New here...son diagnosis with ADHD

[suzie62902]

Boy am I glad to have found this place!! My 4 1/2 year old son was recently diagnosis with ADHD. I had my suspicions from about the time he was 2 on. It has progressively gotten worse since then. We have been having a very difficult time with him. I have just been at the end of my rope lately. I also have a 2 year old daughter and a 2 month old son. My 4 year old...is like a ticking time bomb, i guess is the best way to describe him. Not only is he constantly moving, but his behavior is just terrible. I feel like I am constantly nagging..."dont do that, do this, do that" over and over and over. He is constantly pinching and poking others, trips, hits, kicks, tries to choke his sister. Deliberately annoys, he invades peoples space, touches their faces, interrupts conversations, etc. I can't leave him alone in a room with his siblings becuase I am afraid he will do soemthing to them. Back to the ticking time bomb...he can go from being the sweetest most loving little boy to an uncontrollable monster (for lack of a better word) the next. He gets frustrated and angry VERY easily...anything and nothing can set him off, I just don'tknow when he is going to be set off. He will stomp, hit, kick, punch, slam. He has put holes in the wall, broken a toilet, and broken a closet door in his rages. there is no reasoning with him, there is nothing to get him to calm down. There is no disciplining him either, time outs are a joke, taking toys away is a joke, i am ashamed to say I have spanked him twice (and I am so anti-spanking, and felt terrible after the fact)...that was a joke. I reward him when I catch him being good, I have made sticker charts and reward systems. Although he wants the rewards, he just can't seem to earn them. Sleeping has been a joke as well. He just can't calm himself to sleep. We have a routine, we try to have a quite "settle down time" as we call it before bed. After bath and jammies, we sit quite and read. After we have left his room, he is right back up, there are nights (most nights) where he has been up past 11. He will finally just crash. But, then he is up between 5-6 the next morning to start it all over again. When he is awake, the whole house is awake, none of us get much sleep..especially his two year old sister. After meeting with the dr and getting his diagnosis, he suggested we give him Melatonin at night, which we have for the past 3 nights and I am happy to say he was asleep by 8 each night.
He has complete lack of focus. He jumps from one thing to the next to the next, he is just all over the map. He can not stay seated in a chair, say at dinner time, or at preschool. There are times he just seems to be in his own world, he will just space out completely. His preschool teachers have had a difficult time with him. The other day they told me that he was just deliberately annoying everything single child in his classroom. She said there was not one child that he didn't poke. Other times they tell me that he just is so wild running around the classroom and not listening. Now, he WILL sit in a chair for a "cool off" period at school if his teacher puts him there. She told me that he will sit and not get out of the chair, but he does not sit still in the chair. I am really very worried that he isn't going to have any friends. I notice that the friends he made at the beginning of the year now walk the opposite direction when he comes near them. He told me that they call him mean. I honestly don't think he is intentionaly being "mean" to them. He just is overly excited, if that makes any sense? He wants to be their friend.
Ok, this has gotten very long, but as you can see I have just had a very difficult time with him. His dr talked to us a little bit about medication, but I am reluctant to put him on medications, I would like to try other methods first. I have appointments with a Behavioral Pyschologist set up for next month, they are going to do an "official adhd evaluation" (anyone know what they do for that? It takes 2 visits?). I just hope they can offer me ways of dealing with this. Any suggestions I get here I will try as well. Also, I am going to go to the library to get some books on it, any suggestions? I really feel like I have tried everything I know how to do, I really want this to be a little better before he starts kindergarten in the fall. Thank you to all who read this far. There is a lot that I have left out too, if I were to write everything iwould be here for days . I love him to death and I just feel bad that he has to deal with this. I really was feeling like it was my fault that he acted this way, I am slowly starting to realize that its not.

Suzie

 

[Joeman]

Hi Suzie...sounds like you have your hands full! My favorite books so far are Taking Charge of ADHD by Russell Barkley and the Explosive Child by Ross Greene. Do your research on ADHD on the internet. After I did, I felt so much more willing to consider medications. Our DS is also ADHD and ODD, he is only 3.5 and has been on Clonidine for 2 months. So far it is helping. Good luck!

