He failed on Amphets and he didn’t like the way antidepressants made him feel “not like his old self”. My doctors found it annoying that I was letting how he felt decide what meds worked and what didn’t. Why shouldn’t he be the one to decide? He is smart and sensitive and he’s the one that has to live with the feelings all day everyday. BTW, The new Strat is working nicely.
My son is Pure ADD. Not hyper, no anxiety, no behavior or conduct disorders, no learning disabilities, no processing problems. Just inattentive. Not that that isn’t enough, but I know we are lucky. This boy has never brought a day of grief to our family. But since we started kindergarten, over 2 years ago, our lives have changed from happy to stressful. All the things that made my boy fun and charismatic and brilliant and different and fantastic and interesting were suddenly a detrement to his education.
Me; “But he’s barely 5 and almost reading, he understands multiplication and division! He was the lead in the school play, FOR CRYIN OUT LOUD, HE’S AWESOME!!!”
Our school psychologist did a wonderful job and though I hated it, his report was a very accurate picture of what was going on in my boy’s head. “Yes, you’ve done a wonderful job at home with him, just wonderful, but it just doesn’t carry over into the classroom. And yes, the testing proved he is happy and charismatic and brilliant and different and fantastic and interesting. But he can’t learn in a classroom environment, his brain works in a very associationally and tangentially distorted way. Sorry, you will have to find a doctor and seek alternatives.”
Me; “Ummmmm, what?”
I do get resentful because my school can’t find a way to educate him. He’s just different, that’s all. Why can’t there be room in the world for his kind? Does he really have to be like the rest of these drones? He’s Scotty, sheeesh!
So we repeated Kindergarten, he was young, born very early in the school year, it was our option. Now here we are, 7 years old, in first grade. He ranks well into the upper half of his class. He plays in a league sport every season, Basketball, Baseball, swimming, soccor, and takes boxing and wrestling year round at a local gym. He’s not the best at any of these things, but he doesn’t suck either. And he loves it all. He has found God and Christ all on his own, Dad and I are athiests! All we do is buy him comicbook bibles stories, drive him to Sunday school and send him to our kindly Jesus happy neighbor when he has Q’s. Is it all due to his meds? I don’t think so, and I don’t let him think so. Our kids are awesome, the medicine just helps it shine through, it doesn’t do things for them, it isn’t making them who they are, it doesn’t define them.
Make sure they know that!