my 14 year old ADD... what should I do? .. how do I help her

If she is depressed she should get treatment for the depression. Depression can cause difficulties with concentration which can be mistaken for ADD. It can also impede thought processes, thus making it more difficult for her to process information.

My daughter took a long time to learn to read, too. We found that a Text-To-Speech program was very helpful for her. It allowed her to “read” at the same level as her peers. It helped her gain more confidence since she could access grade level materials such as her school books. A side benefit was that it helped her visually track what was being read so it helped with a visual issue. She only needed it for a couple of years to get to a place where she could read at grade level on her own.

Friends is a more difficult problem to tackle. Is she involved in any activities outside school? It may be a way for her to connect with people without the competition of academics.

Part of the reason she likely has no friends is because others are encouraged to see her as “different” and “less than” themselves and likely they are not nice to her. Not because of any of her issues but because kids are mean. You did her a disservice in getting her a lable because others only see the lable they are not able to see the person beneath it. Getting her help to overcome the issues she has was wise. Getting her labled no wise. Good to find out how she learns best and to insist on using those methods bad to make her other than others just because she learns differently. Because that just creates a bad climate for her and sets and ugly tone for her entire life.

good luck

You hit the nail on the head again Mandi!

“You hit the nail on the head again Mandi!”

Don’t i always? (just teasing)

Second issue, the medicine makes her irritable. Did you ever think the medicine is not helping her? It could and very well may be a huge piece of her depression and irritability. You have to get people on the right medicine if they are going to be on medicine. Also, i hardcore stand against children taking meds unless they are a deliberate physical threat to themselves or others. She does not sound like such a case. I would see another doctor and check on the meds. They all have side effects and the brain reacts in different people somewhat differently if you are hell bent on having her on meds. She likely won’t thank you for it either as you are screwing up her brain’s development. Has she been on her drugs for more than 3 years? If so, you are in trouble because chances are what you have her on no longer even helps her. In which case, all she is getting from it are the side effects that are screwing with her mood and the long term side effects which i have no idea what they are. These drugs are nowhere near as safe as you are being lead to believe. Infact doctors get pay checks for putting children on them fromn big pharma. What is worse, her brain will not develop normally as it otherwise would have now and ofcourse she is stuck with all the drug side effects and the bad mood. You are at fault for this and i hope to the gods and back that someday she holds you accountable for giving in to the fear mongering. I don’t talk to my family anymore. Because in the early 90s some shrink told them adhd would turn into the ebola virus by the time i hit 16 and before 20 it would be full blown AIDs. This expert from harvard masquerading as a doctor is no longer legally able to practice due to the ties found between him and the drug companies. He would tell anyone anything they needed to hear just to drug their kid. Today, i am drug free. I am an archaeologist i speak in 6+ languages and i live in europe where it is virtually unheard of for children to be put on drugs for this kind of crap. May i suggest to you getting a few second opinions both on what meds to abuse her with and what the problem actually is for her.

What state do you live in? Because if you are in Mass i can recommend you to the only sane and rational expert i have ever met. (I saw him as an adult and chose to be on drugs because what he gave me actually helped. I am off them now as we live in europe and well i can’t get them here and it is better to be on nothing than anything else for me personally.) Anyway, if i were going to trust my child’s doctor this is the only doctor i would see in the state of MA. So if you want his name if you are in this state let me know.

One last point i need to make to you about meds, virtually none of them were designed to be used in the still developing brain ie in children. NONE of them was developed for that purpose. You really should do your homework and not just listen to the rants of the fear mongers making money off of your child’s suffering. I know you are busy and this person has a piece of paper that says he is an expert, so what? it is just a piece of paper. What you have is far more serious and binding. A life long obligation to the child that you chose to create and bring into this world. Whagt she owes you, is nothing. You owe her everything so before you go trusting her brain to so called experts just because they have a flimsy piece of paper perhaps you should read all sides of everything and then discuss with her what to do about the situation. This is her life yes? And she is a teenager. She should have some say in her own treatment. Sounds from this like she doesn’t. Like she is just this manouverable object that everyone has an agenda for perhaps she is depressed because no one has considered her feelings or desires from life as they have been too caught up in the fear mongering of the medicine pushing experts with the flimsy piece of paper? Some parents…. Please go read up at ablechild.com
If you are not a halfwit you will also sign up for a mailing list called the wildest cults. Next read some of the books by dr. breggin and dr. Baughman. educate yourself don’t rely on others to take care of you and your child. They are in BUSINESS they are there to make the most proffit for the least amount of work possible. What is wrong with some parents?!

