ADHD

It's the last week of school and my son just had to get one last note sent home this week. (At least I hope it's the last one of the school year, since there are only 4 1/2 days left.) I am trying to decide how I am going to make it through this summer. I think it's going to take a lot of prayer. Who am I kidding? I KNOW it's going to take a lot of prayer. I told my mom it was almost a little ironic that he got a note sent home because I had actually planned on blogging about this subject.

So, the other day I was just having a conversation with one of our patients who has 2 grown children. One of her children is a boy (or I guess a man now.) After talking for a few minutes we got on the subject of how hyperactive her son was growing up. She said she almost didn't think she would survive his childhood. He stayed in trouble all the time and couldn't focus on anything and had an unbelievable amount of energy. I told her that's exactly where I am now with my son. There are some days I literally get overwhelmed with the thought of knowing I have a minimum of 13 years left correcting his behavior and controlling his hyperactive outbursts and disciplining him NONSTOP.

I feel like every waking second of my day from the time my oldest gets out of bed in the morning to the time he says his bedtime prayers and goes to bed, is spent hollering and fussing and nagging and and taking toys away and putting him in timeout and spanking him and being constantly frustrated at him. The other day one of my Facebook friends posted something on her status that really got to me and quite frankly, made me angry. I had a very hard time keeping my mouth shut and several of you know how hard that is for me. Apparently she had gone to a children's seminar and the speaker was some sort of doctor. His philosophy was that children don't have ADD, but that the parent's have a discipline problem--- the child's behavior always stems from lack of discipline. My friend thought he was preaching nothing but the gospel truth. This is wrong on so many levels and it sent my blood pressure through the roof.

I worked at a daycare all through high school and college. I was always saying, "My child will NEVER act like that." or "If my child ever behaved that way, I would........." I had everyone else's child figured out. And I had the parents lack of discipline figured out. As far as I was concerned, I could have written a book and all of these other parents who seemed to lack common sense could turn me into a millionaire because they would all want a copy of my book that had all the answers as to why their child was acting like a wild banshee.

Well, back to the conversation with my patient. She looked at me, and she said, "Mandy, if I can offer you any words of encouragement, let me say this: I thought we would never make it through his childhood. But, sadly enough he still grew up too fast. But he also did something very positive with all of his energy. He became a youth minister." When she said that I just wanted to deflate and cry. I told her she had NO IDEA how much I NEEDED to hear that. Brennan is a child after God's own heart. He loves going to church, and not just to play with his friends. He LOVES learning about Bible stories and he soaks it up like a sponge. Just last night he asked to go to sleep with his Bible. He wanted to "read" his Bible while he fell asleep. Every night Chad and Brennan do a devotion. It is the highlight of Brennan's evening. Brennan has a tender heart and is such a loving, caring, giving child.

Brennan has not been officially diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. However, I know the day is coming. I had a brother who grew up with ADHD. And I've also researched it myself. The symptoms are all the same. For him, it's more than him "just being a boy". I don't ever want to medicate my child, but I've come to the realization that it's either going to be him or me. He has his 6 year check-up coming up. I've already decided to talk to his doctor about his behavior and the best way I should handle it at this point. I'm also going to get really creative about how to work out a summer schedule so that he's occupied all day long. So please, for all you naysayers out there who don't believe in a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD, just keep your mouth closed until you have walked a mile in my shoes. Or any other parent's shoes who have to deal with this on a daily basis. Yes, there is a lot of controversy surrounding medicating children, and in the 90's it seemed to be a big thing to diagnose every child with a form of ADD. However I think now doctors and pediatricians have done their homework and aren't quite so quick to medicate every energetic child that comes in the doors. Just pray for me. And for Brennan. I'm being very serious when I suggest prayers, too.