I keep reading over and over articles, blog posts, etc. claiming that teaching ADHD kids consequences will “cure” their ADHD. Anyone who spreads this rubbish can’t possibly have ADHD, know someone with ADHD, or be a medical professional of any sort. They are just yet another conspiracy-theorist anxious to fuel the flames. They do get me in a tizzy but not the one they were hoping for. I get downright angry. If they were educated on the subject whereof they take great liberty to speak, they would know this belief is pure trash.

As a parent of an ADHD child, we hear it all: behavior problems are just bad parenting; if you punish them they will comply; every child can sit still and focus if they try hard enough; ADHD medications/stimulants just drug a child into submission; blah…blah…blah.

We knew there was something going on with Luke because

* we know we are good parents,
* we punished taking away privileges until he literally had no toys and had to earn them back a few at a time and he still couldn’t follow directions (or earn his toys back)
* he wanted desperately to follow directions and please his elders and was very sad a lot of the time because he couldn’t no matter how hard he tried
* he is the sweetest, most kind-hearted little boy around but he was constantly in trouble.

Now, I know perfectly well that my son’s ADHD is very real and not something that he can control on his own (at least not at 6 years old — I certainly hope he will learn to compensate and cope when he is older). He can’t just tell himself to calm down and sit still and pay attention and have it be so. For that is the definition of ADHD! An ADHD individual cannot control their impulses — something different is happening in their brain.

TO READ THE REST OF THIS POST, PLEASE GO TO http://adhdmomma.blogspot.com/2009/04/get-facts-or-shut-up.html.

 
Last week, Luke had his second checkup with the Behavioral & Developmental M.D. at the Olson Huff Center since being diagnosed with ADHD there Nov. 2008. At the first checkup in March, his Concerta dosage was increased and the doctor was concerned because he had lost 4 pounds. I was, of course, nervous about going in again. I knew if he had lost any more weight, the doctor would change his medication. I agree that he has to grow. But I was also nervous as to the outcome because both his teacher and I had begun to realize the Concerta was loosing effectiveness again (that’s how he got the increased dose the last time). I just don’t approach the unknown very willingly.

So he was weighed and measured and his blood pressure was taken. Then we waited for our turn with his doctor. I saw what his weight and height were at the time measured, but I didn’t remember what they were in March so I was on the edge of my seat when we finally got in with the doctor. Fortunately, he looked at his weight first. It was exactly the same as two months ago, down to the tenth of a pound: 47.7 pounds (he had been 52 pounds when diagnosed in Nov.). He actually grew 1.5 inches too. Yeah, he was growing!

When I mentioned that the Concerta was beginning to loose effectiveness again, I got the dreaded “this may be as good as it gets” spiel. Frankly, I am fine with his current behavior. It can be frustrating at times, but we have dealt with it for a few years and can deal with it again. What is bothersome is how much trouble and learning prevention ADHD causes at school. When his meds are working he does so great and I really want that greatness for him.

So Dr. S told me about Tenex. Tenex is a hypertension medication that is often prescribed to ADHD individuals when stimulants aren’t tolerated or don’t work well. It is not yet FDA-approved for children and for treating ADHD but that is going to happen later this year. It affects a certain chemical in the brain causing a “slow-down.” I didn’t like the idea of giving him two medications every day and I didn’t like the idea of giving him a medication for high blood pressure when his blood pressure is a-okay. But Dr. S explained that it helps with hyperactivity and impulsivity, the two ADHD symptoms that Luke was again struggling with. He said we could try it for a few days to 1) see if he could take it without severe drowsiness or other side effects and 2) see if it would help with the re-emerging symptoms. If so, great. We’ll continue to take it. If not, he’ll tell me how to wean him off of it (you cannot stop this medicine abruptly).

TO READ THE REST OF THIS BLOG POST, PLEASE GO TO http://adhdmomma.blogspot.com/2009/05/ugh-more-meds.html.

