"I have my own way of doing things"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He can do both therapy and your coping strategies. It’s not either/or.

This. Why does it have to be either / or? He can do both.

[Anonymous]

My sibling, father and I all have it and we couldn’t be more different in out life outcomes and successes, or lacktherof.

Get him as much positive coping methods and therapy as possible or available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

It's weird because I feel like I've of my hyper focus areas is just in problem solving. Give me a job saying to move things from bin 1 to bin 2 and I'll probably get fired within a week, but give me a problem / puzzle / confusing situation and I'll devote a lot of brain power towards correcting it.

I know what worked for me won't necessarily work for DS, but I am also one of two people who know him better than anybody else in the world. And not just that, but I see the genius in him. Part of me is not as excited about therapy because it didn't help (and in some ways hurt) my development. But it's not that I don't trust the therapists. It's more that I want him to believe in himself and that he can conquer these challenges. I know he'll have some that he won't conquer, or at least won't conquer initially, but I want to show him that it can be done, and not just in a movie but by him.

So we've done it with a lot of school stuff and now with bike riding. He has issues he needs to work on still and I'm just at a pause on exactly when we should see a therapist. Like on first seeing the problem? After he gets frustrated? After we get frustrated? What If my first idea works? What If my first one didn't?

You work though at these ideas *with* the therapist. Call today. It takes forever to find a good one.

ADHD adult with ADHD child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

It's weird because I feel like I've of my hyper focus areas is just in problem solving. Give me a job saying to move things from bin 1 to bin 2 and I'll probably get fired within a week, but give me a problem / puzzle / confusing situation and I'll devote a lot of brain power towards correcting it.

I know what worked for me won't necessarily work for DS, but I am also one of two people who know him better than anybody else in the world. And not just that, but I see the genius in him. Part of me is not as excited about therapy because it didn't help (and in some ways hurt) my development. But it's not that I don't trust the therapists. It's more that I want him to believe in himself and that he can conquer these challenges. I know he'll have some that he won't conquer, or at least won't conquer initially, but I want to show him that it can be done, and not just in a movie but by him.

So we've done it with a lot of school stuff and now with bike riding. He has issues he needs to work on still and I'm just at a pause on exactly when we should see a therapist. Like on first seeing the problem? After he gets frustrated? After we get frustrated? What If my first idea works? What If my first one didn't?

You work though at these ideas *with* the therapist. Call today. It takes forever to find a good one.

ADHD adult with ADHD child.

OP, you seem very focused on specific solutions for specific individual problems, but your son needs something more fundamental. The therapist should help your son come up with strategies that are more generalizable from one problem to another. You say he has issues he needs to work on, and you say that interacting with other kids other than by running is not as good as it could be. The underlying cause may be impulsivity, or poor social skills, or anxiety, or whatever. The therapist is to help with those underlying reasons, which if addressed should help your son in many areas of life.

It seems like you are looking for reasons to avoid therapy. Is that because the task of finding a therapist is opaque or overwhelming to you?

[Anonymous]

It seems like you have identified social anxiety, and you don't have a real solution for it-- you're not even that satisfied with the running strategy and acknowledge it only works in certain contexts-- so the time for help is now. When you see a problem and don't know the solution or what you try does not work, that is when you get help.

The complexity of social interactions is going to increase a lot in upper elementary and middl school. If your son is already having difficulty, he will likely struggle even more if he doesn't have effective help from someone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

It's weird because I feel like I've of my hyper focus areas is just in problem solving. Give me a job saying to move things from bin 1 to bin 2 and I'll probably get fired within a week, but give me a problem / puzzle / confusing situation and I'll devote a lot of brain power towards correcting it.

I know what worked for me won't necessarily work for DS, but I am also one of two people who know him better than anybody else in the world. And not just that, but I see the genius in him. Part of me is not as excited about therapy because it didn't help (and in some ways hurt) my development. But it's not that I don't trust the therapists. It's more that I want him to believe in himself and that he can conquer these challenges. I know he'll have some that he won't conquer, or at least won't conquer initially, but I want to show him that it can be done, and not just in a movie but by him.

So we've done it with a lot of school stuff and now with bike riding. He has issues he needs to work on still and I'm just at a pause on exactly when we should see a therapist. Like on first seeing the problem? After he gets frustrated? After we get frustrated? What If my first idea works? What If my first one didn't?

You work though at these ideas *with* the therapist. Call today. It takes forever to find a good one.

ADHD adult with ADHD child.

OP, you seem very focused on specific solutions for specific individual problems, but your son needs something more fundamental. The therapist should help your son come up with strategies that are more generalizable from one problem to another. You say he has issues he needs to work on, and you say that interacting with other kids other than by running is not as good as it could be. The underlying cause may be impulsivity, or poor social skills, or anxiety, or whatever. The therapist is to help with those underlying reasons, which if addressed should help your son in many areas of life.

It seems like you are looking for reasons to avoid therapy. Is that because the task of finding a therapist is opaque or overwhelming to you?

It's not that I'm looking for a reason to avoid it. It's that it's not my first thought. I've always been a do what I can do type of person, so when I see something like this, I ask how can I help (to myself), then I'll go on a run or a walk and come back with a dozen ideas, and some will work. But then my thought process go into implementing these ideas and I'll forget about therapy.

Somebody said that I may be causing more stress on my wife and not realizing it and I felt that. We had the conversation about her being the one who is making these calls. I really have to set myself onto a task like calling a therapist and break it into things that I enjoy or I'll forget. Maybe it's something about the executive function.

