In the winter of 2010 my six year old son was struggling in school. He attends a Charter School with high expectations of behavior. He was excelling at the top of his first grade class, but he was disruptive, distracted, and talked way too much. He came home with a discipline card almost everyday. As a Child Development professional and as a parent, I desired to take a closer look at what was going on in the classroom.
I met almost daily with his teacher to discuss the reasons and background for the discipline cards and how my husband and I could help. After taking time to observe my dear son in class and discussing a few ideas with his awesome, understanding and patient first grade teacher, I felt it was important to discuss my considerations with my son's pediatrician. We were given the typical ADHD forms to fill out.
My son's teacher graciously completed the forms. My husband and I completed a set too. The pediatrician said it was likely that our son had ADD not ADHD, but since most problems were only seen at school it was hard to tell. Having been in the Child Development professional for over 15 years, I truly desired to look for alternatives to medication treatments for ADD/ADHD. Our family met with a Child Psychiatrist from Michigan State University. More forms to complete and books to read. I tried to read the suggested material but being introduced to them in my professional life, I was not really sold on their ability to help with the problem or the validity of the process. I will not name the two primary resources here that were suggested by the psychiatrist as they may work for others.
All through this process of diagnosis and behavior therapy (more consistent consequence & more communication), my dear son was still thriving in his class academically. How can you argue with an extremely articulate 6 year old that he needs to focus more when he is in the top of his class and school work comes easily. Then came spring standardized testing. The charter school my son attends completes computerized standardized testing on every student in every grade three times a year. A general achievement goal is set that the children are expected to be able to meet. Every segment of previous testing my son exceeded the goal. Yeah, Son! The spring testing was the exception. He did show growth from the winter scoring, but not where he should have been.
Another meeting with his teacher, mentally charting the behavior/discipline cards received, and the challenges at home, my husband and I decided it was time to reevaluate our coping strategy. Back to the Child Psychiatrist's office at MSU. This time we reviewed the above scenario with the doctor. We looked at a medication treatment for my son. He started out a a very, very low dose of 2.5 of quick release Adderall one time a day. A side note . . . . the doctor was concerned about the loss appetite side effect as my son was at that point 7 years old, 46 inches tall and weighed 47 pounds.
More on the results of the new medication therapy in my next post.
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