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[quote=Anonymous]
I see that my 5th grader has so much potential and yet he spends 2 hours doing what should be 20 minutes of homework. I redirect his attention, divide assignments into steps as necessary, help him manage his time, provide breaks. It kills me, and probably him, when kids on our street knock at our door and ask him to play, and he says in a resigned voice: "No, I haven't finished my homework". 
Our excellent elementary school is doing its utmost, with a rock-solid IEP and implementation. He always hands in work late at school, despite having an aide to scribe for him, issue frequent reminders and help organize his day. He makes a ton of inattentive mistakes in math that significantly lower his grades despite showing he understands the concepts: he'll get harder questions right and easier questions wrong. He writes well-expressed paragraphs full of interesting ideas and complex vocabulary words... on the wrong topic, because he reads the question too quickly, and is marked down accordingly. 
His neuropsychological evaluation came back with a moderate to severe diagnosis of combined ADHD. His WISC-V had a high General Ability Index, with some subscores in the superior range, and low Cognitive Proficiency Index. There are also related learning disorders (dysgraphia, dyscalculia, etc), all off-shoots of the ADHD, the psychologist said.

DH is against medicating DS. Even though I tell him how it is every day, he doesn't experience it himself. The few days off DH has had, he has been aghast at his son's slowness and disorganization. But it doesn't touch him as deeply and he focuses instead on the potential short and long-term risks of medication. I agree with him that there are many unknowns - I have pored over the literature myself! But I've reached my point of no return: I see that non-med support will never get any better than this, yet school demands will probably increase sharply in middle school. As I told DH, knowing the diagnosis and having medication available, how could I consider myself a good parent if I didn't at least try them on DS?

How you did manage to persuade a reluctant spouse to try stimulants for ADHD? Thank you for your advice.

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