Attention Deficit Disorder: What is normal anyway?
By beekay (Brandon Haught)
Attention Deficit Disorder is difficult to nail down. No blood test, X-Ray or thermometer is going to detect the symptoms or provide a plus or minus indicating that a child has ADD. Doctors are armed with knowledge about the disorder, but they depend on other people's observations in order to draw any conclusions. And, unfortunately, those conclusions can be wrong.
My son has ADD, but it took a couple of years for me and my wife to realize it. It all started for us when my boy was in kindergarten. He did just fine in school; he wasn't the brightest light bulb in the bunch, but under the guidance of a very kind and caring teacher, he got through the year just fine. During the parent-teacher conferences, though, the teacher cautioned us that he was a little different. He had a tendency to bounce around when the other kids were listening and he had a tough time concentrating. She suggested that he might have ADD, putting stress on the word "might." She said the symptoms were there, but that is was too early to tell for sure.
My wife and I had a hard time believing what the teacher was telling us. We had heard negative things about the medicine ADD children were put on. Magazine articles and TV news shows at that time were reporting on classrooms full of kids on prescribed drugs, insinuating that it was a form of mind control. It seemed that rather than disciplining unruly kids, parents and teachers were resorting to drugs to keep the children in control. That impression rubbed us wrong, and we didn't want to have anything to do with that nonsense.
We were also convinced that our son was just a normal active boy. He ran around, played, and interacted with other kids just fine. He also had some amazing focus. He owns zillions of Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars and one of his favorite things to do was to line them all up around the living room floor. He would spend hours placing each one carefully behind the other and then moving them one at a time to another line. This was our evidence that he had focus. We figured that maybe his teacher just wasn't properly getting his attention during lessons. He was just like any other boy his age, or so we thought.
In first grade, our boy's schoolwork really started slipping. He wasn't catching on to reading and he was falling way behind his peers. The teacher was one who didn't really believe in ADD; she originally thought it was some weird made-up problem. But by the middle of the year, she suggested we needed to take him to a doctor. The boy simply couldn't concentrate in class. He fidgeted non-stop. He fell out of his chair a dozen times each and every day because of his fidgeting. This alarmed us, but we were still skeptical of ADD being the cause.
What turned us around, though, was when my wife started her student teaching. She was on her last semester of college and had to teach in an actual classroom. She student taught first grade and what she saw helped push her into believing in ADD. The students were attentive. They fidgeted, but only a little. They could concentrate and stay on an assigned task. They played, ran around and picked on one another, but they didn't bounce off the walls all day long. These were "normal" kids. It then dawned on my wife that our kid was actually not so normal.
For the longest time, all we were exposed to was our son. We saw him as normal because we had no one else to compare him to. But now we had some idea of what normal was supposed to be like. It was time to see the doctor.
As I mentioned earlier, there is no blood test for ADD. Instead, we filled out a questionnaire about his behavior at home, and his teacher filled one out too. My son then saw a psychologist who gave him some type of test while the psychologist observed how he acted while doing the tasks assigned to him. Once all was said and done, the doctor believed that our son did have ADD.
Despite this revelation, we were still nervous about the medicine. What would it do to our boy? Would it change the personality that we loved so much?
It was the end of the school year by the time the ADD was diagnosed, so we didn't have much of an opportunity to see what the medicine would do. The matter was dropped during the summer, but was nervously picked back up for the next school year. We decided the boy needed to repeat first grade, because he had fallen so far behind. If he had advanced to second grade, he would have failed, guaranteed; he simply had not nailed down the first grade skills yet.
We moved and had to change schools, but once again we lucked out with a great, understanding and loving teacher. She worked with us and helped us out by giving us regular reports about his behavior. While on the medicine, he was great, she reported. He concentrated and did really well. The boy had to have his medicine twice a day and on occasion it got too busy to get him his second dose at lunch time. Those afternoons, the teacher would report a drastic change in him. He would be bouncing all over the classroom. He couldn't keep still no matter what the teacher did. And he couldn't stay on task. There was a clear night and day comparison between his being on medicine and off. Simply put, without the medicine, he would not succeed in class.
His personality did change, though, and my wife and I are not always happy with it, because it is simply not our boy. He his more docile. His appetite is smaller. If he misses a couple of doses, he tends to get highly emotional and will cry at the least provocation. So, on the one hand we have a kid will do much better in school, but on the other hand, our son has changed. The key characteristics that made him "our boy" have been altered. Drugs can be scary.
We keep him on the drugs during the school year because he needs them. There is just no way around it. During the summer, though, we take him off the medicine. My wife said it best: "I want to be with MY boy at least a couple of months out of the year!"
My wife is a certified teacher now and armed with her experience with her own son, she can easily spot potential ADD children in her class. What's sad, though, is that ADD is incredibly misunderstood by parents, teachers, and -- even more frightening -- doctors. There are a few students that are severe ADD -- much more obvious than my son's case ever was -- and yet the parents are oblivious and refuse to even acknowledge the possibility, even when their child's educational future is at stake. On the opposite end of the spectrum are students that are not ADD by any stretch of the imagination, and yet doctors willingly put the poor children on the medicine. There was one case in specific in my wife's class this past year. The child was put on the medicine without ever asking for my wife's opinion. The child became very emotional while on the medicine, and rather than his school performance getting any better, it actually got worse.
Make no mistake; ADD drugs are mind/personality altering. However, in some cases the altering is in the child's best interest. It's not a matter of curbing unruly children's behavior. It's a matter of giving a child the ability to concentrate when and where it matters most. Abuse or misunderstanding will only compound the problems. If you ever suspect your child has ADD, or if approached by a teacher about the possibility, please research the case thoroughly and seriously. Your child's future is at stake.
