Newly diagnosed tween girl with mild inattentive add.
Not ready to medicate - still a straight A student - just really, really annoying behaviors of spacing out, poor executive management skills, strong emotional responses (she's a tween girl… what a surprise - but this seems more than her friends), strong social anxiety.
We have done nutrition testing, modified the diet, and participated in biofeedback training for anxiety and focus. We've done lots of research and tried various things We will soon be starting behavior modification, but we want to see what we can do at home until then. So…..
Best parenting practices? Advice for modifying behaviors? What has worked for you?
By the way, I should add that no one, including her pediatrician, is convinced this is a clear cut case of ADD. She was diagnosed only with a questionnaire based on observations and her behaviors are also not out of the realm of learning styles and giftedness or even just normal teenage willfulness. What we're looking at is "leanings" toward ADD.
Edit: She was diagnosed by her primary pediatrician and sent to a pediatrician whose specialization is pain management and chronic conditions, including ADHD. I did not feel like he was qualified enough to help her beyond the nutrition work, which actually has helped quite a bit. I was not satisfied with his ability to do biofeedback and he did not offer behavior modification, so we are working on lining that up next. But both her primary and this specialist were dubious about the diagnosis and felt, while she does need management skills, she is not a clear cut case of ADD nor should medicines be the first line of approach.
Sending you a message, Diane
If it's true ADD,dietary changes probably won't work. But as long as it's mild, you can be successful with behavior modifications. Some things that have helped for my daughter are check lists, a planner for school, a timer for tasks so she knows how long she has, those types of things. Good luck!
Well, my oldest would probably have been diagnosed with that problem, also.... I think mostly it was that she was gifted, and her mind would just wander off to something much more interesting than the mundane stuff they taught in school.....
Just to let you know... she is very successful now... she learned how to cope, and just finished her doctorate in Microbiology at Johns Hopkins.. (She starts her first "real" job on Monday with a government contractor for NASA..... wow!)
One thing we learned was that she really needed to be challenged... she took the AP type classes, and honors classes, which forced her to figure out how to stay organized and focused.
Try to work with her, and ask her how SHE thinks she needs to learn or get things done.... help her learn to manage it on her own, instead of trying to micro-manage things for her..... you might be surprised at what she comes up with!
(One example of her "learning style" ... she was taking a class in 9th grade... a home ec type class... got bored during the lecture, so she took out a book and started reading it! I chewed her out when I found out, saying that you DON'T read during a teacher's lecture.... she said it was ok, since she was still raising her hand and answering questions as she read the book! She also talked to the teacher after class, asking if it was ok that she was reading.... amazing!)
btw... she was never really a straight-A student, although she did graduate in the top 10% of her high school class, since they weighted the points based on taking pre-ap/honors classes vs regular classes. She also did the "dual credit" classes with the local community college, earning college credit for some of her basic core classes, like English, and other things.)
Since she has not been properly evaluated your first step is getting that done. You can't parent effectively until you know exactly what you're dealing with. Once you have solid answers, you will have a place to begin. See a psychiatrist or neuropsych doctor that specializes in children and teens.
One thing a proper specialist will teach you is to know what is a modifiable behavior and what is not, so that your expectations are reasonable. For example, 'spacing out' is not something that can stop by force of will.
Don't start anything as far as "behavior modification" until you get a diagnosis and then education in regards to it. You risk making current issues worse and creating new problems.
Has she been diagnosed by a specialist: neurologist, psychiatrist, developmental pediatrician? Or just by her primary care pediatrician?
I agree that you should not jump into medications. Many have questionable results, and often with side effects that are at least as frustrating as the behaviors.
You say you have looked into nutrition - a lot of people spend time and energy on eliminating certain foods. While it's great to avoid processed foods and lots of GMOs, additives and dyes (regardless of any condition - they're just nasty ingredients!), we've had the greatest success with all kinds of conditions (ADD, ADHD, PDD, Asperger's, depression/anxiety) as well as food sensitivities/allergies by actually adding in balanced supplementation (not through vitamin pills or that sort of thing - not enough absorbable nutrients and no synergistic balance). There's great work on non-medical approaches to brain functioning, focus, stress reduction and fatigue. There's also a new natural peptide that helps with "reprogramming" the genes that have been damaged through disease, environmental toxins, and food deficiencies - we're seeing great results with kids and adults, sometimes in as few as 2 weeks and most certainly within 3 months at the longest. So that's another route to go. Let me know if you want more research in this area.
I don't know. It's probably try the meds and see if they helped.
First and foremost, you don't know for certain that it's ADD/ADHD. You need to find out by getting an evaluation by a Child Psychologist, Pediatric Neurologist, or Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrician any of which need to include in their specialties ADD and ADHD.
With neurological disorders such as ADD, ADHD, Autism, and more, diet CAN BE HELPFUL because if there are foods that your child is sensitive or intolerant to then those foods act as toxins and they can make the symptoms and signs of the whatever neurological problems someone is having worse.
So if you remove things like HFCS, artificial food colorings, refined sugar, and artificial flavorings you may very well see improvement. If you see a complete "recovery" then that indicates there wasn't a neurological disorder but an allergy/sensitivity. If symptoms decrease in severity/strength but still exist then you know the diagnosis is accurate.
This is the way these artificial "food stuff" work: a person that ingests them who is sensitive, intolerant, or allergic will have difficulty digesting them. Their liver and kidneys don't purify the blood and the toxins move through the entire body including the brain until the body can expel them. What happens during that time is that the person can have emotional upset, crying jags, aggression, rages, hyperactivity, difficulty concentrating, difficulty sleeping, nausea, racing thoughts, lack of focus, poor management and organization, overreactions... essentially like a mean drunk coming off of a three day binge. Because these toxins are exactly like alcohol and the response the body has when there are toxic levels ie. tipsiness, drunkenness.
You can do an elimination diet at any time and it won't harm your daughter. Even if your child is 100% typical it's good to get off of those things anyway. Clean eating is really important for the brain and physical development.
Behavior modification... well... you really need to know what you're dealing with and have a high degree of certainty. And initial diagnosis by a pediatrician and a pain management doctor (really?) aren't ones I would trust because they're definitely not qualified. Just like although a gastroenterologist initially diagnosed my Fibromyalgia, he wasn't qualified to treat me or make a formal diagnosis. He got me on the right track. It sounds like that's all the pediatrician did.
This is the website for the neuropsych we used. On the right he has a link to a parents guide that he wrote. It has a lot of info for parents just starting down the path of trying to figure out whether their child needs help or not.
http://drmoldover.com/publications/
I agree with others who state that the first step will be to get a full diagnosis. If you do not want to or cannot afford to do it independently (then they work for you and the conclusions are better explained and neutral in my opinion) you can write a letter to the principal requesting a full evaluation for your child to determine eligibility for special education. This will set into motion a time table that the school district has to meet to respond to you and to have you child assessed by the school psychologist and provide a report to you and schedule a "team meeting" to review those results. Be warned that school do not want to spend money and our daughter who was found to have dyslexia by the neuropsych was diagnosed as having ADD by the school (since this is medical and not their problem).
We have had a ton of postivie luck with Accupunture _ no needles, it is magnetic. Does not hurt and will not harm the child, but will help possible.
My son is 5 and we starteed in April, and I love it. After two weeks of going we had to miss a week and my son was like, why are we not going there I like that place it makes me feel better and more calm.
In my eyes this is our meds for him.
Good luck.
