Does anyone have experience with your child(ren) having ADD or ADHD?

My son's teacher thinks he has ADHD. He shows very impulsive behavior in the classroom and I can definitely testify to the Hyperactivity part of that disorder. However, I am leary about the meds.

I really don't want to put my son on medicine for this. Whether he has the disorder or not, he has been good in the classroom before. I just feel like it's an excuse for his behavior.

I'm just very conflicted about this. I want him to be able to be good, but I don't want him to have to take medicine to make him be good. I was just wondering if anyone has experience with this and can tell me how it is affecting you and your child(ren).

Are they on the medicine? How did you decide to put them on the medicine? Is it really working?

Is your child good in school? Has his behavior outside of school changed? I don't want him to be a zombie or anything.

I'm just looking for personal experiences here. If you have opinions but no experience, please answer on the discussion board. Asked by ~Smiley~ 50 months ago Similar questions: experience child ren ADD ADHD Health.

Similar questions: experience child ren ADD ADHD.

My son was ADHD. He was celiac. Noone knew this.

He had retalin which burned out his adrenals and he got ... very depressed when his hormones kicked in. He is now in the Marines in Iraq with low selfesteem from being corrected so much. I wished I had know he was celiac.

Celiac's can't have dairy or gluten grain. If he had stayed away from these he would have healed his intestines which celiac destroy.. Celiac causes also leaky gut syndrome, which causes food to be leaked into your blood and then you become allergic to the food. ADD and ADHD is a celiac thing.

There maybe a support group in your area. Blood tests don't work to identify it. I use Osteoprocare as my dairy substitute.

Other people in the family tree may also be celiac. Drugs hurt people and don't solve the problem.

Yep. I had two of my sons diagnosed with it. I used to be a special ed phys ed teacher for LA City Unified School district.

I taught at a special ed school in downtown Compton for two years and then one year as a district transient teacher where I would go to the schools I was assigned and take the kids out of class for evaluations and exercises. My experience with hyperactive kids is that the condition is fairly rare. I only had one kid who was I think properly diagnosed hyperactive.

He was a true wall crawler. By that I mean literally he would be moving around so much and had out of control behavior so much you felt like he would crawl up the wall just for something different to do. He definately needed meds to slow him down.

I also saw plenty of other kids who MAYBE had hyperactivity to some degree but whether they needed meds could be argued. I first noted that both of my younger sons had issues in early grade school when I tried to help them with memory verses. Their older brother could be watching TV and hear every word I said and repeat it back verbatim.

The younger two could at most, with NO distractions and with me having ALL their attention, maybe memorize one line. A little later we had both tested at a "Kaiser" facility. I was impressed with their indepth testing.

Both were diagnosed with ADHD and the older one was prescibed Ritalin or it's derivative. The Ritalin did help the older one but he distinctly did not like the way it made him feel. I DO NOT LIKE MEDS FOR LOTS OR REASONS.

Let that be clear. I believe drugs are very necesary for many things but they are to be avoided as much as possible. Long term effects of drug use on body organs are still a crap shoot, especially on growing children.My opinion, if you can do without the drugs, DEFINATELY go that route.

There may be natural herbs, etc. That can help which would be much better for your children in the long run. Anyway, my middle son would not take the Ritalin and we didn't force him to. As he grew older he got better OR he learned to adapt better.

He may have done better in school with meds but I know deep down I didn't do anything to compromise his health later in life. Making the teacher's job easier is not my concern. My kid is.

I believe the question is, just how bad is your son's condition, assuming he has one? DON'T JUST GO ON WHAT THE TEACHER SAYS. If you can, go to the school and sit in on his class for a day so you can agree or disagree with the teachers opinion.

I know there are lots of teachers out there who are marginal at best and totally inept at the worst. Just because they are nice people doesn't mean they have the slightest idea on what your child really needs. Get your child thoroughly tested.

It takes about a day and the facility should be able to tell if there are any issues where meds are recomended. Then ask them about natural substance alternatives and what are the long term effects of WHATEVER they are prescribing. It will take extra effort on your part to keep him towing the line w/o meds, but what is your kids health worth?

My youngest son probably had the worst ADHD symptoms between him and his older brother. When we had him tested, they found he had some ADHD but more importantly he was diagnosed as being "Dysgraphic". Thats where you understand every thing in your head, you just can't write it down on paper what you are understanding the person is telling you.

If you can't write your assignment in class, it looks like you are not paying attention, ergo you must be ADHD.Wrong. He understands, he just has great difficulty writing about it. He also has expressive problems due to the same condition.

