Last night my wife hooked up a reading lamp on the desk in my son's room. My son turned on the lamp, and told my wife to leave the room so he could do his homework.

My wife was so proud that he wanted to do his homework by himself. After an hour she went to check on him.... discovering that he had spent the entire time playing with the lamp.

My wife was in tears. She doesn't have the patience to handle him.

My son is the classic ADHD kid. Can't stop moving, can't sit still, fidgets constantly, talks constantly. His social skills are fine, he is less shy than most kids and makes friends easily. He is very smart and does really well at school (usually top of the class in every subject) despite his extreme lack of focus.

He turns 7 in less than 2 weeks. He is almost as big as my wife already (above her shoulder in height, hands same size, feet slightly bigger, head... was already bigger than Mummy's head when he was still a baby). He is kind and gentle and funny and good-hearted and loves everyone in his family fiercely. But he is less able to look after himself than his 3-year-old sister who is less than half his age. He won't go to the toilet at school because he cannot wipe his own bottom yet. He can't really feed himself and needs to be reminded to drink water.

After my wife's meltdown, and after I had sat with my son and made sure he did his homework, I googled ADHD and read out the diagnostic criteria to her (I wanted her to understand that he can't help it, that it is a real condition and that there are lots of other kids just the same). My wife thinks it is a good idea to get him diagnosed and medicated (she was saying "just the minimum to get him to focus a little bit").

If it were entirely up to me I would leave it for another year or 2. But by that time I am worried that my family might not survive that long - my wife is getting headaches and pain in her neck and upper back from the stress of trying to look after our son. My son loves his mother and his little sister so much... it would break his heart, I don't know if he would ever get over it. He is such a happy child and I want him to stay a happy child. My wife loves him back just as much but she is just so frustrated now - he is making so little progress.

Anyone have any experience with getting kids that age diagnosed and medicated? Did anyone go through the same thing when they were that age?

Yes, here! In our case medication made a dramatic difference. My son had already been diagnosed with AS, but not yet with ADHD. As we entered the psychiatrists's office, our son immediately started opening drawers and cupboards, hardly noticing the psychiatrist. Within 5 minutes the psychiatrist worked him out and told us he would very probably benefit from Ritalin. It turned out to make the difference between special education and being top of his class in every subject.

Hoever, we love our son just the way he is, so he only gets medication at school. That means he gets Ritalin and not the forms of medication that would work for longer periods. This way we can keep meds at the minimum required for his functioning at school. It has made an enormous difference to his results and his self-esteem.

I never thought I'd be advocating medication for such a young child, but now I think it is worth it. However, everybody is different and you will have to work out if it will work for your son, too.

This post was last modified: 03-06-2012 12:16 PM by Earth Mum.

However, getting dressed in the morning (without pills!) still requires a lot of patience. The tiring thing is that someone needs to be there all the time, or he will start reading or playing with a sock. His own frustration in such situations is even greater than mine. He really wants to do what is expected of him, but he can't.  So I just had to accept that I couldn't get breakfast ready while he was getting dressed. I needed to do that either before or afterwards.

Recently (he is 9 now) I have started to just remind him of the time every 10 minutes and that is beginning to work, freeing me to do something else in the meantime.

I can't elaborate too much because of time, but I have some initial takes from reading this.  At the very least it looks like your son is simply developing differently; at different rates in different areas (i.e. being very bright but having undeveloped bathroom habits.  Albert Einstein and Ludwig von Beethoven are notable examples who had atypical developmental patterns.

Can your son ride a bike yet?  Or tie his shoes?  These are typical things Aspie kids struggle with dearly to learn while NT kids take for granted the ability to do this stuff.  In the case of your son, feeding himself and wiping his bottom is either likely a struggle to master, or he just doesn't regard it as important or worth his effort so his mind and energies go to other things.  When I was his age, brushing my teeth; and brushing them right; was an issue.  I already knew how to tie my shoes, but I'd often get in trouble for being lazy; taking my shoes off and not untieing them before getting ready for bed.

I will never, ever forget when I was 7 going on 8.  I was in second grade.  Second grade was a perpetual struggle for me; to be a "good boy".  No, I was not disruptive in class or tried to make trouble.  I even otherwise got along with the teacher and the teacher otherwise liked me.  I was just "lazy" and "defiant".  Meaning I didn't pay attention in class; do the homework and class exercises; and consequently had failing grades as the academic year progressed.  During the course of the year, I was warned many times to "get my act together" under the threat of extreme punishment if I didn't (consequences I wouldn't want to imagine).

