Hi Sunnishayla, thanks for posting! It's great to hear that you're getting your daughter the help she needs, and that you're learning all you can about attention deficit. While your story hasn't happened to me personally, it's actually very common for a child's diagnosis to lead the parent to get diagnosed with and begin treatment for ADHD.

I'm not sure which articles you've read on this site, but What Your Doctor Needs to Know About Diagnosing ADHD in Adults can help you understand why a complete, accurate diagnosis is the most important step for adults, and lists common next options: ADD medication, hiring a coach, support groups, etc. Have you signed up for the adult ADHD newsletter?

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My 5 1/2 year old son was recently diagnosed with ADHD. My brother's son has ADD, so I called to talk to him for advice about some issues we were having. He said that when my nephew was being tested for ADD, my brother was answering all the questions the same and realized he had it too! (pretty common, I hear). I soooo love my brother and his response....he said he would send me some of the weblinks he's found to be helpful, but once he logs in and sees his e-mails he'll start responding to a few of them and never get around to sending the links! We both had a laugh and I realized he made me feel a lot better about everything. I try to keep a sense of humor when things seem really overwhelming. Try it!

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Hi Sunnishayla! I know where you are coming from. Same thing has happened to me. I have read a few very helpful books...first is Driven to Distraction by Edward Hallowell and John Ratey...it should be available at your library if you can do an internet search. The part 2 of it is called Delivered from Distraction and I have checked it out twice now but have never gotten around to reading it (I guess I keep getting distracted!!!!). Ok, a little ADD humor there, couldn't help myself! The thing is that I do the same thing, bop around reading things like crazy, every once in a while I am very productive but like tonight for instance, I got on here to check emails, saw the ADDitude email, started clicking around and voila! 30 minutes later I see your post (while reading about nutrition for my 9 year old whose meds we recently changed), and now I'm writing you back. There is also an informative video you can probably get from your library...Fears and Prejudices about ADHD by Thomas Brown (it's only like 24 minutes)...it explains how often ADD runs in families. The more you learn about it the better you can help your child (and possibly yourself). And yes, I know what you mean about changing the subject and veering off on tangents when talking to others....I know I drive people crazy doing that (but I know where I'm going with subjects and if uninterrupted, COULD actually tie it all together and make sense of it - usually, but usually people look at you like HUH? or interrupt and then you just feel like an idiot wondering if they had any idea what point you were trying to get across.) Funny thing about that is the one friend you can listen and let me veer all over when talking to her and UNDERSTAND is ADD also!!! "Normal" people just don't get me. One thing that helped me explain this to my daughter for her to feel better about ADD is that our brains work faster so thoughts are always popping around and not everyone has that ability....then of course you explain about all the wonderful inventions that were created by ADD minds because we were thinking and following our thinking rather than just sitting in a classroom (or workplace) and being fed information and blindly following that info (to regurgitate for test or if at work to sell whatever product to whoever)....do you get what I'm saying? The more people you meet that are ADD you will notice that we also tend to be "non-conformists" questioning why things are the way they are and what to do about it. Which brings me to my point (maybe???sort of??? I'm not sure where I was going, remember I do have ADD!!!!) anyway, seriously, the point being....ADD can be a very positive thing, but it DEFINITELY has it's challenges. But I am willing to bet you are probably a wonderful friend to others, very loving and caring (and SENSITIVE), and also that you have some awesome ideas (which you need to WRITE DOWN or you'll forget them!) and that you are going to be able to help your child grow thru this "disorder" and make the most of it so that they grow up to be wildly successful and to feel great about themselves (at least that's what I hope for my daughter (who is now 9 but was diagnosed just before turning 6 like yours...that's what struck the chord to make me reply to you)...but once again I'm getting off subject and now my 5 minutes to check email is more like 45 so I have to go to bed!!!! Best wishes and God Bless You on this (not always easy) journey!!!!

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