ADD Diagnosis

Catherine,

Your feelings are absolutely normal. There is an article listed on the home page of this site called something like “LD is Only One Part of the Child” that talks about the way people react to learning that their child has an LD. I can tell you that the way you feel is how I felt when I first learned my about my son. I don’t feel that way now. Perhaps the best thing you can do is to find out as much as you can about your child’s particular difficulties so you can both help him or her and put the matter into perspective. Since you are already posting to this board, it appears you have begun that process. Good luck!

Andrea

Your feelings are certainly normal and they will pass. They say people go through stages when dealing with challenges. Someone just told you something that doesn’t fit the picture of your life as you’ve come to see it. It takes a while to deal with that.

And it takes a while to figure out how best to deal with that. I have two ld/add sons. I found the biggest problem was school, not my children. Every parent wants their child to be successful in school but learning differences can make it hard for a child to be successful.

I guess the hardest things for us as a family were finding our way through all the possible therapies and recommendations. The other was the daily challenge of school and learning to look past the simpler notions that we had of what it meant to be a family.

In fact, these challenges have given us a relationship with our sons that we might not otherwise have found. As they needed support through it all, we learned to be very supportive parents. We learned more of what it really meant when parents say “my child comes first.”

Please don’t misunderstand me. I still wish that life hadn’t dealt my sons the hand it did. And I would be lying if I didn’t tell you for us at times it’s been very hard. But it hasn’t been all bad. I think my younger son has a tremendous sensitivity to others than he learned from all this. They both learned to be very “saavy” very young.

I think we’ve lived a full and happy family life even though there has been some sadness in it. And I think this challenge added a dimension to our family that made us more of one.

Good luck to you and your family.

I know exactly what your going through. I have a 7 year old son who was diagnosed w/ ADHD-LD a little over a year ago. It tore me to piecesI thought I would like to share this with you………..

GRIEVING FOR MY SON
by Alison Stevens

I found many reasons not to grieve:
I didn’t know I was allowed to
I didn’t admit to the severity of my son’s problem
I didn’t even admit he was sick
I blamed myself
I blamed the school system
I blamed the psycologists and their system
I blamed the hospitals and their system
I lived in denial of any problems at all
I went on from day to day, not looking
at the long term
I felt others had worse problems in comparison to
mine (compared my situation with others)
I listened to everyone that would tell me that my son
was “just an active, independent boy”
I thought that if I got better at being a parent, HE
would get better

I found that no matter what excuse I gave myself, after
awhile, an overwhelming sense of sadness and loss
would overcome me everytime I would think or talk
about my son.

After four years of knowing I was dealing with an illness
(or problem) that might last my son’s lifetime, I finally
stopped denying, making excuses, saying all was okay
and let my sadness come forth.

The process now is painful at times, yet I am much
better able to cope and handle situations that arise -
quickly, strongly, and so far, effectively. This way, I
have separated myself from my son and given him
back responsibility for himself and taken responsibility
for myself.

I had to remove myself from my son…
I had to admit that
I am not enough…
Doctors are not enough…
Hospitals are not enough…
Medicine is not enough…
The “perfect friend” is not enough…
His grandparents are not enough…
Another school is not enough…
Reconciling with his father is not enough…
A loving pet is not enough…
A rehabilitation center is not enough…

I had to trust that
My son is enough…
and give him back his responsibility for himself.

Things will work out.
Andrea

The poem by Allison Stevens is full of love, which every ADD child needs. I object to the part about being “sick”. I dropped out of a series of seminars for parents of children with brain disorders because the main speaker kept referring to our children having “broken brains”. My child is ADHD. That means to me a difference in the way the brain processes information. The brain isn’t broken or sick. Schools have trouble teaching our children because they teach to the masses, and not to the individual. My daughter is 11, goes to public school, and takes medication that allows her to focus and process so she can learn what she needs to learn. She didn’t learn to read until 2nd grade, and because her IQ was normal she was labeled LD. She is in 5th now, and reads just as well as most kids her age do. I fully believe that as she continues to mature, she will be more able to adapt to her unique way of processing information, and will be a successful adult. Kids need their parents to believe in them.

Not to discourage you, but we’ve been dealing with ADHD for almost 10 years, and it hasn’t gotten much better. What the frustrating part is that while intelligence may be normal, it is such a hard chore to bring out performance without ALWAYS being there to make it happen. We are at the point now, where our son has to make it more independently (10th grade). My fear is he will not be able to make it in college and enjoy that wonderful experience to the fullest due to poor performance. Military seems a good option for him since he does so well in a structured environment. The next challenge: convincing him!

Hang in there..
We all feel that it’s not fair and that there should be something that we should be able to do.. you know, that whole ” I should have done..” thing. But you have already done the best thing for your child, by getting answers and finding ways to help.

My daughter is ADD and when we had her diagnosed, I didnt want anybody to know, not that I was ashamed of her, but I was hurting for her and I didnt have a clue how to help her.

I did find out that when people do find out about kids having ADD, it is usually the ones that are affected by it the least that have the most to say.

Follow your heart, love your child.. the rest will all happen the way it should.

My daughter who is six was just recently diagnosed with ADD and mixed receptive and expressive language disorder. She has been on Ritalin for six weeks and we just increased her dose. Did your daughter attend a basic classroom or the general classroom? We’re getting ready for the IEP and we need to make that decision soon. I’m told that in the basic classroom they teach the same things as the general class but they get more individualized attention and learn at their own pace. Do you have any experiences that you can share with me?