Getting child to take meds.

Perhaps the meds are giving her anxiety? What about seeing a psychiatrist who who can monitor and change her medication? Anxiety can be a part of the ADD as well and perhaps she needs something like Xanax to curb the anxiety she faces. I know a woman who take Paxil but when she gets anxious she takes xanax in addition to the Paxil. It isn’t very often that she has to take the anxiety medication but at least it is avaliable to her when she needs it.

The psychologist and my pediatrician considered that but her anxiety is not generalized. I don’t really want to give her another med since other areas of her life are not impacted by the anxiety. It’s very situation specific. But thanks for your input. I think we may have to continue with education about ADD and meds. until she decides that she wants to take the meds. It may not happen, but I don’t feel comfortable forcing my child to take meds, even though I know her school performance would improve and things would be easier for her.

I agree about not forcing her. I never force my child into anything. If the meds are making her feel “weird” at 8 years old she may not be able to express in words why she fears taking them.

Her only method of letting you know is to say , “no.”

I think you have to respect a child’s wishes on all such issues.

Thanks Linda F.

I think Linda makes a good point. It may be that the meds make her feel bad in ways she can’t express. If you feel that it is appropriate and she is willing, perhaps she would do better on a non-stimulant medication such as Strattera.

We talked about trying staterra. She agreed to give it a try in the psychologist office. I got a trial sample from our MD. When morning came and it was time to take it she screamed and ran under the table, tried coaxing her and reminding her of the things we had discussed in the psychologist office about straterra. She still balked. So we have not tried it yet.

At the risk of sounding tough and uncaring, I feel like I need to share my opion. My 8 yo son never has liked to take meds. When he was sick at about the age 2 my doctor gave me this to think about. This is your child and it is your job as a parent to take care of him. He may not like what you have to do, but you need to do it to help him.
If the meds improve your childs learning and social skills, she needs them. So therefore as a parent you need to find it in yourself to make her take the meds. In the long run she will adjust and then appreciate what you have done for her.
Jodi

I would back off for now something in her experience seems to have scared her.
When you notice she has trouble concentrating on something you could tell her that there is something that can help her and when she is ready to let you know.

Maybe you need to get at what happened to her that made her so afraid of the previous meds.

You could also try something like interactive metronome.www.interactivemetronome.com It really helped my son with alot of the add type symptoms.

When my son was about your daughter’s age we had a “heart to heart” talk about his ADD with the Dr. The Dr. told him and my husband and I there are meds you can take to help you do better but ultimately the change in your behavior is up to you. We were havign problems with his behavior, he would have meltdowns, and get really angry. We ended up not doing meds then as his behavior improved. By the time high school came up we had to do something as his ADD-Inattentive Behaviors were just out of control. So he tried meds, at 14, he was ready. He has been on them for about 3 years and recently he decided that he wanted to try it without meds. It has been up and down but he has now reached a maturity level that we can reason with him and he knows the meds are still there if he wants to take them.

I wouldn’t want to force her to do the meds if she is having this much anxiety. Perhaps you can arrange a talk with the pediatrician to get to the bottom of her anxiety and taking pills. Did she almost choke once on them? Do they do something psychotic to her? In the meantime, perhaps something as simple as music therapy will help with her anxiety. Music is so powerful, my son has been doing music and it has been so beneficial.

Hang in there…take it one day at a time..

my two cents: although her anxiety is situational, it could also be that all her anxiety comes out in this one issue. She keeps it together other places, but let’s it hang out in one place. So the anxiety might not just be about meds.

Talking about how it works and what it’s for can help. But with my daughter it took a long time for her to accept. Part of it is that she so hates being different, and taking the meds accentuates for her that she is different.

And here is an interesting note: she hated the taking the prozac and adderall for years. But when she had to start taking another daily med for another medical condition, all of a sudden she didn’t mind the prozac and adderall. IN fact, she stated clearly that because she trusts her therapist (who she has seen for almost 3 years, and who prescribes the meds) she didn’t mind taking them. But, she told us since she doesn’t trust the other doc (who she barely knows) she didn’t feel ok about taking those med (about which there was absolutely no choice).

Lastly, my daughter has never swallowed pills. Is there something about the pill? Adderall XR can go in applesauce (and perhaps other things). My daughter (age 12) still takes it that way, and liquid prozac, and other meds in pudding.

Hope this helps!

