What do you know about ADD?

[me&thegals]

My daughter never stops moving. I personally do not have a problem with that and find it energizing and refreshing. She is a very much a daydreamer (when she is not moving) and finds everything around her interesting, except her schoolwork. She is doing great in school in spite of this because she is a smart little whippet, if I do say so myself No social problems.

My son is not hyper at all. He is almost the opposite. He also is incredibly distractible. He is intelligent, curious and loves to learn. But, he is distracted by absolutely everything. His teachers have been very good about putting his desk right next to them (I have said nothing, but this ends up happening within a few weeks each year) and sometimes allowing him to work in the hall for less distraction.

He also has a very hard time organizing his life. Things are constantly misplaced and lost. It is quite normal for us to go through 5 pairs of gloves in a winter, even when he has to pay for sets 2-5. He lost his waterbottle the first week. One time when I went to school for a fieldtrip, the lost and found table had about 10 of his long-sleeved shirts that had been left at school. Homework gets lost, books don't come home when they should, work is turned in late, incomplete and sloppy.

Both kids can head upstairs to brush their teeth for bed and 30 min later (if we let it go to see what happens) have done about 15 other things besides brushing their teeth. They need us to get their attention first, look them in the eye for all directions and only give them about 1-2 things to think about at once.

I really don't want to get into more detail than that.

I've been reading about diet today, too, and already plan to start omega-3 oil, vitamin D, calcium and magnesium. I would like them tested (keep meaning to anyway) for food allergies.

I find myself flip-flopping back and forth constantly about whether ADD is real or not. All I can say is that the school year is incredibly stressful in our household and all of the stress relates to attention and distractibility. I'm not into medication and don't even know what I would do with a diagnosis, but it would at least help me to know that my kids are not *bad* kids but simply struggling to fit into a world that requires one thing of them when their brains would prefer another. No excuses, no getting out of anything--but I would like to be able to better support them if I thought this to be the case.

Thanks for all your responses! I would love to hear more!

 

[me&thegals]

And also it is my personal opinion that not everyone needs to be alike, as long as they can find ways of adapting to the major ways that society is structured.

How very true! Imagine the boringness (is that a word?) of this earth if we were all alike. I think for some reason it would help me to have a name for their struggle. Then, I can start working on strategies to help them and stop worrying that they are just children who will not listen when I ask them to do their homework, etc.

 

[me&thegals]

First off, meds don't help kids with ADD/ADHD. I mean, they seem to help, at first, but then you go through a maze of different drugs and combinations of drugs to keep getting that 'good child' effect. NONE of it is good for them. It is all mind altering and most of the drugs they prescribe should never be given to kids.

I have seen kids' behavior transformed by ADD meds, but I'm not sure I like the idea anyway. It actually made me sad to see this little kindgarten guy go from incessant action to docility.

You are going to really have to spend alot of time really getting down to the bottom of each of your kids issues, and you are going to have to advocate strongly for them if you decide to stay away from meds. Our school system seems to think that meds is the only answer for any child who doesn't do what is expected of them...and the demands are too high for some of the children.

I agree. Kids are very individualistic. I am very glad to be part of a school system that is not pushing for medication at all. They are just letting me know that distractibility and organization are pretty big issues for my son and trying to come up with ways to deal with it.

 

[farmerlor]

My son has fetal alcohol syndrome which generally has a multitude of secondary diagnoses among them ADHD. Now generally speaking meds do not help kids who have ADHD but have FAS as a primary diagnosis because the etiology of the condition is different. "Normal" ADHD is a chemical imbalance while ADHD secondary to FAS is mechanical as there are literally holes in the brain creating misfires and missed connections. But this boy was literally bouncing off walls. He would go to bed at night and not sleep because he was rocking all night. He would zone out in mid-walk and forget where he was going, what he was doing and why he was here. He couldn't eat, watch a program, read a book or listen to a book, or remember a task.
We started him on a trial of meds and he's actually sleeping, he has an appetite and is growing now. He can attend school and is actually learning and so proud of that. He's still hyper, he still forgets, and everyday is a new day but he's the happiest boy in the world and that's all that matters to me.

 

[me&thegals]

So glad your son is helped!

IF, and that's a big if, my kids were diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, I would guess them to be pretty mild. My daughter functions perfectly well. My son has enough problems to show on his report card and merit calls and e-mails from teachers, but he mostly is just not up to his potential.

It's great to know that some kids who have had such extreme problems have been helped. I don't like medication, but there really is a time and place for it, and it seems your son fit that category quite well.

 

[patandchickens]

If you don't mind, can I ask how thoroughly you've explored 'conventional' routes to helping your son remember things and stay on task, yet? Like lists, routines, developing habits, etc? It seems to me, from observing the human herd we live in, that while some people are naturally "self organizing" and others are possibly close to hopeless at it , there is a large grey area in between of people who have simply not hit on useful methods *themselves* but are certainly trainable if you just find the right way of doing it (which can involve trying some different tactics til you find something that seems to click).

Obviously that is not always enough; but, just sort of 'normal parenting' may not cover the full range of options, which is why I ask. If you already have, then of course nevermind

As far as your daughter, is she actually experiencing any *problems* from daydreaming a lot? If it is not hurting her in school or socially or causing her to walk out in front of buses or anything, perhaps it is just "her thing" and may serve her well later in life?