As far as running though (and maybe I should talk to the therapist about this) but I don't doubt that it can help him in social / classroom settings. Right now, I get home from work and if he's had a bad day, we'll go for a run to help him burn some energy, calm down, and just have alone time with me. From my readings and my own experience, I'd like to get him to take earlier runs like before he gets his day going. That's what I've been doing for about 3 years and it's been great for me. And for about 10 years I've been running and it's really helped my mental state. ADHD experts talk about how good running is for ADHD but I don't want to act like I'm the expert and like it's a cure because that's overselling it. And not to mention, my son has to like running and want to run (right now he likes it, but if we make him run when he wakes up maybe he won't like it as much).

I'm still brainstorming this but I'm realizing that I've got to figure a way to get more involved with this phase. Now we get to things like what is a good therapist, what do you do when you disagree with the therapist, or my wife and the therapist, and a bunch of other questions. But I'm not against it, it's just not my first thought generally.

[Anonymous]

Look, the running is fine as an activity. I am all for it. But it seems like you are still concerned about his social relationships, social anxiety, and ability to self-regulate in the classroom. Running can calm him, but it is is not a substitute for actual interpersonal skills.

You are still thinking too specifically. No doubt it is annoying to your wife that she has to get a therapist figured out because you are too ADHD to do it. But it's not just that. It's probably that way for her in many, many areas of life. She has probably accepted it or doesn't mind, or maybe she does. You having a hard time every time something like this needs to be done can really wear on a spouse over time. Do you want your son to be doing this to his future spouse? Or do you want help so that he can do better?

[Anonymous]

What does your wife actually say about this? Honestly, it sounds maddening to have you dragging your feet and executive non-functioning and hemming and hawing like this. Nobody ever made lots of friends by going on early morning runs with their dad, you know? It is time you got out of your comfort zone, for you son's sake.

[Anonymous]

If you have to slow down your runs and manage a kid the whole time, will you lose the benefit of running for your own ADHd management?

[Anonymous]

Definitely try therapy as it’s likely improved since you were young. But don’t stop the physical activity as it can really help with ADHD. A lot of parents are lazy and jump to drugs and melatonin because they don’t want to put in the effort of tiring the kid out. You’re not like that which is awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have to slow down your runs and manage a kid the whole time, will you lose the benefit of running for your own ADHd management?

Normally I run pretty slowly. Going at 8 mph isn't what does it for me, it's just the movement. If I were just jumping up and down, it would help just as much. I mean, that's what my son does and I'm guessing I know why. Plus I do my own sanity check runs in the morning when I can run faster if I'm in the mood.

And to the pervious poster, we run together normally after I get home from work, so it's a fun run and helps him loosen up, at least to me. Like I said though, we've also used it to play with other kids at the park. If he were to run in the mornings, I'd think it would be at wake up. Maybe that's something we'd have to work out because if school is at 830, it doesn't leave much time for him to get a full night of sleep and wake up and do everything. Or maybe it does because he sometimes spends a lot of time running back and forth from his room to the bathroom. He probably wouldn't be doing 1 hour runs, more like 20 minutes. But would my wife go for it? ... don't mind me, I'm just expanding on this thought that I may come back to sooner or later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definitely try therapy as it’s likely improved since you were young. But don’t stop the physical activity as it can really help with ADHD. A lot of parents are lazy and jump to drugs and melatonin because they don’t want to put in the effort of tiring the kid out. You’re not like that which is awesome.

I think my fear is that I don't want therapy to be seen as the end all solution to it. I'm thinking of things and I kinda don't expect them to work, but when they have they've made me happy and I've been able to see progress in my son. But I'm partially afraid that somebody is going to say "take two of these and call me in the morning". I heard about a school out by Dulles that is for ADHD kids and is more motion based, or at least they have more breaks to run around.

I've got to do more reading up on this. There are so many questions though, insurance, in network, (formal) diagnosis. I don't even know if he's old enough yet. Like I said in the first post, we think it's true but he could just be a kid who hasn't grown out of some things yet.

[Anonymous]

You don't have to do what a therapist tells you to do. All they can do is recommend things and it's the parents' decision.

It still seems like you are looking for reasons to avoid therapy.

[Anonymous]

I may be (subconsciously) looking for reasons to avoid therapy, but I think you're just misinterpreting how I'm stating things. I'm literally just writing out my thoughts in some of this and it may read that way, but the way I see it is that there are a bunch of things (about therapy) that I haven't considered, that I need to think about. So the question of "who should we see for therapy" breaks down into a bunch of other questions that help point me into a direction of action, so I can say "look for someone in network", "will everybody require an analysis before we see them or can I search for somebody who won't require that" "how much will such a therapist cost", etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I may be (subconsciously) looking for reasons to avoid therapy, but I think you're just misinterpreting how I'm stating things. I'm literally just writing out my thoughts in some of this and it may read that way, but the way I see it is that there are a bunch of things (about therapy) that I haven't considered, that I need to think about. So the question of "who should we see for therapy" breaks down into a bunch of other questions that help point me into a direction of action, so I can say "look for someone in network", "will everybody require an analysis before we see them or can I search for somebody who won't require that" "how much will such a therapist cost", etc

Except that you are not actually asking those questions of the forum. You are asking whether you are not worried enough about your son's situation. If his AdHD is so bad that you are considering private school then maybe it is something to take more seriously.

If you just want to talk and process verbally, that's what therapy for adults is for.