My oldest son was diagnosed with ADHD a year ago, but he’s been living with it forever.
When he climbed fences and trees and jumped from the highest branch scaring the life out of us, his impulsiveness was a sign of his ADHD. When he was so energetic that playing three league sports (wrestling, football and gymnastics) barely slowed him down, that wasn’t just the ineffable energy of a young boy … it was hyperactivity.
But it wasn’t until the behavior problems started arising at school that we became aware that he couldn’t just “try harder to do better.” He really was already trying as hard as he could to be good and to follow the rules. Unfortunately until recently, we were among the people who were skeptical of both the disorder itself and hesitant that we wanted our kid to be labeled and placed on medication. He struggled for two years before we pursued a diagnosis, and we’re all still working to find the right balance of medication and coping strategies.
Some signs that he needed our help?
Us: What did he say?
School: He called a girl a lesbian. She was walking to her bus, and he was walking to his. He yelled it out across the parking lot.
… started a food fight in the cafeteria.
… spit water on the other boys at the table.
… scratched a classmate on the arm with the rough edges of the plastic ring on a Gatorade bottle.
… drew a phallic picture and passed it around to the entire class.
… called a boy – who he’s been friends with since age 5 – fat.
… plagiarized on his science project, resulting in a test grade of F.
… did front flips when told not to do them unless he was on the trampoline.
… stole his cousin’s sunglasses.
Each time the phone rings, we brace ourselves. Sometimes, the bad news comes home in his bookbag or appears in our email box. Rarely do we hear it first from him. It is as if he has divorced himself of the thing he did when he was in school. We have become parents on the defense; although we never hear the same complaints of our other children who do not have ADHD, we rarely go to any school related function without being confronted by a concerned or angry parent. This disorder is wearing us down. We are treading water at best, and sometimes we are simply drowning.
It isn’t any one thing that Older Son says or does impulsively that is beyond the pale of norm. It is the collection of them put together and their frequency of occurrence.
Medication hasn’t proven helpful yet, but we’re hopeful that when he finds the right kind, dosage, and delivery system, it will. A few days ago, we attended a lecture given by one of the nation’s leading ADHD specialists, and we learned a lot.
One thing we definitely learned is that it will take time and plenty of trial and error to put the suggestions into practice. One thing that demands a lot of undoing is our current punishment system with its lack of tangible rewards. Another is our expectation that he be able to complete a large task without scaffolding.
For a long time, it seemed that charts and tokens with the promise of a concrete reward were no longer working. In truth, we resented having a child who needed to be ‘bribed’ in order to do the most basic tasks, but even when we were past that and tried, our son would somehow manage to sabotage his reward before he earned it. Say he’d lost his iPod and was close to earning it back. On the day before it was to be returned, he’d get in trouble again. Eventually, we lost hope that his behavior could be influenced by a reward system.
However, the specialist has assured us that our son will still work for rewards. We just have to scale back our expectations that he can work as long as we want him to and on as many varied playing fields as we’ve been asking him to perform. Basically, even if the reward is small, as long as it comes quickly after the desired behavior and is linked directly to it, we’re on the right track. Likewise, with consequences (it’s hard to unlearn the word ‘punishment’): they must be delivered with “swift justice.”
And so, armed with more knowledge and the encouragement that we’re not alone in our battle with a disorder that exhausts thousands of parents daily, we will begin again. Each day is a new one and with it, we face challenges we – quite frankly – never wanted as our own, but that are the flip side of one marvelous kid.
“Go into his room after he’s fallen asleep,” Dr. Richardson said, “with a glass of chardonnay if need be, and look at him. This is your child. The child you love.”
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