I HATE being the bad guyFollow

You probably think the WTC collapsed because a couple hijacked airplanes hit it as well. Tool.

Okay, Nobby, when are you coming to the States? I need another nickel. And I'm off the crack too.



And that is my take. My husband and I have battled long and hard about this issue. I disagree with the medication and there are times when I have not given him his medicine and his behavior is unchanged. But my husband swears that he sees a problem. A couple of my son's previous teachers have said they think my son is no more and no less inattentive as other children they have in their class. And one teacher has said my son does have a behavior problem. I'm opposed to the medicine, but my husband isn't.

My son has had other health problems which I'm not sure is a contributing factor to his behavior. But over the years (and he will be 11 in 2 days), he has had countless stays in the hospital for asthma. He's also been in the hospital because he had his tonsils pulled, tubes put in his ears, had an appendectomy, a cancerous mole removed, and two bouts of a serious infection where they were afraid the infection was going to reach the bone.

This is the first year my son is playing football. Last year he couldn't because his grades were too low and our deal with him was if he got his grades up in the last semester, he could play football the following year. He busted his butt getting his grades up and so I signed him up.

I went in and talked with his teacher this morning. She told me she doesn't see my son as having a behavior problem, just a problem focusing on the task at hand. I've emailed the principal and put in a formal request for yet another evaluation about his behavior and any possible learning possibilities. The school that my kids are attend are rated very high for the state of California, if you go by the standards of the state testing. But I also know that the school has a very high incident rate of children on Ritalin and other like medications, which has made me wary of why my child needs to be on Ritalin. I don't know whether it's because we live on a military installation, or whether my husband is gone a lot because of the military, or simply because the school just goes the Ritalin route when a child's behavior goes outside the boundaries they want to deal with.

You should look into an alternative school for him. He'd probably benifit from more 1 on 1 teaching. Maybe look into getting him into something like a Kenley School, I dont know if you have something like this in your area, but it's for students who have difficulty staying with the "normal class enviornment".

It was my husband that pushed the issue of putting our son on Ritalin. I totally disagreed with it and the procedure we had to follow about putting our son on Ritalin was we had to go through the school for an evaluation first (which the school almost always says there is a behavioral problem) and then a visit to the family doctor then to a specialist. The specialist is the one that recommends whichever medication and program to follow. Our family doctor actually prescribes the medication. I still don't agree with prescribing the medication, I really feel that the medication hasn't done a thing, but my husband feels just as strongly that it has.

The dosage has been changed a few times and I don't really see the behaviors my husband sees. Some days my son acts up and other days he doesn't. And I have caught him trying to place the blame on his medication as in "I'm sorry that I shaved the cat but it's because I didn't take my pill this morning." And I don't believe that he's going to magically start being a perfect child because he's popped a pill in the morning.

My husband, because he's gone so much, gives the kids a lot of leeway just because he feels bad about being a "strict parent" when he's home and he wants to the kids to be happy-go-lucky when he's home so they have happy memories about him being home. Which leaves me with all the crap when he's gone and I have become the bad cop.

Again, as someone pointed out, there's a difference between Attention Deficit Disorder and ADD with hyperactivity (ADHD.) ADD without the hyperactivity component tends to be more common in girls, but it can happen in boys as well. If there is no hyperactivity component, it may very well be that you won't see a change in behavior on the medication.

The difference comes in the way he's able to stay on task. ADD is due to a lack of dopamine receptors in the brain. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that essentially tells your brain, "Hey, listen up! This is important!" and thus makes things easier to focus on. What Ritalin and Adderol and similar meds (most all of which are actually stimulants--Adderol is amphetamine salts) do is stimulate the production of dopamine, which helps to compensate for the shortage of receptors.

Having spoken with a number of psychologists who specialize in attention disorders, I can tell you that ADD is actually NOT as over-diagnosed as the panic-mongerers would have you believe. Think about it: ADD meds are very small doses of some very powerful stimulants, some of which are narcotics. If doctors were prescribing massive quantities of these medications without sufficient diagnostic justification, it would throw up red flags with certain government agencies whose job it is to make sure the wrong people aren't getting their hands on certain controlled substances. Most doctors would rather avoid that kind of static.