I have wished for a higher metabolism my entire adult life. Once my lifestyle “settled down,” the fat also settled…on my stomach, hips, thighs… I have watched my husband eat like a horse (his serving size for Twinkies is 2-3 at a time, for example) over the last 12 years and not gain a pound. He is still under weight. I however, can think about chocolate (obsess really, but that’s another conversation) and gain weight. I am 40 pounds heavier than I was at age 21. A good 30 pounds overweight.

Now I am starting to wonder if a high metabolism is really such a blessing though. I mean, I am sure it would be great for me, but it is not beneficial to the men in my life, my hubby and son. The first time I heard that your body can metabolize your medications was last year, a couple months after my husband began getting remicaid infusions for his ankylosing spondilitis. The first couple months were great. The pain was down significantly over his previous medication, which had just stopped working after several months. But after 2-3 months on the new medication, it began loosing effectiveness as well. His rheumatologist immediately asked him about his eating habits. My husband, god love him, survives on a Coke diet (at least 6 cans) up until dinner. He eats nothing during the day and then eats dinner and doesn’t stop eating until midnight or later. So, the obvious question is, what will his body burn to make energy when it runs out of calories from the Coke? Ah, it will burn his medication. Ding, ding! That’s a problem. Getting him to eat is a problem too. For a few weeks after this revelation, he ate pre-packaged peanut butter crackers and cliff bars, several a day. But soon these two foods got tiresome and he fell back into his pattern of being too busy at work and on job sites far from food and not eating again. He had actually put on about 15-20 pounds during his high-calorie phase but had lost it all again by the time he went back for his last doctor visit six months later.

Mia’s wonderful comment on my last post, mentioning metabolism, triggered a revelation. If my husband’s body is burning his medication when he doesn’t eat or eat enough, can’t Luke’s little body be doing the same thing to his Concerta?

 
TO READ THE REST OF THIS POST, PLEASE GO TO http://adhdmomma.blogspot.com/2009/05/is-high-metabolism-really-blessing.html

 
I am really feeling bad about giving my son medications for his ADHD this week. In months past, I have reminded myself that we give him medications so he can be successful and feel good about himself. We chose medication for HIM, not one bit for us. That reminder usually makes me feel better.

But this week I am overwhelmed by guilt and self-doubt. I wonder if we are just medicating him so he’ll fit in. So he’ll fit into a world he isn’t neurologically capable of fitting into without chemical intervention. This cannot be the reason. I celebrate individuality. But, helping him fit into the “ordinary”‘ world is what creates confidence, peace and joy for him that he lacked beforehand.

I remember his demeanor before he was diagnosed with ADHD and medicated in Nov 2008. He was sad and defeated, probably near a clinical depression at 5 years of age. It brings tears to my eyes to think of all the times he tried so hard to please his teachers, parents, and elders and, try as he might, he just couldn’t. I don’t want to go back there. That feels like parenting failure.

 
TO READ THE REST OF THIS BLOG POST, PLEASE GO TO http://adhdmomma.blogspot.com/2009/07/guilt-overload.html

Luke has been taking Vyvanse for 3 straight days now. He has tried a host of other medications, most recently Concerta. The Concerta was fantastic, a dramatic change, but lost effectiveness after a month or so.

Of course, I have mile-high hopes for the new medicine, for the Vyvanse. I want it to be a dramatic positive change worthy of giving him a serious medication daily. I am on the edge of my seat, fingers and toes crossed, holding my breath. While we have battled some with being really sleepy, that seems to be subsiding and we are seeing great results. He brought home a story he wrote in school yesterday (pictured below). I smiled so much my cheeks literally hurt. I gushed and gushed until his sister was so tired of hearing about it she left the room. It was far beyond any expectations I had for him. It was a full page of writing. I could read it. It made sense. He even used quotation marks around dialogue and had dialogue in his story to begin with. And he drew a full picture to go with it with lots of color and detail. It may not be amazing for a 2nd grader. In fact, I know it isn’t. But for my 2nd grader, my ADHD boy who struggles so much with handwriting and even the desire to write because of it, it is beyond amazing.

