What To Do When You Think Your Child Might Have AD/HD

I have a child that is 2 years old that may possibly have ADHD. We are having a hard time getting him diagnoised because he is so young. We have a behavioral therapist that comes to our home. She has given us wonderful tips on how to deal with his outbursts. He isn't able to focus on one activity for very long, so I'm constiantly having to keep him busy. When he doesn't have something to occupy him he is constantly getting into things he's not supposed to or trying to hurt his sister who is 3 years old. It is a big challenge for me because I am a stay at home mom with 5 children. We are coming to terms to that when he is diagnoised properly we will have to turn to medication.

As the mothe rof 5, that I truely believe invented the term ADD. I also have raised foster children and am a Grandmother, and an active child advocate for Special Education, I have to add my 2 cents worth of information.
I know that I have had to be creative over the years to keep my children organized and our lives as clutter free as possible. I learned a long time ago, from a doctor, that the best indicator of how a childs brain is thinking and working is looking at thier bedroom. Does it still have the floor that came with the house? or is the pile in the room the next years Mother's Day float being built!?? WhenI saw that their worlds were in choas then I knew who was in trouble and what to do. I made sure that all through school and I do mean from k-12, I had stimulating teachers for my kids to make them focus and not just be endured. We had one teacher Mrs. Marchant, who had every ADHD kid in the world in her room- yet it was never in chaos! she taught math by having the kids add, subtract ets with dinosaur bones. Each day parents had to pry kids out of the room.
Did I mention I never put them on any medication? Never, I encouraged them to be creative with the energy and to think of good ways to use it. But that isn't for all people and children! I did learn from a nutritionst that we should eat solid proteins and foods for breakfast and light at night so I'd serve dinner at 7 am. Granted until then I didn't know mac and cheese didn't come from anything but a box--- but I learned quickly and once we got that routine under control all of my children changed within 45 days. The teachers kept asking what was different.
I have always appreciated that since I am a firm parent(dad got to be the good guy), I shared in the boys adventures. I once got to plant a tree because they decided to dig to China just to see if they could, got the entire neighborhood involved! When one decided to run away, and live on the island in the middle of lake chabot, my husband just helped him pack what he'd need, made sure he knew how to find food and then helped him think of ways to make it work-- after much time and patience our son came back home just like Tom Sawyer, fishing pole and fish in hand and the guys ate a nice dinner. By the way he was 10 at the time. I really believe that my children have taught me to be a better person and a lot less judgemental. I do know that they are more exciteing than any amusement park ride!
Nana Glenda

I love Glenda's post. I am the mother of an adult ADHD daughter (now a Pharmacist!) and a Marriage, Family Therapist and Educational Psychologist. I wish I had read Thom Hartmann's book "Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception" back then, and I wish I had learned about the "new kids" (Indigos, Highly Sensitive Persons, etc.) back then. So many (not all) children who are labeled with the disorder are really just born with brains that don't fit our culture, but are perfectly healthy and actually needed by our society, but not valued by most systems. Another good recent book is "The ADD/ADHD Revolution, Treatments That Work" by LaVonne and Rick Kirkpatrick. If you really analyze why a child is behaving as he/she is (with the help of a professional) with an understanding that his brain does not respond as ours and has antennae many times more sensitive than ours, you usually can find alternative treatments that allow him/her to thrive, adapt when really needed, and bring an energy and creativity to life that is unique and precious. Yes, an amusement park ride is a good analogy!

The comments by Glenda and Kathryn are great. As the parent of an extremely creative, so-called 'AD/HD' child, I do take issue with the use of the term 'mental health disorder' when referring to this group of brain types. In our family we use the term CBT (creative brain type) instead. He had a sensory-challenged time from ages 3-6 and had occupational therapy for this, but this was a physical rather than mental health issue. Any difficulties experienced in school, due to making a creative young child sit in a chair with a pencil and paper for hours on end (even in kindergarten!) were quickly resolved by changing to a Montessori school. In this type of education, there is freedom of movement, individual responsibility for learning and a more natural structure. Learning is hands-on and creativity is engaged all day long. We did not medicate our child or change anything else, the change was in how he was spending his time. I should add that I think many different and truly unrelated issues are all lumped together as AD/HD, and I am sure there are indeed children for whom it is a disabling condition. However, many of our society's most innovative and creative people are being written off as having a mental health problem rather than being recognized as the creative, different learners that they are. Rather than 'inattention', such people are often paying great attention to things others simply do not perceive.

My 6 year old has been on ADHD medicine for about 3 months now and he has made a biiiiiiig change. He is a great child anyway and now he is a lot more relaxed and sleeps better and went from not finishing his work in school to being nominated for Gifted and Talented.

You know your child better than anyone. If you think your child has a problem, keep persisting until someone listens. I had two different Dr's tell me there was nothing was wrong with him. But once I got some teachers behind me and a new Dr, it was no time before they put him on meds. He is doing wonderfully!@!!!

This is a somewhat superficial understanding of ADHD and ways to "treat" it. It's a set of symptoms that can have a variety of factors contributing to it - there are many natural, holistic approaches that can get to the root of things and resolve the ADHD/ADD symptoms instead of merely treating/suppressing symptoms or compensating for them. Psychological and physical stressors have a lot to do with ADD/ADHD patterns, so energy balancing, stress reduction, family and educational setting adjustments, chiropractic treatments, nutritional and naturopathic therapies are all valuable resources. Visit www.phinsights.com/adhd.html to learn more.

It great that there is more information about adhd out there now. I have two sons with adhd and add. Both are different as night and day with how it affects them. One I don't medicate, one I do. If your child is having difficulty in school even preschool you can ask for an evaluation through your school district. Preschool would be early intervention. There are services for them if it affects their schooling. Just one thing to the mother of a two year old. Most doctors won't diagnose adhd til atleast 4 years old. And medicating shouldn't start til then or later either. Early intervention helped me survive with my hyper one till I could get him properly diagnosed. Oh in hind sight, I can see the adhd all the way back to my one being a toddler.

Loved the post. So many people don't understand that children don't have to be hyper or have poor grades to have AD/HD. I have two children with this disorder (the innatentive sub-type). My son has been in honors classes his whole life but my daughter whose AD/HD is more severe does struggle with her grades (mostly because she is not finishing or turning in assignments). I also have a daughter that does not have this disorder so I do know what it's like to have a "normal" child as well.

We homeschool now because the school is not able to provide all the accomodations recommended by Terry Matlin, especially in Jr. High & High School. By the way, you have to apply for a 504 plan for your child to get the accomodations and even then some teachers refuse to comply so it can be a constant battle. There are great teachers out there but when they reach Jr. High and you have 5 or six different teachers, it can get difficult.

For the poor mother of the two-year old. I've been there. Watch his diet. We learned that certain foods set off the hyperactivity & bad behavior. Red dye #40 is the biggest offender. My daughter is twelve and this still sets her off. With my son we also learned that he could not have any peanut butter but Jiff or any chocolate other than Hershey. Anything made by MM/Mars really set him off. Don't know why. You just have to watch what they eat and observe what really sets them off. But the red #40 is definitely the place to start. Doctors will tell you this is not true but then they don't have to live with the child, do they? I once offered to send my child loaded with red #40 to my doctors house as proof but he didn't take me up on it :)