Well at some point the teacher had had enough.  I came home from school that day and my mother was furious.  The teacher had called her that day.  I think my mother was warned I might have to stay back in second grade instead of being promoted to third grade.  My mother said I was a bad kid, etc. and that I made her cry lots of tears.  I was bewildered and shaking; in effect wishing I really did have the free will to decide to "be good" instead of "be bad".  I felt terrible.  I didn't mean to "hurt" my mother like that.  It just always seemed that although it was good to be a "good boy", more often than not I always ended up being a "bad boy".  I mean to the point where I had anxiety that certain unforseeable situations would be landmines that got me in trouble again.

But back to that unforgettable day in 1973; my parents were still married.  My father had not yet come home from work.  When he did, he was furious.  I was shaking and crying.  I was either spanked or hit with a belt.  My father yelled in my face that he was disgusted with me, that I was defiant, stubborn, etc.  I remember going to bed early as part of my punishment and I just couldn't stop crying.  I felt almost as if the whole world was hanging by a thread because of me.

At the very least this was in effect the last warning that I might stay back in second grade unless I improved dramatically.  I had to take home a teacher's report everyday.  I worked extra earnestly to try and improve, but I still had bumps along the way.  At thiat time, I was introduced to multiplication and I found it fascinating.  So much, that on one of those days, the teacher gave me a bad note in the report because I was "paging my math book" instead of paying attention.  Math was actually a salient subject for me.  Fortunately I did pass second grade.  However I was fearful that third grade would be bad or worse.

About your son playing with the lamp, I can understand that very well.  I bet he'd love to take it apart and put it back together.  He probably finds the shapes and colors of the parts; and how they interact with one another; fascinating.

Kevout, what a terrible story. The pain and the bewilderment....no child should have to go through all that.  If I had been the parent, I would have belted that teacher instead. Well, verbally anyway. Parents don't have a clue unless someone tells them why their child is different. But a teacher ought to know better, or at least to see that he is failing, not the child.

Now that sounds familiar. My son is exactly like that. I have an adult friend who is still like that - at 48 years of age.

When my son was younger we'd put a small toy car in each of his hands before attempting to shower him or dress him or anything like that. Otherwise it would be a nightmare of trying to keep him from being distracted by anything and everything.

Even now it is a major achievement if he takes his shirt off by himself. His little sister already understands, she loves him dearly and she helps him with his sandals etc. when they are getting ready to go out. Usually his little sister will be dressed and sitting in her stroller, ready to go, while he is still running around in his underpants trying to decide what toys to take with him.

@Kevout2: Your childhood, at least that part, sounds like a nightmare. At that age life was less than perfect for me, but I had the benefit that my mother understood me and was patient with me, and had the patience of a saint (and was likely on the very high functioning end of the spectrum as a child herself). My father was not exactly a saint, but abuse from him was generally random and unrelated to anything I had done or hadn't done.

Thankfully there is (usually) a lot more understanding of these things nowadays, and attempting to beat ADHD out of a child is usually not the first option.

Keep in mind this was 1973.  In hindsight, my parents simply weren't prepared to have to deal with a "special needs" child.  The same goes for most teachers.  My behaviors had to be grating on my parents' nerves.  Keep in mind during those days, it was thought that many typical Asperger behaviors were the result of free will and making bad choices.  (I.e. Choosing to day dream in class and not do the class assignments instead of dutifully respecting the teacher).  Hence it was thought my typical Asperger behavior warranted discipline because; as the reasoning went; if I really wanted to do what I was supposed to do dutifully, then I could, but I repeatedly chose to disobey.

142857,

First, I'm probably like your friend in many ways.  I'm certainly very "different".  Although growing up, I have better control over myself.  But still it's hard to stay focused on tasks unless it's something I'm enthusiastic about doing.  I'm doing the laundry tonigght, for example.  But I'm at the computer.  I might look at my glass wire insulators I have sitting on the kitchen table before I make supper.  I think you get what I mean.  Not too much unlike your son having to hold a toy car when getting ready to go out.