 

[SRL]

Hi Suzie, I'm exhausted just reading your account!

I'm glad that the Melatonin is giving him some relief at bedtime.

What kind of doctor did the ADHD diagnosis? Not that I doubt it from your description, it's just that ADHD often goes along with other issues and given the extent of his behaviors I want to make sure all bases are covered.

If he's scheduled for kindergarten in fall, have you requested an evaluation on him to line up supports?

 

[suzie62902]

Thank you for the book recommedations! I will definitely check them out!

His pediatrician diagnosed him. Actually after reading around on this site and reading about ODD, I wonder if he may have that along with it, he has quite a few symptoms of that as well. We see the behavioral therapist for the first time on the 4th, that is just my husband and me though. My son won't go until the 19th. I dont know if I can wait that long. At least the Melatonin works and he is sleeping now at a decent time, I have somewhat of a break.

As for kindergarten, he is registered for the fall. I have not spoken to anybody at the school about this yet, as he was registered before he was diagnosed. I will call them and see what I should do. His dr told me to just let the teacher know what is going on and to make sure she knows that we are working on it. I didn't know there was anything else that we should do. So, thank you

 

[SRL]

Has there been anything else significant in his development--is speech delays or differences, sensitivities, no desire to play with other kids, etc?

 

[suzie62902]

No actually quite the opposite. He is extremely smart, started talking very early, is ahead academically (reading, writing, math, etc). He wants to be friends with every kid he sees, he is very friendly (overly at times).
Another thing I noticed, I am not sure if this has anything to do with anything or not, but he puts things in his mouth...he likes the way they feel. He will put paper, toys, anything really and bite it in his mouth becuase he lieks the way it feels. He had a foam-like dinasour toy that he chewed up and I asked him why and he told me becuase it was squishy. I actually forgot to bring that up to the dr, but I know its not normal for an almost 5 year old to do that still. He went through a stage where he ripped books, wadded the paper up in his mouth and then threw it at his ceiling where it would stick.

 

[SRL]

Some children who are very oral do so because they have atypical sensory needs. See if anything else here rings a bell.
http://www.tsbvi.edu/seehear/fall97/sensory.htm

Did he start reading on his own at a young age?

Does he have any interests or obsessions that are unusual for his age?

 

[lovejud]

Except for the ages of your children, your account would mimic the lifestyle around my house a few months ago. My difficult child is six and was having such difficulties in kindergarten that they were threatening expulsion. They thought both ADHD and ODD and who knows what else. Behaviour was really nothing way off the wall--just stuff like you describe in your son's behaviour. I wish that my difficult child's preschool teacher had mentioned more . . .We had him evaluated at 4 but because of his teacher's evaluation he didn't meet ADHD criteria. At six the evaluations said he was extreme ADHD. My report didn't change drastically, so his new teacher's tipped the scale. We waited despite pediatrician's recommendation to start medications until after some basic neuropsychologist testing. That way we felt he was getting a more realsitic result. But in the area of medications--it has help our relationship drastically. But even more than mine--it has improved the relationship between husband and difficult child. I'm not saying that we don't still have issues. But based on the two days that we missed his medication--I didn't realize how extreme things were. Had we just reach a point of overlooking certain activities, were things just too common of occurances in our household, were we in denial? I have no idea, but the Metadate and now the Adderall have definitely helped me see the light at the end of the tunnel and have given difficult child the ability to start developing coping mechanisms of his own. My hope is that we can decrease medications in a few years after difficult child has matured some and realized/developed appropriate and working coping strategies.

My advice is to go all out over the summer with testing and establishing whatever you can, so that you only have to tweek things once kindergarten starts. I wish we had started sooner. Get everyone you can on board. Look for all the resources that are available and continue broadening your own knowledge. I hope all goes well.

 

[BusynMember]

Hi there.
I would take him to a neuropsychologist. in my opinion he sounds over-the-top for ADHD. My guess is there is more going on (not ODD, something neurological). NeuroPsychs do wonderful testing.