Does anyone have a kid like this?

Caren, my son 8 yrs (ADD/In) is exactly as you described him. His thoughts just run all over the place. His IQ is very high but he performs lower than his IQ. It was very frustrating for him and us. He does much better on a one to one basis, but that is tough too. The one day, we were doing homework and he just could not focus, I asked him why, and he said, “because I am trying to think about this paper in front of me, and then there is another piece of paper in my desk at school, and that other piece of paper over there in the kitchen table. I cannot just think about this piece of paper in front of me, the answer won’t come.” Caren, it is like what you said, one thing triggers another and another and another and soon the child is lost in his thoughts and confused. Meds have helped tremendously, it helps him focus. He is now doing things that he was not capable of doing months ago. His reading has improved by leaps and bound. I have hopes for my child.

You must know what I feel like, people don’t believe our kids are ADD because of the lack of external symptoms. But what is going on in their heads is maddening. They are often mistaken for airheads instead of the genius’s they really are. We are fortunate that they even get diagnosed. They are often overlooked, educationally, and fall through the huge cracks in the classroom floor. I have to fight all the time for him to get a good education. My son’s strong cognitive abilities hurts him, in terms of accomodations. I think he might get a better education if he wasn’t so smart.

hi, i need to chime in here,

my daughter has adhd/inattentive type, shes 11 yo. she presents no behavior problems in class. other kids do however. and when they do the teachers yell and sometimes keep them late. she was walking by the music room and heard the music teacher calling the kids a bunch of idiots who sound like cats drowning in a lake. is this necessary? its music for goodness sake. she is intimidated by this. also her ears are very sensitive to loud sounds. it bothers her when people yell.

if the teachers have a problem with behavior from one or two kids, shouldn’t they address those kids and not the whole class? IMHO this is a way of getting peer pressure to do their job. it would seem to me that the kids who are constantly creating problems have issues themselves. are these not being addressed? is it right to address them this way? peer pressure on the kids with issues could be damaging to them as well, or it could play right into their hands and get them the attention they want from their peers. either way, there are better ways to address it, no?

also her 504 plan is not being followed yet again. her main teachers are great, its the other classes like chorus and writing where she runs into problems. they dont seem to do whats necessary for her, like the preferential seating for starters. im just starting to get really frustrated once again. when we started the year in a new school, i thought from the feedback and promises that this would be so much better. it is better, but still not what it needs to be. how can i make them understand? and is it acceptable for teachers to behave the way i have described?

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Bumping again to get rid of trash on the board

Well I see many different spectrums of AD/HD symptoms. I have four. They are different in each and yet also similiar.
One boy is hyped up and couldnt sit still. At 6 years old he couldnt focus long enough to color. SCribble a couple of times…I’m done. He was very aggressive. WHen it came to learn and sit in a classroom, he could not stay on task. He would make up the words as he read and thought nothing of it.
My other son…very antsy. instigator and loves to stir things up. Very smart boy, but staying on task was virually nil. EVen with medication now as long as he is kept busy and not bored he does great but give him unstructured recess and he is off the wall. Running crazy and constantly shakin a leg. He literally tore his room up many times, destroyed things ect. (still does)

One daughter would just get up anytime she wanted. couldnt stay on task. Could not walk in the halls.Everything was at a dead run. It was not unusual for her just to get up and go in the hall if she felt the impulse. No matter what the consequence of her bahviors. Just didnt make a difference.

Then there is my “unique” daughter. She is gifted I know. Her vocabulary far exceeds any of her age and has since kindergaten. However she can not follow directions. she still needs lists and then to follow it is another thing. There have been times I thought she could see through walls. I remember once telling her brush your hair and make your bed. She proceeded to brush her bed. To get dressed she wouldliterally sit on the floor in her bedroom because a hanger caught her eye. Then she would be into the hanger for who knows how long. Yes she is also on meds, but still(she’s 11) if she doesnt list things she cant follow through. She has no sense of yesterday to this morning She could be a Straight A student however she has absolutely no organization. She will do the work and not hand it in. I truly cant imagine where whe sould be without medication. Oh yeah she is the one who has to haev just right socks, just right underwear, no tags. she sorts her hamburger meat out of her spaghettisauce and her tuna out otf the Helper.

They told me a long time ago you gotta have a sense of humor. Mine is better when I look back at things but man oh man ADHD life can be very stressful and trying to all of us dealing with it…parents teachers peers ect.

Lots of similarities and lots of differnces in each individual child. Quite colorful people these kids with ADHD eh

This is a great thread that needs to be brought up on the board.

I have a nephew like that. Not every ADHD person is as you describe but some can be. My nephew cannot connect thoughts in a logical way. He cannot stay on a topic in his thinking or in conversation. So he cannot draw logical conclusions as to do so would mean he would need to think in a linear way.

Where my nephew did well was on his SATS. There one question does not relate to the next. Those tests are written like he thinks.

Good luck.

I have to chime in here. God help us, our WHOLE house is exactly how you describe your son!

I have two boys 14 and 13,we can’t even get through vocabulary words,without my oldest having the urge to read and discuss every other word,it’s orgin,and what it means,thorough out the dictionary. If my youngest hears he chimes in and then next thing you know we’re all discussing the word. Not that it is on their vocabulary list! And they still have 10 more words to define. It does get maddening.

