When you and your spouse don't agree about ADHD medication

[Anonymous]

I'm absolutely convinced we need to explore medication with our son. He is in K this year and was diagnosed earlier this year (while still in pre-k) with ADHD. We have since been doing behavioral therapy, OT, and swimming. He's had a behavior contract at school, but it is only worked so much. His biggest issue is impulsivity, but now that the academics are stepping up, the attention/focus is becoming more of an issue as well. Teacher says his performance is being severely impacted, he is not making as much progress in reading as he should, etc. My husband thinks he is just way too young to medicate, and not that I disagree entirely, but I also feel like we've exhausted options, and I don't want him to continue falling behind. I think he is taking a hit socially as well, due to the impulsivity. If you and your spouse disagreed on medicating your child, how did you get on the same page?

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry I don't have much to offer since my DH and I agreed about medication. I just wanted to let you know I'm sorry for your struggle. We started medication for my oldest when he was in K for the reasons you cite. It's made a big difference. We typically don't medicate him in the summer since he's primarily inattentive/impulsive and his behavior doesn't negatively impact our time together. We don't start the medication until about a month after school starts so he has a chance to settle into the routine and his teachers get a chance to see him without it. They all notice a difference in his ability to attend and to regulate his emotions. Good luck with your struggle.

[Anonymous]

There are quite a few articles that have been published in the last couple years that show the kids with ADHD who take medication have better academic and social outcomes.

You might use those to have a discussion with your husband based on evidence.

Also maybe ask him what his line in the sand is..how badly would your son have to be doing before he would consider medication - will he feel guilty afterwards if it really helps and he realizes that his son suffered because of is opinion?

As you say - it is not just academic but also social. and above that it is cognitive so it means your child is living life with a brain that is frustrating to live with. At 5 your son probably doesn't know any different. A friend of mine's son described when he was older that not on meds had felt like being a race car driver - always on edge, hanging on, everything happening too fast, people flying past you, wrecks that happen before you even have time to react, alone in the car, sharp corners where you are always just trying to stay in control. When he was on meds he described it as driving the family van down a country road. You still have to be alert but it is so much slower, less chaotic, you can enjoy the ride, you have more time to react to an accident about to happen, you can have friends along for the ride, etc... A 5 yr old can't articulate that but maybe giving your husband some first person persepctives might help.

I really think it is only through conversation and research you are going to get on the same page and that might take a bit of time. What about a doctor's opinion?

[Anonymous]

We found a doctor who is known to be very conservative with medicating for ADHA. She spent alot of time talking to DH and me about the meds (after meeting with DD and reviewing her files and reports). My husband really really resisted but agreed to go along with the doc's recommendation of giving the meds a try. Our DD is older so we could have real conversations with her about how the meds made her feel. DD reports that she used to stare out the window in class (she's inattentive, not hyper) and now she comes out with 5 pages of notes. Now DH knows we are doing the right thing. There are so many pre conceived notions out there about ADHA and meds. Sitting with an expert and talking with an expert one-on-one about our kid made all the difference.

[Anonymous]

I'm one of the 10:11s and totally agree with the other.

[Anonymous]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/medicatedchild/view/

[Anonymous]

Who's talking about bipolar disorder??
My son was diagnosed with ADHD through NIH, by a team of highly regarded neuropsychiatrists and psychologists. Do you actually think ADHD is not a real disorder?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who's talking about bipolar disorder??
My son was diagnosed with ADHD through NIH, by a team of highly regarded neuropsychiatrists and psychologists. Do you actually think ADHD is not a real disorder?

They're using the same medications, regardless of diagnosis, so you might want to listen up and watch it.

[Anonymous]

One thing about medications is that it is not permanent, you can always stop them. Maybe you and your husband could agree to a trial period of about 3 months. You have to give the meds enough time to work. Make a plan that at 3 months you will re-evaluate, and either continue or stop. A couple may need to be tapered down, but should not be a big deal after only three months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who's talking about bipolar disorder??
My son was diagnosed with ADHD through NIH, by a team of highly regarded neuropsychiatrists and psychologists. Do you actually think ADHD is not a real disorder?

They're using the same medications, regardless of diagnosis, so you might want to listen up and watch it.

Yes, I did watch the whole thing, and I didn't see anything relevant to our situation. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing about medications is that it is not permanent, you can always stop them. Maybe you and your husband could agree to a trial period of about 3 months. You have to give the meds enough time to work. Make a plan that at 3 months you will re-evaluate, and either continue or stop. A couple may need to be tapered down, but should not be a big deal after only three months.

The drug industry is just that....an industry. It is driven by profits. It is not a good business practice to have part-time clientele. It is more than likely that your children will be life-time clients of this industry.

[Anonymous]

Well, I have never been in your position, OP, but I am someone who has taken strong psychotropic drugs, as has my DH. So, we are not against medication in all situations. That said, we have discussed what we would do if a teacher recommended ADHD medication for one of our children. To us, it would be a measure of last resort. Could it be that your child would do better in a different learning environment? Maybe he is being compared unfairly to "red-shirted" kids who are 18 months older than him. Maybe montessori would be a better fit? How much recess does he get? How long is his school day? Do you trust his teacher? Like her? Can he read? Perhaps his school has way too much academics for kindergarten and he just needs a little more time. Is home-schooling an option? How large is his class? Maybe it's overstimulating for him, or his teacher is overly focused on classroom management. Anyway, not sure if any of this is helpful to you, but whatever you decide, it's clear you love your child and want him to thrive. GL.

[Anonymous]

His teacher is phenomenal -- the best of the the five K teachers at his MoCo school. I absolutely love her, and I actually think she is the ideal personality fit for our son. And BTW, no one is pushing medication, certainly not his teacher. She has been working with us/hom on his behavior, and we have an EMT later this week. Would our son fair better in a small class at a private school? Probably, but financially that's not doable for us right now, and our elementary school is one of the best in the county, so I want to give it a shot. I don't think Montessori would be a good fit for him. He needs more structure. His teacher says she sees moments of brilliance in him, but she feels many more of these moments are being lost or suppressed due to the lack of focus/attention and inability to act appropriately/impulsivity. He is not quite reading yet, despite having strong pre-reading skills upon entry to K. I can tell when I read with him, the attention is the culprit. For example, instead of looking at a word and taking a moment to sound it out (which I know he can do), he'll immediately guess at the word based on the picture or other context. He is really a text book ADHD case. If you go down the list of symptoms, you can pretty much check off everything.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing about medications is that it is not permanent, you can always stop them. Maybe you and your husband could agree to a trial period of about 3 months. You have to give the meds enough time to work. Make a plan that at 3 months you will re-evaluate, and either continue or stop. A couple may need to be tapered down, but should not be a big deal after only three months.

The drug industry is just that....an industry. It is driven by profits. It is not a good business practice to have part-time clientele. It is more than likely that your children will be life-time clients of this industry.

I really appreciate your offering a counterpoint to pharmaceutical industry marketing. However, the original poster of this thread is not asking about whether or not to medicate. Rather, she is asking about how others have dealt with their spouses regarding this issue. As such, your posts are not relevant to the topic. If you would like to continue discussing pharmaceutical industry practices and/or the effectiveness of medication, please start another thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are quite a few articles that have been published in the last couple years that show the kids with ADHD who take medication have better academic and social outcomes.

You might use those to have a discussion with your husband based on evidence.

Please provide references to these studies.