Life with ADHD

I found myself going through the motions of the day to day routine. When my son reached nine months he developed croup, I thought he was dying and became really scared, of course he wasn’t but that shock jolted me to reality and from there I could build on my relationship with my son.

As he got older, I knew that there was something different about him. He seemed a lot slower than other kids and was extremely clumsy. I lost count of the times he walked into a door, fell over, walked into a wall. I got his eyes checked several times, got his hearing checked for imbalance, but no, I was told he was “fine”.

My son started School at the age of four. While in Nursery I was told he lacked the skills of knowing the primary colors, which surprised me as I had regularly gone through them with him and he had known them but he refused to know them at school, I was also told that he couldn’t hold a pencil correctly. That never worried me, I thought it would come in time and bought some pencil grips to help him learn to hold his pencil, but he just took them off.

My son went in to his first year of infants and I was told he needed help with maths and English. I was content in knowing he was getting the help he needed.

When my son reached four, he was a very hyper active child, never sat still, forever talking, just constantly on the go, he was very tiring to watch. I met my husband when he was four and eventually we all moved in together and of course my son changed school.

On his first day, I was called into the head masters office and told he had problems. I was expecting to hear about his school work, but his problems were that he ran round the play ground pretending to be a monster and scaring the other children. I dismissed this and said to the head teacher, how many other four year olds join in role play.

As his school year progressed, I was told that he was a bit behind in his school work but he will soon catch up. I was then horrified to find that because of his disrupting behaviour he was sent out of class with the care taker to help him do his jobs. I had asked this to stop and the school said that he never was alone with the caretaker, but they would stop it. I found out through another parent that it hadn’t stopped, and also found out that my son was alone with this man a lot. My son told me how he was given sweets for cuddling and for walking through doors nicely. My son told me how the care taker liked to kiss him and put his arm round him. The school and social services and the police brushed my complaints away. I moved his school again.

When my son started this new school, everything was fine for the first two weeks. I was called in and told how my son was at nursery level, although he was just starting Juniors. I was really upset. They showed me what work they had laid out for him so that they can assist him in catching up.

It wasn’t long before the phone calls started asking me to come in. My son started disrupting his classes because he was so frustrated I was told. He would throw chairs around, tables around, books around, really anything he could do just to get his teachers attention and to stop the lesson.

My son started talking about death, he wanted to die. He was now eight years old and hearing him say that was heart breaking. I told him constantly how much I loved him, and by then his brothers also, our house was always full of love but it never seemed enough for my eldest. His tantrums became a daily occurrence at home and at school. His school work was put on hold while his school supported me in getting him the help he needed.

My husband and I visited a child psychologist, who was a great support and she offered us ideas on how to stop his stealing and tantrums. Yet nothing we tried worked. I eventually called in Social services and asked them for help. That was a big deal for me as I am a proud woman, and hate admitting when I am beat. The social services sent a man round who took my eldest out for an hour once a week, as soon as that started it abruptly stopped and we were back where we started again, with his tantrums, his mood swings and his wish to die.

My eldest, tried to drive his dads car at nine years old, he climbed out of windows to escape. He tried jumping of high walls at school so he could die, he tried jumping out of our upstairs bathroom window because he wanted to see if he could fly. He hit two policemen because he didn’t think they should bring him home, the kids he was with tried to set him on fire.

I can hear many people reading this, and wondering what on earth sort of parent I am. I have been through the stage wondering if it was the way I was at the start of his life, blaming myself. I look at his past now and know it wasn’t anything I did, I have to believe that because I look at my other three children and have brought them up with the same rules and discipline and they don’t do the things my eldest did.

Eventually my eldest was tested for ADHD. He was observed several times on different occasions and my husband and I was interviewed about his birth till the present day. Amazingly he was soon diagnosed with ADHD.

Now came the decision, medicine or not. The meds I was told, would help him concentrate better in school. They weren’t designed to stop the tantrums, but concentration was increased. The doctor explained to me “The function of chemicals in the brain that help regulate attention and activity (dopamine and norepinephrine). These were not balanced well.

The meds that would be given to my son would help level out these chemicals in the brain. There were also some cons, that he could have and irregular heart beat and his height could be stunted. The doctor explained that his height and heart and blood pressure would be regularly checked and the meds stopped if there is any major change.

My husband and I went away and talked about our situation and the way our son was feeling about himself and his school work. We both came to the decision of trying him on them to see what change it made.

Our son was started on a low dose at first and it built up till we saw a change. What a change there was. While taking the medicine he was like a different boy. He became calmer, more focused again, his school work started improving and most importantly he smiled again.

I couldn’t get used to him on his meds though; he was like someone else’s child and decided to stop them, selfish on my part. Within a few days the sulky boy came back, tantrums and phone calls. I knew then that if my son hadn’t got ADHD then he probably would be the boy he was on the meds, I placed him back on them.

Now my son is eleven years old. He has been on the meds for approximately three years. He has had no side affects. He can now at eleven read to me, his maths have improved greatly and his English. He left his junior school and went to a unit for child with special needs as he is still behind on his school work but now more like a year rather than several years. He is trying so hard at school and I am so proud at the way he pulled him self back. I am so grateful to his junior school for supporting and helping us find out why he was acting the way he was.

There may be people out there that think that I was a bad parent, but believe me, I tried everything I could to control him. Some may think he needed a good smacking, but when you smack a child and he laughs at you, you know that its not going to work. I was trying to get him out of his violent behaviour also so what would I be teaching him by smacking him?

If you decide to look up on ADHD on the internet, I suggest don’t believe all you read, the best source of information is from a trained doctor on the subject. I read on the internet that a common cause of ADHD is a mother, smoking or drinking alcohol while pregnant, but ironically my eldest was the only one I didn’t have a cigarette or drink with. I have no idea really why my son has got ADHD and I no maybe someone just thinks he is a naught child, but I ask you please don’t judge until you read up on the facts. My last question, would you give your child the meds?