Help!!! My 10 year old son has ADHD, VPD and is gifted to boot. His main problem right now is that he has only grown 1 inch and gained 1 pound in the last year. He is now off his meds for the entire summer for the first time since starting meds more than 3 years ago.
The docs at least agree this is not an option during the school year, The big question is, does anybody have any ideas for me (as a teacher I am home for the summer) to keep my sanity without a prescription for Xanax?? He left for vacation with my ex for 2 weeks so I have time to regain some of my composure, but it all starts again after that.
The first day he locked his sister in the sunroom (no AC), turned off the ceiling fans and turned on the lights. He followed this up by biting her the next day, and then getting bitten by the hamster who was apparently fed up with him as well. We only got done school the 18th and I am already going nuts. Help!!!! Any ideas to help me save my sanity are appreciated. I do understand what to do to help him-I am looking for ideas to help me!!
Re: Summer with No Meds
It may also be that you need to re-evaluate the trade off of him off meds for weight gain vs. health and safety of other family members. Hang in there.
What about trying this?
My kids have been on meds for several years now, they are 13 and 16. My 13 year old is on concerta 36 mg..and she is growing and eating like a weed right now and her growth spurt has just begun. She is almost as tall as me now. It hasn’t affected her growth spurt at all. My 16 year old is on dexadrine 10 mg. and hedidn’t start growing until last summer and when he started growing it didn’t stop. He has grown 6 inches in one year.
Perhaps the Dr. can change his meds, or at least decrease them to allow some room for growth and behavior managment…Nn regards to his growth spurt he may be a late bloomer so I wonder if taking him off meds cold turkey at 10 years old waiting for a growth spurt that may not start for several years….may be a bit premature not to mention it is causing considerable hardship in the home.
Re: What about trying this?
Thanks to everybody, just having people who understand makes things easier. My parents (both MD’s) think he shouldn’t be on meds at all, since he is quite fine when he is with them-well duh, he is fine one on one.
I hate using the TV or the Playstation, but you are right that if he slows down for a bit, his brain won’t turn to mush in a couple of hours a day for one summer.
I wish it was an option to do this another way. He was on Adderall since his dx more than 3 years ago, but last year he started having problems with the nurses office trip…so we tried Concerta and he threatened suicide after only 2 weeks. We tried to go a little longer but his grades were suffering and so were the rest of us. He went back to the Adderall, and then this past fall when Adderall XR came out, we tried that and it was WONDERFUL!!! But that is what seems to have efftected his growth-he has always been underweight but when he stopped growing it sent off a lightbulb with the doc. Unfortunately, he starts our district’s “Upper Elementary” school in September and being the only ADHD kid in the gifted class makes him less thrilled with the idea of going to the nurse for meds. The Adderall XR change also corresponded with a change in his grades from A-b territory to straight A’s and a Presidential award for Academic excellence. This makes it hard for me to want to go back to the regular Adderall-the higher grades and lack of the crash effect at recess time has increased his self-esteem. The fact that his 2 younger sisters are both taller than him and weigh more has been a little painful for him. Thank-you for remindeing me that kids do grow at different rates and he could just be in a resting phase.
My ex does have the kids 2 weekends a month in addition to the 2 weeks he has them right now. Unfortunately more than that is unlikely due to the fact that he works out of state. There are weekends when he doesn’t even come home, he sends his mother to pick them up and she takes them for the weekend instead.
Thanks so much to those of you who responded, the emotional support is very much appreciated.pattim wrote:
>
> My kids have been on meds for several years now, they are 13
> and 16. My 13 year old is on concerta 36 mg..and she is
> growing and eating like a weed right now and her growth spurt
> has just begun. She is almost as tall as me now. It hasn’t
> affected her growth spurt at all. My 16 year old is on
> dexadrine 10 mg. and hedidn’t start growing until last summer
> and when he started growing it didn’t stop. He has grown 6
> inches in one year.
>
> Perhaps the Dr. can change his meds, or at least decrease
> them to allow some room for growth and behavior
> managment…Nn regards to his growth spurt he may be a late
> bloomer so I wonder if taking him off meds cold turkey at 10
> years old waiting for a growth spurt that may not start for
> several years….may be a bit premature not to mention it is
> causing considerable hardship in the home.
Re: Summer with No Meds
I’m very sorry to hear of your situation. When you ds started Adderall the first of this year at age 14, the doctor said that some children experience a problem in weight loss when they are young but he wasn’t concerned about my ds at his age. My ds is probably about right for his age, weight wise, but if he lost 5 pounds, we would definitely have a problem with that.
I hope the meds are not the reason and your ds just hasn’t reached a big growing spurt yet.
Clearly you’re in for quite a summer and you deserve the mother of the year medal for it. If there are things that help to settle your son, (films?) pop one in and have a sitter come in for a few hours to give you a break. Take a long bath at night? Send out for pizza? And let the dust mount. Anything you can do to give yourself a break is what you should do to help yourself.
Will you ex do more than the two weeks? Does he or can he spend a night on two a week with your ex?
As you know how to help your son, your sanity is only placed at risk by the amount of work you need to do to do that. The only way to cut down on that work is to have someone else step in for a few hours to let you step out or at the least let the other less important tasks slide for the summer while you’re so busy.
Good luck.