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Hopefully the son has learned to self manage a bit better. It takes time. With the right coaching from a medical psychiatrist the level and type of drug can be adapted. It's not a 1 and done.
As I grow older now (I have it) I can say firsthand things change over time. It's important to try and keep a healthy diet and to get regular activity and you need to keep finding ways to keep you accomplishing things....all the way to the end.
A parent that can help their child develop these tools is giving a great service. Ultimately though, the child will need to develop the habits themself in adulthood. The world will not be as kind, and frankly there's too many bad ones that you don't dare every reveal it to employers. To start though, they need to learn they are not exempt because of this, they have to try harder. Understanding and flexibility, but not exemption.
Some days are thankless, like a bit of Cake's Going the Distance to get to the same place, but other days are better. I look forward to trying retirement soon. To allow a slight loosening of the rules. It's not a death sentence though. Nobody's life is perfect, but I've been able to get a degree, a family, several homes and over a million in liquid investments. With a gun to my head I couldn't promise to be somewhere by 7 am, but you look for where that's not necessary.
I just put it out there for parents. It's doable. It's possible. You're going to be frustrated as hell sometimes....but thanks for doing it.
I'll chime in with our story. My son is currently 9 and in 3rd grade.
When DS was just 5 (seriously like a week after his birthday) he received an ADHD diagnosis as well. He's very hyper and impulsive and at 5 it seemed like he may have a few attention issues too. We tried medication briefly after the teacher talked us into it. It did little to help.
Here's what's happened since. DS was even more fully evaluated later on that same year and given an IQ test which came back very high. By the end of kindergarten he had become super academic, skipping levels in both reading and math and totally engrossed in school work. As long as he had work to do he was fine. PE, recess, waiting in line remained a problem, social skills also were a little off.
In first grade DS was diagnosed with a tic disorder, we now lightly medicate for that. This year we sent him to a private school with a program for gifted kids. We still have issues with impulse issues particularly in PE, recess, and waiting in line but none are super serious. He has zero attention issues, is super organized, and a good time manager.
So would he still qualify for an ADHD diagnosis? We don't know. He definitely still struggles with impulsivity and social skills. We do our best to manage these issues and even if we wanted to medicate for it there aren't any good medications for impulse control. On the other hand he's a really neat, organized, straight A student so not really the picture of an ADHD child.
I share because your son sounds a little like ours. I would personally hold off on the medication for a couple years and see how he develops. Best of luck.
Eta: my son never had tantrums either. And I would give up on trying to get him to stop running in the house and sucking on his fingers, hyper kids need to put that energy somewhere. My 9yr old still runs everywhere, I think he'll be running in his college dorm
Your son sounds like mine. He was an autism diagnosis.
Your son sounds like mine. He was an autism diagnosis.
Most ADHD kids are very intelligent. Part of the problem is that they get bored so easily. Listen to the experts....You will get thru this with him....and be supportive.
Educate yourselves, join parenting groups...all this will help you to support your child.
For my son the hardest part of his diagnosis was socializing...when a kid is impulsive other kids perceive them as misbehaving....and often parents are the culprits.
Try to keep your child involved in socializing like support classes and special needs programs meant to help with socializing. Help him understand his diagnosis does not mean he is not smart.
These kids test very high often times...the problem is their ability to organize their thoughts, and focus.
That's why educating yourselves is critical...There are ways to help your child to organize....
Don't be afraid....look at it as you have gotten this information early. You can make a huge difference going forward in helping your child be successful in school and life.
Become your child's most staunch advocate. Educate yourself about the rights that your child has as a person with a disability. https://dredf.org/
The thread is from 2015 so the son is now 6 years older.
Regardless. There may be someone who needs this advise now. And even at 11, this young man is still needing his parents to have good information. ADHD is a life long diagnosis.
I am begging you not to put your 4 year old on meds. Get him outside to play. A LOT. Be careful of getting a bunch of doctors/healthcare givers/therapists. It's expensive and at 4.5, way too soon. If you want to PM me, go ahead. I have an ADHD daughter and we put them on meds and they stunted her growth, made her look like a concentration camp victim and didn't help at the end of the day. I found out later that the nationwide chapter of ADHD support was funded by the pharmaceutical industry. This is an industry and your family will possibly waste huge amounts of money on this stuff that isn't needed.
I reread your post because when I saw it initially, I was like a 4.5 year old on meds? But in rereading your post, your kids sounds like a normal, energetic kid. STay away from doctors who want to medicate 4 year olds. They don't have his or YOUR best interest at heart. Take your kid outside and wear him out.
Hi folks thanks for the many responses and some confirmations. I like many of you suggest am against meds at this age, the "problem" if there is indeed one is so light that even if I knew with 100% certainty I still might not want meds for him. In any case here's what happened since I wrote the original post. A psychlogist fomr the school district evaluated him and diagnosed classic ADHD. Recommend meds. We were somewhat put off by his quickness. We then had a meeting with the school/admin and they recommended and are providing some behavioral help via a person in his classroom 3x's a week for 1 hour each session. They would not take him aside but instead only act when he is acting out of sync with the activity. This we like, and this we are doing. We think a little behavioral guidance would be helpful.
