My Son Has ADHD and He Is 5

My son is 5 and is listed as high-risk ADHD. I new something was wrong when he was 2 yrs old. With the advise of the HELP ME GROW psychologist & a teacher friend of mine... I reworked the house. Put all toys by category & put 85% of them behind a cabinet door. Overstimulation is a HUGE factor.
Also we Changed Diet....a lot of kids that are sensitive (not allergic) to synthetic dyes (red dye 40, yellow 6 blue 1, etc ) show signs of ADHD. We took RED dye 40 away- huge success, then the rest of them
we also took away all preservatives, high frutose corn syrup.
We also added OMEGA 3 to his diet (for the 1st 2 months we used double doses then tapered to the recommended dose) - you see the difference at about day 50!

WHAT A HUGE CHANGE. --- I recommend just trying the diet before medication.

there is a great Dr in elyria who wrote all of this....
"Dr Bobs guide to stop adhd in 18 days*"
www.drbob4health.com

My youngest son was diangosed with ADHD when he was four. It has been a struggle, but he is now in 7th grade and got an award for being on the honor roll and not having any discipline slips during the first semester of the school year.

My biggest advise is to be consistent. Discipline him appropriately for the things that need discipline, but also understand that you have to work harder to teach him what is appropriate behavior and what is not. By no means should you compare him to his sister or even to other kids his age. Don't tell him "why can't you be like..." Love him for his uniqueness and pray for a lot of patience!

H., I encourage you to become your own best detective whenever your son is diagnosed with something. Doctors and therapists are wonderful consultants, and they can be very helpful! They are also human and can be wrong. So be your own best detective, consult with any experts you wish (docs, therapists, other mothers who have kids w/ similar diagnoses - like you're trying to do here on mamasource), and THEN make your own decision using your mothering instincts + your information.

I am wondering if your 5 yr old has ever been tried on a gluten-free, milk-free diet for a period of 6-8 weeks to see if any of his symptoms go away? So many children have undiagnosed food allergies these days and it truly affects their whole being (from sleep to attention to immunity). I've met too many moms and their kids who struggled for several years with similar issues as you are describing only to find out that their child had a food allergy or a gluten intolerance (like celiac disease) -- and once these kids were eating foods that were safe for them and didn't irritate their bodies so severely, their behavior changed, they blossomed into kids who were healthier, able to learn more easily, etc.

If you are interested in researching this further, some great resources to start with are:

* Dr. Doris Rapp's "Is This Your Child?" (typically available at your local library for FREE)
* online forums where parents of kids with food allergies and intolerances are in the process of diagnosis and recovery (for example, google "forum food allergy children intolerance celiac" and start reading, or google "GF/CF diet", or google "ADHD and food allergy" or "sensory integration" and "food intolerance")
* read about the many, many subtle symptoms of food allergies and celiac disease (gluten intolerance) in children and how these are frequently missed by doctors, yet the conditions are very responsive to diet changes
* keep a food journal where you record what your children eat and how they behave, and start to look for any patterns
* check out Dr. Sears page on "Tracking Down Food Allergies"
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/t041800.asp

Best of luck to you! As the mom of 2 kids with food allergies, I've seen first hand how their behavior can be HUGELY affected by food and how exhausting it is to parent my kids when they're having a reaction after eating something they're allergic to (and how much EASIER and more fun it is to parent my kids when they're eating a diet free of their allergic foods!).

I encourage you to consider diet as a possibile culprit of the issues your own kids are going through. Discovering a food allergy and removing that food from their diet would have a very positive impact for your children (and therefore your whole family). Just one thing to think about - it may not apply to your family, but you'll only know if you research it and do what you need to do to rule it out. Hope this helps!

Hi H.,
You are dealing with some difficult issues and I wish you the best in exploring your options. You have already received some great advice and I will add another aspect you may not have considered. In Dr. Doris Rapp's book "Is This Your Child?" on page 270 she documents a girl whose handwriting was affected by fumes from bleach. The cleaning and personal care products in your home can be very toxic and the smaller the child the more the toxins can accumulate in their system. Changing these products can be so easy - you are buying something anyway, just start using ones that don't have harmful ingredients. When I changed laundry products, my son's allergies immediated decreased by at least 50%. Then I kept changing product by product, added nutrition and I no longer get the sinus infections every 3 months (now not even yearly) and my husband has ceased having pneumonia multiple times a year to never having it. Our son, who is a teenager is not as faithful to take his supplements, but you can believe when he feels something coming on, he loads up and usually overcomes it in 12 hours.
Anyway, the products I found that were the best researched and documented for safety were Shaklee. Here's a website if you want to look at them: www.shaklee.net/changinglives. Yes, I do distribute them, but only because so many people were asking me how we had achieved the wonderful results we had and rather than send them to somebody else, figured I might as well help them myself. There are great answers out there. Be diligent and persistent. Ask for documentation and not just company hype and you'll find things to help.

Hello H.,

Mt son who is now 19 years old was diagnosed with ADHD at age 5 as well as other things. Today he is diagnosed with Severe Bi-polar, Adhd and Depression. It has been a LONG road! First off I would get a second opinion, you want to make SURE this diagnosis is correct. Too many kids are diagnosed with Adhd because its easy.
Second.. be consistant with your son with appropriate punishments when needed. I heard alot with mine that your reward then for good behavior, which in itself sounds harmless. But with my son, he grew to expect things for acting good, and it became a pain. I had to teach him that he needed to be good because it was the right thing to do. And when he goes out into the word, he isn't going to be handed "things" for acting right. Read all you can on Adhd so you are informed when dealing with doctors.. and don't forget YOU know your son better than ANYONE, including the doctors, so don't let them push you into anything your not comfortable with.
In dealing with a child like this, it is a long and sometimes hair raising experience. I wish you all the best, and I pray you don't have to go through what I did.

