PYHO: Admitting your child has a problem

As a parent you don't want to think that there is anything wrong with your child. They are this perfect human being that you created and you will stop at nothing to make their life normal. They achieve all the growing milestones on or before the average child. They talk at an early age and walk at an early age. Gross motor skills are right on target as well as fine motor skills. Then it's like something else happens.

I first noticed it when Miss K was going on two years old that she lacked the ability to focus on a given task. Even small tasks that only required a short amount of time and thinking, she would struggle.
At every pediatrician visit we would bring it up that she had issues. The answer was always, "it's her age. They have a short attention span at young ages."

So we struggled another year and would again repeat the concerns. Of course they would give us the same answer, that it was her age. They just didn't seem to understand that it's like she has all these thoughts going around in her head and she can't stop them.

Miss K is a very intelligent child, she just lacks the ability to focus for long periods and fidgets. She also likes to talk, too much sometimes which falls back into not being to focus and does not pay attention to her surroundings.  

 Her first year of school was a minor struggle. Since it was only Kindergarten and the school system treats them gently, she made it through.Unfortunately, the next year did not go as well. She received average grades but her behavior was causing concerns. We had several parent/ teacher conferences and a few conferences with the principal.

It was mentioned at one of the conferences about Miss K being gifted and possible testing. Her reading scores were high, she was on the next grade level and other areas pointed in that direction. I was dissatisfied with her first grade teacher and even more so when she failed to file the paperwork in time.

It was then that I was forced to wait until second grade to get the test done by the school. The teacher that Miss K got for second grade was really nice and loved my daughter. However, the class that she was in had two teachers with two classes. So the other teacher was not as compassionate and Miss K constantly got into trouble and her behavior was up and down.

By the time that I knew the gifted test was going to be performed, I realized it was not going to go well.With my daughter's inability to stay focused, it took her longer to complete tests, longer to produce answers and without paper she was going to score low. She couldn't just think the answer in her mind without writing it out. But I knew she wasn't going to ask for pen and paper for this test. It's mostly verbal answers.

By the end of the school year, I knew that I was going to have to pick her teacher for the next year. I was not going to leave it up to chance and hope she was placed with a compassionate teacher. If she was going to be in public school, I knew that she needed a better teacher to be able to make it.

This year has been completely different. Her teacher is amazing. We have had our ups and downs again, but this time I have been ready for it. And I finally stopped letting the pediatricians bulldoze me and I requested Miss K be tested for ADHD. They didn't fight me either.

The questionnaires were very extensive for myself and her teacher. I was also required to get test scores, report cards and any material that could show Miss K' performance. A few weeks after turning in the paper work we were called in for the first evaluation.

Miss K was diagnosed with ADHD with hyperactivity and low focus. The focus I knew, the hyper activity, I was some what shocked. But after thinking about it, realized that she has a hard time sitting still at times when she should be. The next step was deciding if we wanted to go with medicating her. I said yes and accepted their prescription and set up a follow up appointment.

But it wasn't until this past weekend that I finally started her on the medicine. I was still apprehensive. I thought, maybe we could still do this without it. Honestly, I was scared. The side effects worried me some. And explaining this all to her seemed very hard.

But in just five days time, I already see major improvements. It's amazing. We are seeing one of the side effects and we are supposed to call the pediatrician a week after starting the medicine. It's like the medicine has tuned out the random thoughts in her head and allowed her to focus on individual tasks.

I never thought it would take this long to finally get a grip on the issue.