If it helps your child is not alone,and there are a LOT of companies and corporations just waiting for your son to finish school. They are looking for a mind just like this. Protect him from school,keep him feeling good about who he is,and he’ll be okay:-)

Sounds like a regular day at my house too! If the truth be told, I LIKE the tangents.

Andrea

Gosh my son was just like this. A million ideas that went nowhere. He has gotten much better with remediation of his underlying deficits.
Interactive Metronome really helped as did OT, vision therapy and audiblox.

I think the thing that helped the most was just working with him on some specific logic exercises and trying to help him find logic in our discussions. I tend to be all over the place myself and it is fun to have him be that way.

Still, I realized that he was not able to use his intelligence well unless he could connect his thoughts with some logic. He wants to invent everything and has great ideas but not the practical skills needed to take his ideas places.

Try www.criticalthinking.com

Order their gifted catalog. It has some great workbooks for thinking skills.

My son is much better at expressing his genius to the world. He is still a lot of fun but passing me by quickly.

We don’t do academics but rather work on underlying sensory and cognitive issues, memory, visual perception, logic and reasoning, visualization etc..

I find this approach really works to improve all the academic and behavioural issues in a lot less time.

Love the critical thinking webbsite Linda! Thanks, I like finding things that capitalize on alternative thinking. I’ll pass it on

:roll: I have a 15 year old son who is diagnosed ADHD, inattentive also and like others have posted on this thread he is not a behavior problem in school. Matter of fact most his teachers discount the fact he has ADHD because of this. He is VERY queit and slow moving, he has the hypoactive type of ADHD. Not many people are aware that some ADHD students have what is known as a slow cognitive tempo. It is not that these students are not of average intelligence or better, it is that they do things more slowly. The biggest difficulties are getting started and being organized. Sometimes it is very painful to watch how slowly DS does things, but you know what he does complete them and accurately. I wish more people knew about this type of ADHD because the behaviors do interfere with school performance but because the students are not behavior problems they are just considered lazy or unmotiviated. I had my son’s special ed director tell this to me that my son was just unmotiviaited. What sense does that make here is a 15 year old that recognizes he has difficulty in school and voluntarily takes summer school to try and help himself? He also comes in before and after school if he does not understand things, or has not completed a project or assignment to receiver help. That does not sound unmotiviated to me.

Sometimes it seems our kids aren’t really ADHD. They are so different I can barely believe it’s the same disorder. But I know it is.

[quote=”fonZ”]Well I see many different spectrums of AD/HD symptoms. I have four. They are different in each and yet also similiar.
One boy is hyped up and couldnt sit still. At 6 years old he couldnt focus long enough to color. SCribble a couple of times…I’m done. He was very aggressive. WHen it came to learn and sit in a classroom, he could not stay on task. He would make up the words as he read and thought nothing of it.
My other son…very antsy. instigator and loves to stir things up. Very smart boy, but staying on task was virually nil. EVen with medication now as long as he is kept busy and not bored he does great but give him unstructured recess and he is off the wall. Running crazy and constantly shakin a leg. He literally tore his room up many times, destroyed things ect. (still does)

One daughter would just get up anytime she wanted. couldnt stay on task. Could not walk in the halls.Everything was at a dead run. It was not unusual for her just to get up and go in the hall if she felt the impulse. No matter what the consequence of her bahviors. Just didnt make a difference.

Then there is my “unique” daughter. She is gifted I know. Her vocabulary far exceeds any of her age and has since kindergaten. However she can not follow directions. she still needs lists and then to follow it is another thing. There have been times I thought she could see through walls. I remember once telling her brush your hair and make your bed. She proceeded to brush her bed. To get dressed she wouldliterally sit on the floor in her bedroom because a hanger caught her eye. Then she would be into the hanger for who knows how long. Yes she is also on meds, but still(she’s 11) if she doesnt list things she cant follow through. She has no sense of yesterday to this morning She could be a Straight A student however she has absolutely no organization. She will do the work and not hand it in. I truly cant imagine where whe sould be without medication. Oh yeah she is the one who has to haev just right socks, just right underwear, no tags. she sorts her hamburger meat out of her spaghettisauce and her tuna out otf the Helper.

They told me a long time ago you gotta have a sense of humor. Mine is better when I look back at things but man oh man ADHD life can be very stressful and trying to all of us dealing with it…parents teachers peers ect.

Lots of similarities and lots of differnces in each individual child. Quite colorful people these kids with ADHD eh[/quote]

Not to mention personal goods left behind in all sorts of venues. I swear hansel and gretel could follow us home with the trail we leave.
one question-the perfect socks, no tags and picky eater-isms seem more like Sensory Integration expressions to me. Wish I knew more about the progress of SI-any takers?? We have made some progress in this area due mostly to getting older.

I connot ever imagin my child (Prdom Inattentive) ever being responsible for a cell phone, or car keys. YAH! A CAR!

Kyle, 8, is that way. He thinks so far outside the box, he makes things hard for himself. I remember last summer when I was having a friend tutor him,he had to answer sentances with “yes” or “no”. One sentance was “Can a duck pick up junk?” Kyle said “yes”, when questioned about his answer, he said “It can if it’s trained to!”

In 2nd grade last year he had to write spelling sentances every Thursday night. It would take over an hour to write 6 sentances because he was trying to find the “perfect” sentance.

He’s so busy seeing the forrest, he’s missing the trees (to paraphrase an old saying)