Reply to New York Times Magazine article questioning adhd commonplaces (including meds)

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Reply to "New York Times Magazine article questioning adhd commonplaces (including meds)"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Really interesting read, OP. Thank you for the gift link.

We are right in the thick of this in my household right now, with a child recently diagnosed with ADHD at age 7 and debating the benefits of medication versus parent coaching (which I'm currently doing) and environmental changes. I am not opposed to medication in general (pro-vaccine, have been on SSRIs before, not anti Pharma) but something about putting my 7 year old on ADHD meds has really given me pause.

We wound up going another route for now. Not ruling medication out but opting for a school change to see if things improve. We are fortunate because DC has no academic issues associated with ADHD (on the contrary, the hyper focus element has resulted in a strong reader who loves doing math problems for fun). So we hope changing the school environment to a school with more outdoor time, a more joyous vibe, and fewer behavioral problems overall, might eliminate the need for meds. If it doesn't, we'll probably medicate.

Anyway, I've been reading TONS of literature on ADHD and medication over the last few months, including literally every study mentioned in this article. So it was validating to read the nuance here and made me feel like we reached the right conclusion. The article is not anti-meds. It's just much more nuanced about what ADHD is and how meds can help (and how sometimes they don't). It's very needed as a counterbalance to what I have heard other places: that I'm stupid for having any reticence in medicating my kid, that environmental shifts can't possibly help with ADHD because "either you have it or you don't", that medicating early is beneficial because the meds will help to "rewire your kid's brain" (a very popular argument these days), and so on. The level of pressure I've felt to medicate is probably one of the reasons I've pushed back so hard, so I just really appreciate a balanced, deeply reported take on this that doesn't vilify medication but also doesn't gloss over the ways in which it can be complicated.[/quote]

Sounds like my DS18 when he was growing up. We did go with meds in MS because the executive functioning demands became too much- he started having problems handing in homework, losing things, starting tasks, etc. The meds didn't help because he really didn't want to do the homework. He went off the meds in HS- his grades shot up to As his Freshman year of HS because (his words) "colleges will see these grades." He went from high As to mid and lower As without meds and made a decent SAT score without meds or accomodations. Going to a T40 in biochemistry this Fall. 
Word of caution- try to keep the hyperfocus off the phone and video games-- this is where it diverts to in MS. ADHDers have a special problem with electronics and my DS is no exception.
Like us, you're lucky your kid is exceptionally smart. It's very protective against some of the worse ADHD outcomes.  [/quote]

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