Need advse from Mom's with ADHD kids
<grinning> Easiest ADHD post on my part ever... Ditto Martha, which is also Ditto CA Writer.
Get a full Developmental Evaluation from a Developmental Pediatrician.
Use a Board Certified Child Psychiatrsit as the medical case manager to implement all of the comprehensive treatment plan outlined in your comprhensive evaluation.
Access school based services, but do not depend on them to be everything your child needs. They are there to make your child functional in the classroom, not to treat a disablity. This issue straddles the medical-educational boundary, get what you can and advocate well at school and realize that you will be providing the lions share of your child's treatment and therapy, and the sooner you do, the better.
Your child's treatment plan should include a mixture of: Medical intervention, cognative behavioral therapy, play therapy, Speech and langague therapy, Occupational therapy, social skills classes, and extensive educational and behavioral interventions at school and home (on the same page.) It takes a lot of hard work from your child's doctors, therapists, teachers, you and your child.
Medication is not a bad thing. ADHD is a medical issue, and brains are flesh and blood. Nobody, nobody, nobody "wants" to medicate thier child for any reason. When it is appropriate and necessary, you do. This is one of those times. Medication is a tool that helps all the many hours of therapy be more effective. Brain cells do not touch. There is a space between them called a synapes. Our bodies carry thoughts along our brain cells as electrical impulses. When the impulse reaches the synapes, our bodies make chemicals called neurotransmitters to carry the impulse to the next brain cell. If our bodies do not make enough of these chemicals, our the neurotransmitter recptor on the next cell is damaged, the child has difficulty with though processes (of various kinds, to various degrees) and they have ADHD. Medication is effective in treating this molecualr issue. No child is smart enough to fix this issue without intervention on a molecular level. I know of no intervention to teach any person, adult or child, to control how our body makes or uses chemicals. There are many different medications and none of them make your child a zombie or change thier personality. That is a popular myth, and if you have a side effect, just like any other medication, you should be in close contact with the prescriber to find a medication and dosage that works.
Natural remedies, diet, detoxification, primal reflexology, biofeedback, and on and on and on, will probably be of little use to you. You may try one or more of these cures, and see great results as a product of the placebo effect, but by and large, you will be returning to standard medical treatment and care with much less money in your pocket and much less valuable intervention time for your child. If you want to try one of these things, do it only after you have implemented all of the standard care available to you, and only if you have enough money to implement the full standard plan, and have some extra left over for an experiement. If your child responds to something other than standard care, they probably did not have ADHD to begin with, and that is a great thing that you found an answer. Chances are slim that you will find that kind of success, stay on the standard path becaue slow and steady wins this race. There is nothing flashy or quick about treatment, but you will see results if you stick with it.
Read and educate yourself. Learn about school advocacy at www.wrightslaw.com. Read anything by Dr. Mel Levine, or Dr. Russel Barkely. Join a local chapter of CHADD, and log on to find groups in your area. Take the care giver courses offered by NAMI in your area, and take good care of yourself. If you ever feel hopeless or depressed, see a professional right away. The majority of primary caregivers will need help themselves, because this is a very stress filled road; mothers are especially vulnerable to issues related to care giving. It is not shameful, and you will be of more help to your child if you are in the best psychological shape yourself.
ADHD is not a charachter defect, and you did not cause it by being a bad parent. This is not the "easy" way out. This is not a cop out. It runs in families, so if you have not quesitioned if you or the childs other parent needs help, you may want to do that too.
good luck,
M.
Ditto absolutely everything from Martha. I have a son with ADHD and she's offered perfect advice.
Exactly what advice do you need? Is it academic? Behavioral?
The longest successful handling is Feingold- get rid of all sugar all, and then rid of perservatives, food additives- these make anyone act badly- and for a growing child it is awful. They have support groups in many areas. This is NOT a lack of ritalin or anyother drug- it IS a reactive to the awful stuff Agra business has put in "food" to make money. It is farmer's market time of year- support your local farmers, and get much better food that way.
This is not easy- but you save your child's life if you do it. Please don't drug your child. It may seem the easy fix now, but really ruins your child-decent food handles this.
best, k
and visit www.naet.com , open your mind and read about beahaviour related to allergies, you will be surprised
Hi Moms,
Just learned this info and wanted to share with others, in case it's relevant. There have been an increasing number of studies showing that kids with ADHD/ADD often have concurrent sleep disorders or disturbed sleep and that treatment of the sleep issues can help in the treatment of the ADHD symptoms.
Here's a link to a short synopsis of some of the studies but more in-depth can be found on recent studies at Harvard/Mass General Hospital via google.
http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/sleep-topics/adhd-...
This note in no way is trying to negate the reality of ADD/ADHD; in recent yrs neurologists and neuro-psychs have been drilling deeper into the roots of ADHD (they call it a "basket diagnosis") in order to treat the disorder in a fuller and more nuanced way. These sleep issues have emerged in recent yrs...I hope this helps and you don't have to go through the roller coaster we've been through. Good luck!
My friend runs 3D Learner in Boca. It focuses on getting the child's brain/body coordinated and connected. Read Disconnected Kids by Dr. Robert Melillo and it will explain.
This book is an awesome insight to growing up with it and she really knows what to do, how to help kids with it, order the book and read it.
Straight Talk about ADD and ADHD by Gayle Colvin Herron
http://books.google.com/books?id=Gvqgnw5RRnMC&pg=PA7&...
