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My Experience
Hello everyone, I'm new to ADDitude but found all the information very helpful. I thought I would say hi and tell you a little about my story, what has worked, and where I'm stuck. I have 6 kids (12, 7, 7, 6, 1, and 0). One son age 7 is my step son and he has ADHD and is on a 504 at school. He's also very asthmatic so there are medical complications there. Although I'm the step dad, I'm the most active parent in his day to day life which I love.
We've gone through a lot of meds. Right now we're on Daytrana 20mg patches which are a godsend. He's night and day different on his patch. I highly recomend this medicine, except... The poor kid has no appetite what so ever. I have to feed him late at night hours after the meds are gone. We take the patch off when he's home around 3:30 every day and by 8:30 he's hungry. He's only about 40lbs now at age 7.
Here is the catch and I can't find any articles that really help. If he eats late, which has almost has to, he's up forever. Even without a late nigh meal he can rarely fall asleep before 11. All the other kids (including the oldest) are fast asleep long before that because the house wakes early. So he really never gets enough sleep then makes really bad "choices" in the morning.
Mornings really suck most days. He does the most crazy things. Today, he decided he hates milk and spit it all over the kitchen. A few days ago he was climbing in the bathroom sink smearing toothpaste all over. We do have a rewards system all the kids participate in and now his school also gives him "points". We have a prize bucket which works like a store and all this is great except most often he doesn't care about the prizes because he doesn't seem to think about them until the other kids cash in, then he's crazy upset that he doesn't have the points. We've tried "sentances" which worked well for about 6 months. They calmed him down and for a few days he remembered he doesn't like them. Now he simply won't write them, tears paper, etc..
During the school day when the meds are really working he does excellent. He's above grade level in virtually every subject and causes mostly no problems at all.
Nice to meat ya'll, it's been interesting reading everyones story and tips.
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14 Jan 2008 @ 5:30 PM
17 Jan 2008 @ 10:56 PM