the thing about it is…
you take a child to get tested, evaluated and you go from there..

mandi, I dont think you get it. How can a parent avoid their child being “labeled”.
same is with a child being sick.. you find out what is wrong and that’s where the “diagnosis” comes in.. how can someone be treated if you dont find out what is wrong with them.
her tests scores very low, her IQ is of mental retarded level, she could not concentrate or read. the testing was to see what i could do to HELP her.. needed to know what I was dealing with.
I dont care how many degrees or languages you have, by the way, learn to spell (label)..
I do not regret taking my child to have testing done to see what I could do for her. Yes, I have waivered every year on whether or not to give her the medicine or not. I always take her off in the summer. I have done a lot of research and am trying to become informed. thats how I found this website.

A parent can read up on the subject and run similar or the same tests themselves at home. Or a parent can take their kid to be observed privately and labled at which point the parent ca refuse to provide any lables to the child or to the school but insist on the basis of findings that the child receive the help they need and show the school the portions of the findings of the testing with all references to the LDs the child may be suffering from blacked out. And all references to LD blacked out only showing the portion where the tester suggests the best methods of teaching to your child thus leaving no one aware of anything as the parent has control of how much info reaches the school. A parent also has the power to homeschool something i will be doing with my own child when i have one. A parent also has the option of looking into a wide variety of private schools. Theres alot open to parents that parents are just too busy to deal with int he way that is most beneficial for their children so they take on this misguided philosophy that what is best for them is also best for their kids. Sadly we saw how well the trickle down effect worked courtesy of good old W Bush.

As for diagnosis and disease comparisons for some of these learning disabilities there is no evidence. With a disease you can run organic tests that show there is a legitimate illness. Children react to things there is no link to half of this stuff to genetics a recent paper actually proved that though i would still like to see some more studies done on the issue personally. It doesn’t matter what is wrong. For example, if you have syphilis does it really matter what it is called or does it matter that it is traceable and they can see that your brain is literally swiss cheese and that they give you penicilin??? Which is more important having a bogus name for it? Because i can think of some other bogus names for stuff from other time periods for example the N word. That was used in a time when man denied the equality of african americans and insisted they were less than human as their brains had to be as different as their skin color. (the common belief was that the brains were roughly half the size of those of the white people) This crap was put forward by scientists from Harvard even into the 1980s. So yeh i do think words hurt and lables hurt. And if you missed that lesson insensitivity training maybe you are having trouble focusing and should pop some class 2 ritalin that effects the brain the same way as cocaine. I had cocaine forced down my throat physically in my teens against my will based on a diagnosis that reads as followed, “X displays none of the symptoms of ADHD yet it is clear she has it.” not 1 organic test was done. Because none exists. The sole basis upon which this LD is diagnosed is displaying of behaviors loosely put behaviors too that all of us display to varying degrees. From this report that said that, my parents held me down on the floor every day and forced my jaws apart and fed me the equivalent of cocaine. I bet they didn’t tell you that is what ritalin is. They didn’t tell my parents it waould cause me serious anxiety stress and all sorts of other massive side effects including bad moods and severe depression. Oops! Instead they said i displayed none of the symptoms but that i was ADHD and should be medicated or it would turn into ebola and then into AIDS. So forgive me if my trust is dead and buried. This isn’t a disease. Those of us with LD are not diseased nor are we a disease how dare you say that? See this is what i mean you get labled and all anyone sees is a disease they don’t see alot of stuff that they should. Because all that is visible is that lable. Helping someone does not including giving them a subjsective diagnosis that inspires terror in others. How is that helpful? Finding out what is wrong in the brain and finding out how to treat it in some cases with medicine but often without medicine is a far better alternative. The system is set up totally slanted. You go in for an ADHD diagnosis you are walking into a kangaroo court.

