mother-to-be smoked during pregnancy, her child was twice as likely to have ADHD. http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/ss/slideshow-adhd-in-children So, what is a nonsmoking mother to think of that statistic? I don't know. So, as usual, I'm writing about it. Writing is how I think, how I process things.

My son has struggled all his life. He has lived in a body that just wouldn't stay still, a mind that wouldn't focus, and a brain that had no filter, forcing him to act without weighing consequences, if even for a moment.

His struggles affected me as a mother. I was at times embarrassed by his behavior, saddened that he couldn't have it easier, and frustrated when all of my efforts seemed in vain. His struggles effected my life, my marriage, and my other children.

I could go on and on.

But when I read a statistic like the one above, my first thought isn't "shame on that parent" for smoking during pregnancy. In fact, that isn't even in my first ten in a list of reactions. What is? Well, even with all the struggles, I maintain that ADHD is more of a problem for society than it is for my son.

Most of the time, the attitude I carry with me is that there is nothing wrong with my son. I mean, who is to say that the little boy who sits in the front of the class, quietly complying with every one of his teacher's directions, is the normal one. In fact, that's a little abnormal, as far as I'm concerned. I fought long and hard to finally get to the bottom of what made my son struggle so. The diagnosis was a relief. But I can't say it helped all that much.

As a mother who loves her child fiercely, I can't think of him as a broken radio that just needs to be fixed. No. My son doesn't need fixing. What he needs is to be seen as a person with a list of personality traits, just like everyone else. What he needs is a dose of compassion and a pat on the back for everything that he is and everything he aspires to be. What he needs is what every child needs; no more, no less.

That's my thought for the day. ~Karen