 
TO READ THE REST OF THIS BLOG POST ON ADHD MEDICATION, PLEASE GO TO http://adhdmomma.blogspot.com/2009/10/is-adhd-medicine-key.html

Penny Williams blog chronicles her and her family’s daily life with ADHD. It is a powerfully written blog which shares every day life in a compelling fashion. As a mother of a son with ADHD, I find her posts to be right on with what I am experiencing every day — and, even though we have never met, I feel a link with her through our common experiences. If you have a loved one with ADHD, her blog would be of great help to you.
 
A Mom’s View of ADHD
my everyday life with my ADHD son
 
Penny’s Introductory Blog can be found at:
http://adhdmomma.blogspot.com/2008/11/introduction.html
 
Introduction
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
 
In school, I remember thinking that LD students were unintelligent — incapable of what we normal students could accomplish. That was the general understanding for most of us growing up and it is still the assumption of most people not experiencing the LD system. A truly unfortunate assumption.

I began the journey to an LD “diagnosis” with my 1st grade son, Luke, this September when I realized his school performance was consistetly well below his exceptional intelligence. In kindergarten, Luke’s teacher complained about his behavior and lack of attention and lack of interest in learning. Our family found two reasons for this at the time: (1) his teacher returned from maternity leave at the beginning of 3rdQ with her infant in the classroom FULL TIME; (2) Luke’s birthday is the cut off day (Oct 16) in NC for entering kindergarten and we felt his immaturity played a role. There are many, many other small factors but these were the major players, in our minds.

Luke was very sad during most of his kindergarten year as seen in this photo from Easter. He often felt defeated. It breaks my heart to see him so easily upset and broken-hearted.

So, we made the decision to remove our children from the charter school our oldest daughter, Emma, had attended for 3 years with much success. We placed them in mainstream public school this year based on the disagreeable administrative decisions and “loose” environment of the charter school (the fact that an infant would be allowed in the classroom with its mother, the teacher, was appauling to us — the top priority in that classroom for that teacher was her infant, not her 18 kindergarten students). All summer I held my breath hoping for Luke’s success in first grade in a new school. I realized in the first two weeks of this school year that the change in school environment, in adminstrative policies, in teachers was not, on its own going to be the difference for Luke. He was again coming home almost every day with reports of disruptive behavior and inattentiveness in the classroom.

But the difference began this school year with Luke’s new teacher. She realizes that every student, no matter capability or performance, learns differently. She realizes that some children need their own space, need rewards daily instead of weekly, need to move to focus and learn, etc. She realizes that school should not try to put all students in that round hole no matter if they are a round or square peg or something in between. I cannot put into words the gratitude I feel for this teacher and the placement of Luke in her classroom!

And so, something sparked in me. Here we were talking about how intelligent Luke is in one breath and how poorly he is doing in school in the next. His kindergarten teacher and aide told us the same thing. Now his first grade teacher was reiterating again how very smart he is but how he doesn’t place on any of the Ruberic first grade testing scales. I assumed it was his inability to sit still and focus on the tasks that didn’t involve imaginitive play or computer games (his favorites) so I began hours of searching on the Internet for ideas to help him, answers to why these things are a struggle for him, something other than ADHD which his dad and I were so sure couldn’t possibly be his fate. (We were so sure of this because he can play his Nintendo or computer games for hours at a time if we let him.) The more I searched “can’t sit still,” “behavior problems in school,” and “poor handwriting” the more I kept coming back to Sensory Integration Disorder. So I went to the public library and checked out the one and only book they have on the subject, “The Out-of-Sync Child” by Carol Stock Kranowitz, MA. It was like reading a textbook study of my child. It was a bond for so many little (and some not so little) things that troubled us for Luke and so many traits that we didn’t realize were signs all this time.