Well that is another part of your problrem just pulling her off these drugs int he summer is stupid as it may not even be safe and may be doing more harm than good. These drugs take on average when taken regularly, a month to “detox” from them and then closer to another 6 months to go through all the withdrawal symptoms and to come out on the other side. But that would never have occurred to you to think about nor to her doctor to tell you. And the fact remains the more she is on these drugs the more her brain will likely be damaged.

I don’t know what her issues are or what drug/s she is on. ADHD does not cause atleast not by itself the equivalent of testing in the retarded range. That sounds like it is developmental and something else entirely. ADHD does not do that. So i think you should see a rational sane “expert” who knows that there is more than 1 diagnosis even in the book when someone u nder the age of 30 walks through their door.

You needed a nasty name to give it. Yeh why? what good does having a name for it do? If you want to help her you should sy you want to know how she learns what the best methods are and for them to leave out all references to any and all LDs as what you want is to know how to help her not what cruel names can be used to demean her. That isn’t help. If you have wavered on the issue then you know what you should trust your instincts that cause you to waver and get her off the meds for good for the long term and see in a year with other kinds of help how she is doing. You are wavering because you wonder how necesary it really is. So find out. Don’t trust the words of those who are taking money from big pharma to sell their drug to young children. Be a mother and stand up for goodness sake. Becasuse, if you don’t do it, no one else is gonna. Because if you don’t do it and learn how to advocate to get what you wonder about checked out at the very least, she will never learn to advocate for herself either. You want a smart daughter show her what it is to be a smart woman. She will learn. Over time. But don’t do every ding dong thing you can to mess up her brain… Many of these drugs you are supposed to detox from in a psych ward slowly over time just stopping cold turkey is not even advised. Seriously what are you doing to her? If it has taken her to the age of 14 for you to start to study and research and learn and this has been a life long issue then i am sorry where have you been her entire life??? I really don’t get you… or what you think you are doing or what you are trying to do but you can’t not say what she is on and not say what she is diagnosed with and do alot of really dumb stuff with her medicine and not expect to hear oh my god what is wrong with you? Have you even done a detailed study of what her medication is and what the side effects of it are? Please tell me what drugs you have her on so that i can look them up for you and present you with some facts about them and all that you are not hearing evidently from your doctor. These are serious drugs they are not toys for on again off again usage.

I mentioned my degrees to make a point. I am both ADHD (accorrding to half the shrinks i have seen the other half say i am normal.) But i am also dyslexic. I mentioned my degrees because i have them. With or with out LD i did the work it wasn’t easy and i acomplished something. My point was, anyone with LD is just as able to do so as i was. However, not many have the tenacity to do it the way that i did in the face of everything going against them including those who should be supporting them and the foundation upon which they can stand while they reach for the stars. I made these posts because you don’t seem to know jack about the medicines you have your child on or about the industry you are employing to help her or how it far too frequently works. As a result, you have done stuff that is really contra-indicated. I realize you want to help your child but the best way you can do that is by seeing her for who she is and nurturing the person not just the LD and to not give in to the fear mongering.

As for why she has no friends, aufully rude to tell a dyslexic person to learn how to spell don’t you think? Perhaps it is because you are responsible for a large amount of her social education. And if you didn’t realize reading my post that i had severe dyslexia than obviously i compensate well enough to be a succesful member of society for the vast most part. And if you couldn’t tell then clearly all these LDs can’t really be as horrifying and life shattering as they lead you to believe. Also, ADHD, does NOT involve developmental delays. That would be something else entirely. You might want to have that looked into. Because i suspect, you have her on bad medication for her and putting her off and on and off and on is only going to make your problems and hers worse.

I responded as i did because i know the dangers. And i know how the well intentioned can do some really idiotic inexcusable things for which they just crow about their desire to help. But helping is a calculated thing. You research everything available. You ask questions of many different groups. You don ‘t just take the word of 1 expert. You also keep your own eyes open and talk to the person to be helped to see what they feel they need also. Otherwise it really isn’t help it is a reaction to fear that someone else has instilled in you. I understand that and i understand you are trying to do the right thing. But what you are doing is not getting results that are doing anything positive for your child so time to go back to the drawing board and start over again using a different road map to get directions from. Because the one you are presently using is just getting you more and more lost.

I suggest that you must created an friendly and gentle environment and encouragement is also important factor to improve his study.