Anonymous wrote:I love how people here wouldn't hesitate to mock a Tiger Mom for making their kid do practice tests, but at the same time wouldn't hesitate to put their 10 year old on methamphetamine analogues to compete in school.

Literal performance enhancing doping is okay, but putting in major hours to study for a standardized test, heaven forbid!

Anonymous wrote:If you put this in Special Needs you'd probably get more helpful answers

But, start with your pediatrician who will likely give your child the Vanderbilt test. It's a form both spouses complete independently, and all of your child's teachers. Pediatrician can confirm diagnosis and if necessary, prescribe drugs.

Other alternative, is to do neuro-psych testing, which was $4-$5k eight years ago when we were going through the process

Anonymous wrote:You need to speak with your child's doctor and teacher(s).

Some questions to think about: Is your child having difficulty completing tasks, staying focused, organization and time management, need for physical movement "like there's an internal motor" or constantly "daydreaming"? What is your child's behavior like at home?

IF you have academic and behavioral concerns, you can bring those concerns to your child's school and request a student support team or child study meeting (it might be called something different in your district) and they can decide if there are enough concerns that would warrant an evaluation for special education services (hearing/vision screening, educational eval, psychological, sociocultural, teacher observation). They would likely try to put in place interventions in school to see how effective those are BEFORE agreeing to evaluate. While you can just go and say, "I suspect my child has a disability- ADHD and I would like an evaluation"....you need to have real reasons why you would think that. They also have 65 days to complete the eval so it's not a short process and then IF found to have ADHD, you bring that eval to your doctor to discuss meds.

You can also just speak directly to your child's doctor and they might give you some checklists to complete and some for your child's teacher as well.

There are private psychological evaluations but you need to be careful in WHO you go with and cautious because some private providers will slap on a diagnosis using incomplete testing and it's simply not valid results (I've seen this several times at work). There are often very long waitlists and depending on your insurance, they will charge you $1000-$1,500.

In terms of interventions....it depends on the child's needs. Some children need schedule/routine/parenting modifications and they are golden, other kids need special education services, medication, and communication services.

I personally have a child with ADHD (I also have it) and my child has a 504 accommodation plan in school, participates in a social skills group in school, gifted program for math, high structured after-school karate program (needs the structure), and individual therapy. I've ALSO been trying to find a PCIT (Parent-child interaction therapy) to support me and my DH in parenting him, because it can be VERY hard parenting a child with ADHD but no luck so far.

Anonymous wrote:I love how people here wouldn't hesitate to mock a Tiger Mom for making their kid do practice tests, but at the same time wouldn't hesitate to put their 10 year old on methamphetamine analogues to compete in school.

Literal performance enhancing doping is okay, but putting in major hours to study for a standardized test, heaven forbid!