Just wondering,

Pat

 

[me&thegals]

Hey Pat--

Regarding both kids, we have evolved our parenting over the years quite a bit to adapt to their personalities. School mornings are regimented. Breakfast starts at 6:45. They come to the counter dressed, hair combed, shoes on. Breakfast ends at 7:05. They head out the door at 7:15. The night before, backpacks are packed and zipped. Clothes are laid out on the dresser. One child in the morning uses 1 bathroom on 1 floor, the other child another bathroom on another floor--no distractions.

Same sort of regimentation for after-school routines. The school already sends home assignment sheets, which is quite helpful. Unless, of course, you haven't brought home the sheet, the books or the other paperwork you need to get the work done.

Just to give you a sense of what it's like, I recently asked my daughter to pick approximately 1 gallon of beans for supper. I let her take as long as she wanted to see what would happen. Two hours later, I finally couldn't stand it any longer and went to see what she was doing. She had about half a gallon picked. Other times, I would have observed her picking flowers, eating raspberries, playing with bugs, singing and dancing. All these things are wonderful and joyful, but real life sometimes has jobs to be done in certain amounts of time. Same deal for my son.

So, we have definitely had to change our parenting to suit our kids, become more structured, have firm guidelines on times, repeat ourselves, have consequences for ignored requests, write down lists of chores to be done rather than expect them to remember our verbal requests, have lists of morning to-do items and evening to-do items that they can check off, etc.

I would not consider *doing* anything for my daughter. It can be frustrating, but I can deal with that. For my son, I would definitely want to work much more closely with his teacher to figure out ways to help him focus and organize. For both, and even husband and me, I would absolutely start supplementing with omega-3s and the vitamins and minerals I have been reading about here, getting PMs on and finding online.

Right now, I'm just on a massive fact-finding (and opinions!) mission to gather all types of info. Then, I can sort through it and figure out what makes the most sense.

It was all triggered by a call from his teacher with the same old frustrations and a lot of online research pointing to ADD, with a list of symptoms that seem to have been formed by observation of my kids!

 

[me&thegals]

As far as your daughter, is she actually experiencing any *problems* from daydreaming a lot? If it is not hurting her in school or socially or causing her to walk out in front of buses or anything, perhaps it is just "her thing" and may serve her well later in life?

Last year's teacher was concerned, but I told her of a rich daydreaming childhood of my own and asked if it was actually disruptive of hurting her ability to learn. She backed off the issue at that point. She actually can be distracted to the point of danger, as in at 7 years old I still need to remind her to look both ways before crossing the road rather than just lollygagging across while singing and hopping Still, I wouldn't consider medicating that. She still pretty much hangs with me in nonschool life and life is pretty safe at our house far from the road, farm and neighbors.

Plus, as mentioned earlier, the teachers seem really great about finding their own ways of coping. This year's teacher mentioned giving her a pink timer to use. For example, she would challenge her to get 5 math questions done in 5 min.

This is another strategy we have used for homework: Timing the kids. Three pages of math seems so overwhelming that they sometimes just have a meltdown (none of this is ALWAYS true, just sometimes and occasionally often). If we ask them to give it their best shot for 5 min and then go run around the yard or jump rope, then come back and repeat, it goes WAY better.

As all you parents know, sometimes life happens in a way that you can't make those accommodations, people are visiting, distractions cannot be minimized, and then it tends to hit the fan.

Anyway, I really value all the input and am not in any way intending to minimize or explain away suggestions. Just trying to paint a picture of what life looks like here. It would be very interesting to hear about other people's daily routine with their kids. When my kids were young and had playdates regularly, you could *see* what other kids behaved like. These days, I have no way of knowing if my kids routines are totally normal or not. Based on conversations, other people's kids have some issues staying on task but not apparently nearly so much.

 

[me&thegals]

I read many books on the subject one that I loved was called the Hunter in the Gatherer's World or something like that. Very interesting book. Another one is called So I'm not Stupid Crazy or Lazy?

I have to run now, but I will share with you some exercises that can help lengthen their attention span and promote independence.

BBH--I can't find these books in my interlibrary system. Do you have a way of verifying the titles? I would like to read them if I can just find them

I would also love to hear about the exercises. Whether my kids are diagnosed ADD or not, they sound useful for their way of living life.

 

[Beekissed]

I can tell you what the medical profession has to say about it and I can tell you my own experiences with it.

I agree with so many things that have been stated on this thread. Nutritional changes really helped my youngest in so many ways. The timer came in real handy when he was young but that didn't matter much as a teen.

I also feel some folks are just LIKE that. I was and am. Back in the old days, we learned coping mechanisms because school was a very structured place. That is not the case anymore and constant distractions are going on at all times in the classrooms. Kind of makes it hard for an ADD child to learn to prioritize, pay attention, use time wisely.

I've read more recent medical articles that suggest that ADD, ADDHD and some types of autism and even dyslexia are caused by a problem in the otic/optic nerve center. This makes a lot of sense but there is still no cure or help offered there.

ADD meds don't seem to help a lot of kids but I've heard some positive reports.....no good news about long term usage though. Just like any of those kind of drugs, you have to use more over time to get the same effect and sometimes have to switch them up to get a good effect.

I have found that my ADD children can pay attention for literally hours to things THEY like to do, watch, read. So, sometimes this seems like a personality trait and they have selective attention spans.

I know I have a problem with getting easily distracted from a task unless I really concentrate, write things down immediately, develop a routine and maintain an orderly work space. If not~all is lost!

I think a combination of nutritional monitoring, structured routines, and learned coping mechanisms are more helpful than the quick fix pill solution.

I also feel that ADD does not necessarily equal BRAT. I have good, sweet kids....but a couple of them have definite ADD attributes. If I hadn't been extremely firm over these years about certain behaviors, then I would probably have some real brats on my hands.