One thing to keep in mind is that this shortage of dopamine receptors is actually a genetic trait. That means if your son does have ADD, in all likelihood there are relatives with it as well. Sometimes, however, these relatives will have gone undiagnosed, in which case the ADD can manifest as a strong tendancy toward substance abuse and depression. The substance abuse comes into play because people find ways to self-medicate, and most intoxicants have have the effect of triggering dopamine spurts. Depression comes in because 1) the brain NEEDS things to be interesting, NEEDS to be stimulated, and without that stimulation, other neural processes suffer. Also, depression can result from the number of negative cognitions one absorbs about oneself after having lived a lifetime of being told (or just thinking) that one is lazy, undermotivated, forgetful, inconsiderate, stupid, a poor learner, etc, etc, etc.

So look at your and your husband's families. Among your sons grandparents and aunts and uncles, how many cases of chronic depression, alcoholism or drug addiction are there? Or are there relatives with notoriously short tempers? (One other manifestation of ADD is a marked lack of patience, which often leads to a hair-trigger temper.) If there are people with these problems, talk to them and ask them about what their childhood was like. Did they struggle in school? Do they suffer from insomnia, where they can't sleep because they just can't "turn their brain off" at night?

Your reference to temper-tantrums your son is throwing is a bit of a red flag. It might be that lack of patience/hair-trigger temper I referred to, or it might be that he's already manifesting some depression from the fact that, for a great deal of his childhood, he's been feeling second-rate because of his academic performance. Unless there's already some emotional/psychological factors at play, in elementary school, most kids WANT to do well, because excelling in school is a sure path to adult approbation, and young kids crave that. If at this age, your son has gotten a lot of negative messages about his academic abilities, it's going to impact his emotional state.

You might also want to attempt to corrolate the times when he "busts his ***" on his schoolwork and the times when he doesn't do as well to whether or not he's on his medication, since I believe you mentioned that sometimes you don't give him the meds?

I would encourage you to keep an open mind. ADD is a very misunderstood disorder, and it's gotten a lot of flack in the media which has resulted from and contributed to that misunderstanding. I would recommend that, if you can get the insurance to cover it, you consider taking your son to a psychology/therapist who specializes in attention disorders and have him or her do a much more comprehensive evaluation than either your school or your physician will do. Aside from being able to make a much more accurate diagnosis, this specialist can also help you understand what's actually going on with your son in a way that your physician probably can't.

You know, I'm not saying you haven't tried everything but have you tried everything?

I can't agree with this enough.

I know, ma really let me down, too.

I would think if a kid gets the idea that he doesn't have much hope for doing any sports when he was hoping to due to school performance he would just become more depressed and give up on the idea of it ever happening seriously. Add into the whole mess that he probably thinks his parents generally think he's too screwed up for them and go ahead and medicate him to make him what they want, and I would think he's going to be generally disgusted.

Just happened to be looking at the forums and read this post and most of the replies, from what i can tell Thumb you've been doing a great job. From my own personal experiences of being just like your son and looking back on what may have been most helpful to me.

A couple sugeestions:

1. Get him into some other activity of your choosing that builds charcter, which he will do no matter what his grades are. Karate, an instrument such as the piano, or some other sport. Making what he does your choice, keeps you in control.

2. Maybe he just isn't being challenged. My biggest problem with school was that it was way too easy for me, I passed all my classes by doing just enough. So maybe get him involved in advanced things if math seems to be his best class get him something like "Dell Math Puzzles" Magazine and push him into more advanced Math. If its English get him involved in reading more often and maybe something along the lines of poetry. So on and so forth with other acedemics.

3. Most likely the biggest help as previously stated will be for him to have a mentor. An only slightly older person that your son looks up to and idolizes will often times be the person he learns the most from and will take advice from the easiest. Often times these mentors are people that he does things with so getting him involved in another activity may "kill two birds with one stone".


ADD:
I would have to agree with you on the Ridalin thing. If you happen to be incharge of him taking the stuff I would say try giving him a placebo every now and again, and see if there is any change. Now going behind your husbands back may not be entirely advisable to do this. Maybe put forth your doubts about the drugs (to your husband) and the idea of a placebo just to test the direct effects that Ridalin has on your son. I have heard some pretty bad stories about how Ridalin has often times made a child worse, rather than better. Not to mention as earlier stated, it may be giving your son somewhat of an inferiority complex that he requires these drugs to be "NORMAL". Not to mention the fact that he is the smallest child in his class.

I'd much rather be odd and happy than "NORMAL" and unhappy.

Of all the ideas I mentioned I think getting him involved in some form of self-defence, like Karate would be the most beneficial to your son. Also, again this must be your idea as it keeps you in control.

Edited, Sep 12th 2006 at 4:42am EDT by Raubant