Such as not being able to repeat back to me simple instructions such as how to drive 5 blocks down the street, straight through three intersections with lights and then make a right turn. That used to be very confusing to him. He is now 21 and has done a marvelous job of adapting and is very aware he needs to work on his deficits.

They are all GOOD KIDS though, (I have to say that to myself every so often so I don't kill them), and I let them know it, (that they are GOOD, not that I have momentary thoughts of murder). I don't know how old your child is but you must keep beating it into him/her that they ARE A GOOD BOY/GIRL, NO MATTER WHAT. DON'T LET THEM THINK THE CONDITION MAKES THEM ACT BAD.

Reinforce that no matter what happens he will learn to adapt, be patient, keep trying.Be a good disciplinarian at home, one who is fair and CONSISTENT. Consistent is more important than fair....usually. They will always accuse you of not being fair, especially when they get older.

Hang in there, don't spoil them, but, they are worth EVERY second you obsess over them.

Take away the sugars and processed foods. I work with children everyday of the week so I deal with ADD and ADHD types everyday. The first thing I tell my parents to do before they even consider taking the meds is to take the child off all processed sugars (even the ones in sugary juice boxes) and most processed foods.

For the ones that have followed my advice the children's behavior changed almost immediately. The parent who didn't stick with it usually gave up because it did create more work for them and/or they couldn't deal with the child complaining about the loss of sugary sweets and stuff. Oddly enough allergies to wheat can also cause symptoms of ADD and ADHD.

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The trend is to sedate them because they are hard to dicipline This is a trend these days... the teachers pick out the hardest students to contain and manage and then they push for them to become medicated. That is my opinion anyway. The "medicine" is harmful Ritlin is equivalent to a cocaine addiction in terms of damage to your child.

If you have your kid seen by a professional and the professional write a prescription for a drug than the school can force you to keep your child on it. So be wary of everything. There are probably some less harmful medicines out there but I think if you have a choice not to medicate I would go there... especially with a new drug that no one really knows what the long term effects are (remember this is a long term medicine they take daily).

Before you put your kid on anything research out all the alternatives and read all the BLOGs from other parents. I believe my son has ADD and we have had doctors give us a preliminary eval and say that they believe he does. If we had a formal evaluation then we might be forced to medicate him in school if we begin to do that the schools don’t seem to allow folks to reverse the decision if they think it is a bad one for their child’s health.

We have opted not to medicate. He has gotte into some trouble because of the impulsivity but he is learning to control himself very well and I would say he is cured at 17 year old. At 12 he got into a lot of trouble though and required constant supervision... he could not be out of our sight for a moment.

He gets into it with his sister's a lot and that required contstant intervention and I think that has been a bit hard on his younger sister, Emily, in hindsight. Lots of pestering from him over the years. But he is pretty good now.

One of my friends opted for the medicine and their 14 yo daughter has ADHD is on Ritlin and she does fine with it. It has made her into a good student I think. No noticable side effects but she has only been on it for a few years.

I have seen her off of it on the weekend and she is wild... wears you out. Sources: Personal Experience and Opinion .

My son had ADD. He is 29 years old now and I still do not know if I did the right thing by putting him on Ritalin. He just could not sit still in class and everything got his attention.

The slightest noise would take his whole attention away from whatever he was doing. He had to sit at the front of the class and away from windows so that he would not be watching others or what was going on outside. The Ritalin helped him a lot.

He had no problem taking it when he was young, but in his teen years, he spit it out most of the time and thought that I was not aware. He told me as a teen that he did not like the way it made him feel because I think that it just slowed him down. As a child, when he was on ritalin, he was able to focus on what the teacher was saying, he could sit and read a story and his grades improved.

When he got home in the afternoons and the drug had worn off, he was wired, let me tell you, but that was okay with me. I always gave him chores or things to do that would tire him so that he would be able to sleep at night. I wanted to enroll him into a school for children who have ADD but we could not afford it at the time so we did the best that we could.

I cannot tell you what you must do for your child. You might talk to your pediatrician and see what they recommend. It has been many years now for me, so things may have improved and there may be more for you to choose from.

I wish you luck and if I can ever be of help, I am here. Sources: my experience LglSec's Recommendations Calming Electric Fan Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 (based on 2 reviews) ADD / ADHD Smart Solutions: Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior Amazon List Price: $19.99 Used from: $16.95 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 3 reviews) Parenting the Explosive Child Amazon List Price: $59.95 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 5 reviews) Dealing with ADHD: Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder DVD Amazon List Price: $89.95 ADHD What Can We Do? Russell A.

Barkley Classroom Interventions for ADHD Amazon List Price: $99.00 Used from: $45.00 .

What kind of food do give to a child with adhd to help them gain weight.

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