In hindsight, I think my mother had a hard time with the fact I wasn't developing "normally"; whereas my same-age cousin was.  When I was 6, I went to a neurologist.  The neurologist said I was "as smart as an 8-year-old".  So that was no excuse to not "act my age" or perform good in school.  The Apollo Program and insects were two of my special interests at the time.  Yet I couldn't get good grades in school.  The reasoning went that there was no excuse for it.  For things typical of my peers, it was beleived that if I wanted to apply myself and try harder, then I could acheive suich milestones and get better grades.  But I chose not to (supposedly) most of the time.

You're right, it's hard to imagine the time when these things were generally so badly understood.

142857, the little sister sounds very sweet! And I do sympathize with your wife. Unless one has a very patient character, it sometimes gets intolerable, because your child is totally absorbed in whatever he is doing, but you have a mile long list of things to do at the back of your mind. And my character is anything but patient. So on the one hand I have to work on myself, on the other hand I have to be kind to myself, too. OK, I yelled at my son when I shouldn't have, but I'm only human. I tell him that, too: Mummy also has things she has trouble dealing with with, everyone does.

My eldest daughter is very patient, as long as she is the boss. So she has a great relationship with her little brother, much better than with her little sister who tries to fight her older sister's yoke off her neck. And my eldest daughter sometimes says to me with a sigh: "Oh well, patience is not your strongest point, is it?" And then we all laugh and I say: "Luckily, cuddling is!" and I show them.

But to get back to medicines: is the problem your wife's inability to cope, or your son's leaning difficulty? Or both?  Because maybe your wife and you could benefit from some parent counseling. If your son gets good marks, but merely fails to do the boring, stupid homework, I don't think medication for him would solve anything. If he starts to get bad marks or is threatened with expulsion, that would be the time to start on him. Which is what we did: long live Ritalin, he's top of the class now! But if your son is top of the class already, and he's not setting the house on fire or being angry and unhappy all the time, then I'd say not to do it and to get off his back a little. I mean, I still have nightmares about primary school because it was so unbelievably boring. I didn't do a thing there. And I did get a University degree eventually.

(1) Both. The problem is that 15 minutes of homework takes literally 2 hours of cajoling and threats and chasing him around the apartment constantly trying to keep him focused on the task at hand. While he tries to turn the conversation to something more interesting (like airplane crashes or trains) and fidgets and is distracted by / tries to play with everything within arms reach, everything that he sees and hears. After homework last night I had to massage my wife's shoulders and neck with the sort of cream normally used for sports injuries - she was so tensed up and strung out it was unbelievable.

One option might be for the school to give him all his homework to do on the weekend. Then it can be my job to help him with his homework. I am more patient (I kind of know what is going on inside his head).

(2) At his previous school my wife still got complaints from the teachers, about him moving around, not appearing to pay any attention to the teacher, dropping things on the floor then climbing under his desk and playing with his pencils and rubbers as if they were toy trains, laying his arms across the table and resting his head on them, looking (basically) bored out of his wits and making no effort to hide it. He is much smarter than I was, but has similar issues in that he relies on a near-eidetic memory to make up for his lack of focus. Teaching him to read, for example, was difficult because he found it easier to memorise a whole book than to try to read it phonetically.

My wife worries about him being like this forever, being a smart adult who can barely take care of himself. She looks at my youngest brother and my best friend and sees what he is likely to end up like if we don't change his path now.

It isn't in my wife's upbringing or her nature to just let him drift along for a few more years and see what happens (that is what I would probably do).

Leaving the house this morning as my wife was trying to get him into the shower, I heard her say "take your shirt off - you not shy that you almost 7 years old and cannot take your own shirt off?". I turned around and saw that he walked out of the bathroom to take his shirt off and then stopped in front of the TV with his arms tangled up in his half-off shirt... he would have stayed there indefinitely if my wife hadn't come out and pulled him back into the bathroom.

Oh yes...that could be my son, with that half-off shirt! So how about some parent counseling for you and your wife then? Raising him will be a challenge and your wife will have to deal with the fact that she will need a lot of patience, that he WILL get better, but that he needs to be accepted for who he is before he can even start. And if he is as sensitive as my son, it is an uphill struggle: if you don't pull and push him, nothing will happen. If you do it too much or in the wrong (impatient) way, he has a meltdown.