Good Luck

My daughter is twelee and has adhd plus has alcohol fetal sydrome the main point I have is have patients and all the drugs out there are not always the answer look into homopatic drugs and check make sure your son has no food allergies

My son is now 5 1/2 and was diagnosed almost a year ago with ADHD. He was in a great preschool class and had a buddy who also was ADHD and had sensory integration issues. Is he attending a school sponsered Pre-K program? From what you describe he should qualify. I was a little hesitant to accept the diagnosis at first, but his teacher was amazing. We recently met with an ADHD specialist through Cincinnati Children's ADHD program and he said he had never seen such thorough notes and interventions performed by a preschool teacher in his 20 years. It took us some time to decide on medication and then it took some time to find the right one, but now we are amazed at what he can do. What part of town are you in? A good book my pediatrician recommended and I have really found helpful is called "From Chaos to Calm: Effective Parenting of Challenging Children with ADHD and Other Behavioral Proglems" by Janet Heininger and Sharon Weiss.

My DD is 6 and has a very poor history she didn't come into my home till she was 4, she was diagnosed with ODD which in a lot of ways is very similar to ADHD, she was diagnosed at 5 and was on medication, she has been through 3 different therapists and now has to go to a specialists in child psych over an hour from our home twice a month, she is at the doctors at least once a month on top of that as well, but at least that is local. Even as young as she was she was so violent when she acted out that her doctor told us to call an ambulance or take her to the ER if she had an episode, they seriously talked like they would commit a 5 year old little girl. It hasn't been fun she is currently being treted for an adjustment disorder, she does not handle stress at all, she has hearing and vision problems but just very basic, glasses and she has to get a tube in her one ear becaue she has fluid build up that is causing her to not hear and they can't get rid of it. her attention span is not a problem but we just recently learned of ehr hearing difficuly so it was like she constantly didn't listen, also for reason we can't figure out she can not follow a string of instructions like go downstairs get your cup and bring it back up, she'll get downstairs and kick and scream and throw a fit because she has no idea why she came down. we have yet to have a doctor be able to explain that one. but really i've learned that it is not at all uncommon for a child so young in this day and age to b diagnosed with ADHD. Have you tried changing his diet and cutting out all the additives and dyes and sugar? it is relly tough but it did wonders for my DD. good luck, there are also a ot of groups online, i'm not sure where, curently i only participate in the few on myspace that i am a member of but if you google it i'm sure you'll find a few.

I knew before my daughter was 5 yrs. old that she had ADHD. Initial thoughts and testing ruled out sensory integration, hearing loss, and allergy related problems. I read as much as I can, seek out therapy (which you already have) and try to be as positive as I can be with her. It is not easy some days. We officially put the diagnosis in place at school in 3rd grade, as it was starting to effect her schoolwork. We then started her on medication. We got lucky that the first choice of medication working fantastic for a while. It is two years later and she has had her medication changed and dosages tweaked a few times. I am meeting in Feb. to get some accomidations in writing to share with current and upcoming teachers of what is working and what has not. The good news is that she is in very challenging accelerated math and language arts classes, which may teach her skill sets she needs. Before her medicine kicks in each morning and once her medicine wears off at night, we have the same uncontrollable child. The difference is that she has had the day to be proud of her many accomplishments and build her self esteem. She knows we love her, but enjoy her so much more when the medication works. Do not let others tell you it turns children into zombies or drones... they do not have the right medication for their child or the right dignosis for the issue. We love her unique spirit and wild side too and would not change that part of her for the world.

Hi H.,
My just turned 7 yo has ADHD. He has been on Focalin XR 15mg for a little over a year now. Meds have really helped him. I've dealt w/ the whole "controversy" of meds in a child so young. Also, my youngest has sensory integration issues, particularly "tactile defensiveness". He also has major speech delay and is on the waiting list for speech therapy.

Hi H.
My 6 year old has ADHD. One of the first questions they asked me when he was tested was if he was having too much sugar or caffeine, or red dye in his diet.
But he doesn’t. His preschool always made sure of that and so did I. And I know what it means to struggle with him. He’s been put on adderal, which helps with the ADHD, but now his emotions are out of whack. He cries so easily and gets upset over nothing. I can also tell that the dosage is no longer strong enough, because when he gets out of school at 12, he already is acting up again. He’s very smart and the only problem in school he has is with sitting still, not interrupting, and other things that you can contribute to ADHD. We are very strict with him. We always had to be though, he was our foster child and we had to help him overcome all of his problems. The only thing left, thank God, is his ADHD. It’s challenging, but we will manage and we will have to take him to a Psychologist again. Anyone knows of a good one in the Troy/ Dayton area.
H. if you need to talk more about it e-mails me.
My husband used to drive a truck to and was gone a lot. Then he was working out of town Sunday through Thursday, till now. It’s not easy doing it alone, especially for you with 3 kids and one being a special needs one. You need a support group were you can vent. Or a place were you can find someone that understands what you are going through.
Hope this Helps a little.
M.