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[quote=Anonymous]Op another positive story (wish I’d seen your post earlier before all the jerks responded…. But we’re traveling for break).

Ds was different from other kids from birth. Extremely sensory and physical. Would literally go up to random kids at the playground when he was two and lush them over, hard, when they were playing totally separate from him - just because he had the need to exert physically. He had zero emotional disregulation. But was constantly putting his hands on other kids. He also ran nonstop and had unending energy. We couldn’t socialize with friends because of the danger to other kids. He was almost kicked out of a preschool, but we were moving cross country so avoided the official boot, second preschool in dc was extremely supportive but it broke my heart to see him being horrible to others. I had other parents say horrible things to us and him. When he was four.

We had a full dev ped review which diagnosed clear cut adhd sever hyperactivity. They recommended therapy and reading up on it. We read the books, but were already implementing everything we could at home (where he was actually manageable despite the hyperactivity). I called every therapist in dc, all of whom told me there was nothing to be done at this age but wait it out. Or medicate.

After one particularly horrible event at preschool, we asked his ped to start meds. He said four was young, but not when you had such clear cut adhd as shown by our top notch KKI diagnosis. We started and never looked back.

Ds has borderline asd too (but doesn’t qualify for a diagnosis) so while I’d like to say we’ve never had problems since, I can’t because he struggles majorly with social interactions even when heavily medicated. But we haven’t had any issues that threaten him being at school or anything.  And nothing physical.

Our only regret looking back is that I think the dose of adderall he needs to function in school comes with a lot of side effects - standard ones like no appetite, trouble sleeping and dull personality - but they really suck.  We would try reducing the dose, and immediately get calls from the teacher. In second grade we tried adding a non stimulant (kapvay) and that allowed us to reduce his stimulant and get rid of most of the side effects. I wish we’d tried the non stimulant from the beginning, because he went through three years of being a bit of a walking zombie before we got there. Unfortunately stimulants are the first line approach, and non stims are second line - but I have a long theory about why I think kids with severe early struggles with adhd are a different subset than what the studies are based on and that non stims should be first line (mostly because non stims don’t work on inattentive, and do make you sleepy - which is why it’s not a good option for most adhd kids, but is basically perfect for a behavioral four year old).

In any event, ds is 12, still on meds, and if we skipped meds a single day I guarantee we would get a call from school that he’d had a serious behavior issue. So whether we started at four or six, or twelve, ds needs meds to function around other people and could not participate in society without them. I suspect 200 years ago he would have been a kid kept home to work on a farm and just get in a ton of trouble.   He’s extremely high iq, and struggles socially, so we would have been closing a lot of doors to him if we home schooled him (since he needs to practice social interactions and he needs the rigor of his gifted school).

So in short, yes, don’t pause - just do this and it will improve all of your lives so much. Mostly your ds.  But do look into non stims and look out for over medication, and/or don’t take your doctors word that the side effects are standard and required.  [/quote]

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