As for teaching him to read: don't bother getting him books that are on his supposed level. Instead, get him books that interest him, because they are about his favourite topic, or - in my son's case - because they are very funny. They were way too difficult, but he had to read them, because I didn't have the time time to keep reading them for him and he really wanted to know what was in them. You just have to go with the flow, instead of thinking "all kids his age do X now, therefore he has to do X now, too." My son went straight from no reading skills to excellent reading skills, bypassing all the stages the other kids went through.

As for fidgeting at school, that will probably get less. For now, the teacher should lessen the tension for him, rather than increase it by telling him off. Give him some place to go when it gets too much, make sure proceedings are structured, quiet and predictable. The problem is, a lot of teachers think they are doing all that, but they're not.

If your son is smart, he probably looks bored because he IS. And it is not easy for him to deal with that at this age. My husband used to make paper airplanes, I used to illustrate what the teacher was saying with elaborate drawings. But at that point we were much older. We were SO bored! My primary school reports were dreadful, but I did extremely well at University. It looks like your poor son is like us and he will have to cope with a lot of boredom. You must help him cut some corners. Ask the teacher if he really needs homework. Doesn't he understand the work anyway? And has he not been through enough on a school day, doing what was expected of him all day and dealing with sensory and other stresses? Shouldn't he have some time to unwind? Does a 7 year old really need homework, unless he is way behind? Those and lots of other questions should be asked. More of the same isn't going to help a kid like him. A school for the gifted might help, if there is one around. The place is bound to be teeming with other Aspies.

You can't change someone's path, only help him along it, so he can reach his full potential. As they say at the Steiner schools: "becoming who you are". They also say their education doesn't try to fill a vat, but to light a fire. It sounds to me like your school is the vat-filling kind...(as most schools are, unfortunately).

Anyway, those are some of my ideas when I read your story. But I am not a psychologist or counselor, and I don't really know your family. So I think you should get some counseling now, with someone who knows how to deal with schools, too. You are smart enough to realize if what they are offering benefits you or not - if not, look for a different person/institution. But I really think both the school and you need help. Homework...pffff...!@#$!!!

142857, yesterday I had a thought about your son.  Of course how he develops; being that he's different; is ever moreso critical.  It's very important that he can thrive in his educational environment.  If he develops with a good self image (meaning his spirits aren't destroyed from bullying, ostracization, etc.), I think it's a good possibility he could be a very good insurance appraiser when he grows up.  (Has he ever talked about what he wants to be when he grows up?)  With his enthusiasm for high impact collisions, that interest can be channelled in a contructive direction.  Combine that with his mathematical aptitude (if he develops his mathematical aptitude to his full potential), he could very well someday be an appraiser for an insurance company.  An alternative possibility; he could be a crash-testing engineer in the transportation sector.

This post was last modified: 03-11-2012 01:23 AM by kevout2.

Kevout, those are all good ideas. I plan to let his talents take him where they will. My teachers early on said that I would never amount to anything, and yet I have done more and achieved more than they ever could for themselves. I hope that my son lives a happy life first and foremost, and that if he wants success that he has the upbringing and education to make that possible.

Parent teacher meeting was tonight, I couldn't attend but my wife reports that the teacher says that all her energy in class is focussed on our boy. Just trying to keep him still, stop him talking and so on. He is way ahead of the other kids academically, but his teacher says that won't count for anything if he stays like this.

So I will try to get some time off work on Thursday and take him to a doctor and try to get the ball rolling.

My wife chatted with the mother of one of his classmates last week. Her son goes home every day with stories about our son, about his antics and about how frustrated the teacher gets. No stories about other kids, just our son. The mother told my wife that our son has ADHD and needs to be on Ritalin, just based on stories her son tells her.

My wife is more patient with our son now, but less patient with me with regards to getting time off work and taking our son to the doctor.

The good thing about ADHD is that Ritalin really works! Our son went from the borttom of the class straight to the top - which is where he should have been according to his IQ. I hope you find something that works, too. It sounds like your son is top of the class in any case, but you don't want him to piss the teacher off too much, either, as that could have unpleasant consequences.

This post was last modified: 04-02-2012 10:30 PM by Earth Mum.

as an aside - I am still shocked that my oldest son was dxd with add/adhd - not a hyper bone in his mellow body as a child...quiet BUT distracted ...WAY distracted but short attention span ? Nope... anyway Aspie/autie yes - and YET "they" still went with add first - and we all know drugs do NOT work for aspieism.

I am happy to hear every now and then that a drug works for someone though.

In other words my son did not act like yours at all...