She does not like to swallow pills and we separated the adderal and put it in yogurt- her choice. Because of her anxiety, I ultimately had to end up spoon feeding it to her, this took 30 minutes in the morning. The psychologist has helped. I think taking the medicine, to her, hightens the fact she is different and that is probably the biggest factor in refusing to take the meds. So, our intervention has focused on educating her more about ADD, people and children who have ADD and medicines as well as other strategies that help with ADD. I could force her to take them belive me I have thought about it. That would be the quick easy soloution. However, this is not a life or death issue. Forcing her could backfire. As a young adult, she may resent this and never want anything to do with meds. Would she be able to trust me later, would she view this as a violation of her body?
As she matures, I ultimately trust her intelligence and judgement to decide. She can functioni in the classroom - she just needs major outside of the classroom work to keep up. I think we will just keep educating her on her options. We have also tried incentives to take the medicine but she still refuses, she would rather do extra work. I have explained that she may not have to do as much extra work to keep up in school with the meds. She still refuses. I have to listen to my gut - and it says not to force but to give her options. Maybe this is wrong but I’m the one who has to live with it. Thanks so much for all of your input and concern.

She does not like to swallow pills and we separated the adderal and put it in yogurt- her choice. Because of her anxiety, I ultimately had to end up spoon feeding it to her, this took 30 minutes in the morning. The psychologist has helped. I think taking the medicine, to her, hightens the fact she is different and that is probably the biggest factor in refusing to take the meds. So, our intervention has focused on educating her more about ADD, people and children who have ADD and medicines as well as other strategies that help with ADD. I could force her to take them belive me I have thought about it. That would be the quick easy soloution. However, this is not a life or death issue. Forcing her could backfire. As a young adult, she may resent this and never want anything to do with meds. Would she be able to trust me later, would she view this as a violation of her body?
As she matures, I ultimately trust her intelligence and judgement to decide. She can functioni in the classroom - she just needs major outside of the classroom work to keep up. I think we will just keep educating her on her options. We have also tried incentives to take the medicine but she still refuses, she would rather do extra work. I have explained that she may not have to do as much extra work to keep up in school with the meds. She still refuses. I have to listen to my gut - and it says not to force but to give her options. Maybe this is wrong but I’m the one who has to live with it. Thanks so much for all of your input and concern.

I can remember reading once that you should never force your child to kiss the relatives. Doing so implies that affection can be forced upon them and they have no choice in the matter. It has implications for later in life with regards to saying no to forced affection.

If we send a message to a young child that they have no choice about their body when it comes to something like meds what does that say about peer pressure later on and making good choices. Will this be a child who is empowered to feel saying no is her choice or is the decision someone elses?

I think you are making the right decision to let her come to this in her own way. I would make sure you point out the inattention. Make it clear what exactly is causing her the difficulty.

Oddly, I have chosen to wait on the med question for now but one day I asked my son, “If there was a pill that would make it easier for you to focus on your work would you take it.” He said, “Yes.”

That was before other interventions and other things that have helped. I may still go there if he starts to really falter in school.

I do point out how the inattention causes her to miss what’s going on in class and why things take longer - because of refocusing. Funny, before we introduced meds, I asked her the same question about if there was medicine yuo could take to help….? She said yes, she would take it and we did. For a while it was OK then later it became a problem. I tried so may things before meds. Diet, natural supplements, etc. None of them worked. Fortunately, we have a good teacher who works with us. However, I need to start thinking about next year. She is enrolled in a public Montessori school and loves it. She had the same teacher last year. Ages 6-9 are group together so I will probably request the same teacher again. Thanks for your support.

What does she say to you when you ask her what’s the matter?

She has said “it makes me feel different” she sually can’t elaborate much on this except that it does not make her stomach or head hurt just”different” From what she has told me I don’t think this is a physical feeling or symptom. she also says “I don’t like the taste or gritty texture” . She says that she is scared to take the meds too. We have tried to explore those feelings as well.

If she professes to be ok with taking the medication to the psychologist, and then ‘freaks out’ about it the very next day, I’d first say this psychologist isn’t working out for her. Maybe a different one would be able to establish a better relationship with her.

I’d also say that what your daughter is saying about the medication, is what other children have told me as well. I would say the “it makes me feel different’ is a physical feeling. One of my somewhat older students described their ADD medication as “a hand reaching out and resting on my brain”. It wasn’t painful but they didn’t like the feeling of ‘a hand on the brain’ and they soon stopped taking the meds.

And she says she’s scared? She’s dealing with a lot. Unless one is going to force her or trick her by putting the medicine in her morning milk or something, it doesn’t seem as if this will be easily resolved. Perhaps a different medication would be better or perhaps working with a psychologist she feels more comfortable sharing her real feelings with would help.

Good luck.

Interesting … My son always tells me that he feels exactly the same whether he takes the meds or not, even though he does recognize that he is able to work harder and stay more focused on the meds. If your child feels different in a bad way when taking medication then it really seems counterproductive to me.

Andrea