By beekay (Brandon Haught)
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My son has ADD, but it took a couple of years for me and my wife to realize it. It all started for us when my boy was in kindergarten. He did just fine in school; he wasn't the brightest light bulb in the bunch, but under the guidance of a very kind and caring teacher, he got through the year just fine. During the parent-teacher conferences, though, the teacher cautioned us that he was a little different. He had a tendency to bounce around when the other kids were listening and he had a tough time concentrating. She suggested that he might have ADD, putting stress on the word "might." She said the symptoms were there, but that is was too early to tell for sure.
My wife and I had a hard time believing what the teacher was telling us. We had heard negative things about the medicine ADD children were put on. Magazine articles and TV news shows at that time were reporting on classrooms full of kids on prescribed drugs, insinuating that it was a form of mind control. It seemed that rather than disciplining unruly kids, parents and teachers were resorting to drugs to keep the children in control. That impression rubbed us wrong, and we didn't want to have anything to do with that nonsense.
We were also convinced that our son was just a normal active boy. He ran around, played, and interacted with other kids just fine. He also had some amazing focus. He owns zillions of Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars and one of his favorite things to do was to line them all up around the living room floor. He would spend hours placing each one carefully behind the other and then moving them one at a time to another line. This was our evidence that he had focus. We figured that maybe his teacher just wasn't properly getting his attention during lessons. He was just like any other boy his age, or so we thought.
In first grade, our boy's schoolwork really started slipping. He wasn't catching on to reading and he was falling way behind his peers. The teacher was one who didn't really believe in ADD; she originally thought it was some weird made-up problem. But by the middle of the year, she suggested we needed to take him to a doctor. The boy simply couldn't concentrate in class. He fidgeted non-stop. He fell out of his chair a dozen times each and every day because of his fidgeting. This alarmed us, but we were still skeptical of ADD being the cause.
What turned us around, though, was when my wife started her student teaching. She was on her last semester of college and had to teach in an actual classroom. She student taught first grade and what she saw helped push her into believing in ADD. The students were attentive. They fidgeted, but only a little. They could concentrate and stay on an assigned task. They played, ran around and picked on one another, but they didn't bounce off the walls all day long. These were "normal" kids. It then dawned on my wife that our kid was actually not so normal.
For the longest time, all we were exposed to was our son. We saw him as normal because we had no one else to compare him to. But now we had some idea of what normal was supposed to be like. It was time to see the doctor.
As I mentioned earlier, there is no blood test for ADD. Instead, we filled out a questionnaire about his behavior at home, and his teacher filled one out too. My son then saw a psychologist who gave him some type of test while the psychologist observed how he acted while doing the tasks assigned to him. Once all was said and done, the doctor believed that our son did have ADD.
Despite this revelation, we were still nervous about the medicine. What would it do to our boy? Would it change the personality that we loved so much?
It was the end of the school year by the time the ADD was diagnosed, so we didn't have much of an opportunity to see what the medicine would do. The matter was dropped during the summer, but was nervously picked back up for the next school year. We decided the boy needed to repeat first grade, because he had fallen so far behind. If he had advanced to second grade, he would have failed, guaranteed; he simply had not nailed down the first grade skills yet.
We moved and had to change schools, but once again we lucked out with a great, understanding and loving teacher. She worked with us and helped us out by giving us regular reports about his behavior. While on the medicine, he was great, she reported. He concentrated and did really well. The boy had to have his medicine twice a day and on occasion it got too busy to get him his second dose at lunch time. Those afternoons, the teacher would report a drastic change in him. He would be bouncing all over the classroom. He couldn't keep still no matter what the teacher did. And he couldn't stay on task. There was a clear night and day comparison between his being on medicine and off. Simply put, without the medicine, he would not succeed in class.
His personality did change, though, and my wife and I are not always happy with it, because it is simply not our boy. He his more docile. His appetite is smaller. If he misses a couple of doses, he tends to get highly emotional and will cry at the least provocation. So, on the one hand we have a kid will do much better in school, but on the other hand, our son has changed. The key characteristics that made him "our boy" have been altered. Drugs can be scary.
We keep him on the drugs during the school year because he needs them. There is just no way around it. During the summer, though, we take him off the medicine. My wife said it best: "I want to be with MY boy at least a couple of months out of the year!"
My wife is a certified teacher now and armed with her experience with her own son, she can easily spot potential ADD children in her class. What's sad, though, is that ADD is incredibly misunderstood by parents, teachers, and -- even more frightening -- doctors. There are a few students that are severe ADD -- much more obvious than my son's case ever was -- and yet the parents are oblivious and refuse to even acknowledge the possibility, even when their child's educational future is at stake. On the opposite end of the spectrum are students that are not ADD by any stretch of the imagination, and yet doctors willingly put the poor children on the medicine. There was one case in specific in my wife's class this past year. The child was put on the medicine without ever asking for my wife's opinion. The child became very emotional while on the medicine, and rather than his school performance getting any better, it actually got worse.
Make no mistake; ADD drugs are mind/personality altering. However, in some cases the altering is in the child's best interest. It's not a matter of curbing unruly children's behavior. It's a matter of giving a child the ability to concentrate when and where it matters most. Abuse or misunderstanding will only compound the problems. If you ever suspect your child has ADD, or if approached by a teacher about the possibility, please research the case thoroughly and seriously. Your child's future is at stake.
June 24, 2002