In my search for more information on Sensory Integration Disorder, I began reading books on learning disabilities that mentioned SI Disorder. Reading these books lifted a veil. Not only did it open my eyes for my own child and what I needed to do to fight for his success in school, but for all the children with “behavioral” problems in school. After all this research, I am convinved 90+% of children with low grades and behavioral problems in school have a learning disability. In a nutshell, here’s why: Inability to accomplish what peers are accomplishing and teachers are expecting leads to frustration; teachers and parents seeing laziness and stubborness as reasons for school failures creates more frustration and anger; never measuring up leads to giving up; anger and low self-esteem lead to acting out and behavioral problems. The path from one to the other is really quite simple.

I wish I had started journaling our journey at the onset but I was at first so consumed by the need for discovery that I didn’t take the time to reflect. Here’s a synopsis of the events of the last eight weeks: During my time of research and exploration, Luke’s teacher and I had an ongoing dialogue about what she could do in the classroom to try to help him. She seperated his desk from the two large groups and put tape on the floor around his desk to signify his space and she allowed him to move within this space without being punished for not being still and paying attention to the lesson. She noted that he really was paying attention when his movement seemed to signify otherwise. She created a daily behavior chart with the two items he needed to work on most and gives him a sticker during each item on their schedule that he accomplishes his his two target tasks. He went from getting red or orange every day (the two worst on the behavior scale in the classroom) to getting purple (the highest) almost every day in about 5 weeks time. I requested, in witing, that he be evaluated by the school (this process has barely started) — this request must be made in writing when your child’s disability isn’t as obvious as a physical limitation or a speech problem or the like that the school automatically acknowledges. The school resources are too thin to test every child that might have a problem but they are required by federal law to test if a parent requests it. Luke has gone from barely reading the Level A books to fluently reading the Level F books. He would fight doing homework each night and wanted nothing to do with reading but now is agreeable to doing homework. I was able to figure out that Luke has a pretty significant fine motor disability on my own — his handwriting is not remotely legible, he writes in a mix of upper and lower case, can’t stay within the lines, he cannot draw shapes, or even accurate stick people, and he cannot use scissors with any real success. He excels in reading and math though and he can spell. His teacher recommended him to the “Care Team” leader as being at risk at the same time as she recommended him to the gifted teacher. The gifted teacher passed on him for her program much to the disappointment of his teacher and myself becasue we know he belongs there. The Care Team has met twice so far on Luke’s behalf and have tested his hearing and eyesight (both fine) and asked the teacher to bring in a couple new tools to work extra on his handwriting and to try to help him stay on task (he doesn’t do this without adult supervision). They are meeitng 11/19 again and I have invited myself. Luke is also being evaluated at a private center here in Asheville,Olson Huff Center, on 11/24 at the recommendation of his pediatrician. We decided on the additional private evaluation despite the fact that we can’t afford the cost so they can evaluate for ADHD and Sensory Integration Disorder which the school will not do. I will, of course, blog more about the processes and outcomes of these evaluations as they progress.

This blog will cronicle our journey through the school system bureaucracy and the priate evaluations to identify, work through, and most importantly, overcome the obstacle right now impeding Luke’s school success. Just through reading many books over the last 8 weeks, my eyes have been opened to what LD truly is and my hope for this blog is that others on this journey will share information with me and each other through this forum to support each other on this similar journey. If just one parent of a child struggling with behavioral problems in school reads this blog and realizes those problems may equate to a learning disability, my journaling goals will be met.

Penny Williams

I am a Real Estate Broker and mom of 2 living in the mountains of Asheville, NC. I have been brokering real estate in Asheville for nearly 6 years now. My passions are helping first time homebuyers, new development marketing, and downtown condos. My children, Emma (9) and Luke (6) keep life fun. I am a t-ball/softball mom, a soccer mom, a working mom, and a mom of an ADHD child.