Poor little guy, he's seems so confused when I get upset and he tells me he doesn't know why he does what he does. I've been trying to "lecture" him into better behavior. No effect at all. I'll have to do more homework on how to manage his energy.
Ugh. I am going to say some unpopular things here but I am going to say them.
My kids are now 16 and 18 and I have learned a lot about the 'system'. Everyone and their brother has an IEP or a 504. All these kids have problems? Or maybe they 'system' needs a lot of kids to have problems to keep the 'system' in place. A huge amount of money is sloshing around this system. Psychiatrists, psychologists, meds, special ed teachers, executive functioning coaches, therapists, etc., etc. What happens to all these people if we don't have screwed up kids? That's right. No more $$. NOTHING you said about your son implies to me that he needs to be medicated.
Go check out some books by John Rosemond. Sounds like your kid might need some good old fashioned discipline, which is lacking in a major way in this world now. This guy has an interesting story. He was a psych major and got called because his kid was a nightmare in 3rd grade. He was gobsmacked. He was in school learning about all the ask your kid how he feels about everything stuff and thought he was doing right. He and his wife said well how come our generation was fine and there is all this ADHD, anxiety, horrible behavior, etc. NOW? So he changed everything. Check him out. There is still time to not mess up your kid with meds and psychologists and special ed people.
My 31-year-old daughter was recently diagnosed with ADHD. She is high-functioning and very successful. She has an exceptionally high IQ. She doesn’t present typically, and therefore, we never understood this is what she has. Now, knowing more about it, I can see there were signs.
From tiny, she was a very active child, never napped, was sensitive to noise, was fussy about how clothing felt, and socks had to have no seams. We kept her active, took her out for walks, to parks to run around and to play with friends. Never had an issue with bedtime and followed a routine. She slept all night, bedtime being 7:30, and then later as she got older, and got up at 6:00 every morning. She loved puzzles and Legos, drawing and creating things, so we kept her supplied with items to feed her likes. She was a very happy child. She did have issues sitting for long periods of time, but we were fortunate in her teachers. She never liked going to movie theaters to sit through movies. To this day, torture is having to sit through a play or a movie, especially if it’s not good. She loves reading and learning and creating. She always got very high grades. She has always been self-motivated. We never put pressure on her. We just encouraged her interests and let her be her.
As she got older, she developed routines for studying, keeping on track, she kept lists, aways had a plan and followed through. She loved routine and had issues transitioning, but learned to manage that by updating lists, studying them, and then moved forward. She developed organizational techniques, and I guess she got that from watching her father and I as we were list-makers and planners.
She exhibited stimming which we didn’t know was a thing. She graduated high school with honors and got into the university she wanted. She had difficulty adjusting during her freshman year. She got a solo room after her freshman year and was fine after that. She double majored in international business, and finance; and minored in economics. She graduated not only on time, but with high honors. She received two grants and three scholarships. She was in a sorority and was an officer for three of the four years. She had two part-time jobs at the university. She became a tour guide. She had a great social life.
She got a job right out of university with a very well-known company, and throughout her career has risen and been successful. She is well liked. With the advent of her new job, she was having more issues focusing, and took longer than usual to get through emails which ordinarily shouldn’t have been an issue and was working longer hours than necessary. Long story short, she had several conversations with her GP who said he suspected she might be ADHD and referred her to a neurologist. She was tested, and yes, she is inattentive ADHD, but doesn’t present as typical. Her neuro told her that women and girls were frequently overlooked because they don’t typically present. She is now on a very, very low dose of medication, and has found that it has made a world of difference.
From what I understand, sometimes it takes a defining event for adults to recognize that something isn’t right. So, I guess what I am saying is that even with ADHD, people can become successful and happy. I feel such guilt that we didn’t recognize she had ADHD as a child. There were no overt signs. Back then, if a child wasn’t doing well in school, was fidgeting and inattentive and had behavioral issues, that was a sign. She exhibited none of this except perhaps not being able to sit still (hence, the stimming by rocking back and forth). Now knowing more about it, I can see the signs were there. She has always been very self-aware and knew something wasn’t right and knew where to go to get help and advocate for herself. I just wish I had known more back then.
I don’t know if this is helpful to anyone else out there, but the spectrum is so vast and wide, and medicating isn’t necessarily the right thing to do for every child. Treatments need to be individualized and parents need to advocate for their children. Those meds are pretty heavy-duty, and to me, unless there is a serious issue, might be the solution of late resort.
We suspect this runs in our family as my brother has one son who has Asperger’s and the other ADHD. They are both adults – one in his 30’s, the other in his late 20’s. The one with Asperger’s is married, brilliant and highly successful in his career. The one with ADHD still has issues but refuses to medicate and is quite happy living with his parents. We also suspect that both my brother and sister have undiagnosed ADHD. We are all in our 60’s. It appears to run in families.
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