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[quote=Anonymous]I have a 16 year old son.

His older half brother was medicated for ADHD throughout middle/high school - is now off his meds and doing fine in college.

His younger brother has been on ADHD meds for several years, and it is like night and day when he is off/on the medication. He's quite hyperactive and unfocused if we forget to give him Concerta.

The 16 year old in question has always done well in school - he is highly competitive and motivated so gets good grades. I don't think he is perfect in class, and he has told us sometimes it is hard to pay attention when teachers talk the entire class, but he performs and can really lock in when studying in order to get the grades (got all As last year for example). His organization is not great, but I suspect it's pretty standard for 16 year old boys.

I think we've known he has at least mild ADHD, however, just based on behavior at home. But he seemed to be fine without medication so we never got him evaluated.

It's now getting to the point where the ADHD behaviors at home are causing huge family strife. Some small examples -- he almost never rolls up the car windows or locks the car (he's driving our old car now), no matter how many times we ask. We'll ask him to go upstairs and get something and he'll forget what it was he went up there for. When he is the last one in the house, we ask him to double check he locked all the doors - he'll go downstairs to do it, and then in the morning we'll see that he left the doors unlocked. He doesn't seem to be able to read a book for more than 10 minutes at a time (he used to be a reader, now not so much). You can look him in the eye and tell him something and he will literally forget it 30 seconds later. My husband is taking these actions as a huge signs of disrespect and not focusing on our instructions/requests because they just aren't important to him.

My son doesn't think he has ADHD that needs to be treated (some of this may be because he's still growing and he's worried about its impact on growth, though he is now 6 feet tall). Is it weird to get him evaluated when his grades are good? How do you know the difference between a true ADHD inability to focus and listen versus just being a disrespectful teenager who won't do what his parents ask? Is all this stuff just standard teenage behavior?

thank you for any insight.[/quote]

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