The art of rasing a child with ADHD...??

[ckmiser]

    There are so many people that say rasing a child with ADHD and not having that child on meds is crazy. I have heard " I had my son/daughter put on meds right away."
 I chose not to put my son on meds when we recentley(about a month ago) were told that he is ADHD, which I have had my suspisions since he was in 1st grade. I wonder if you could give me your opioion on meds vers no meds.  Any advice on ADHD would be greatly apperciated...Thank you in advance!!

[catdula]

Would be hay to give you some insight. My son was diagnosed at age 4. Went on medication before starting kindergarten. Had to switch medications before 1st grade because of side effects. Hat to increase medications at end of 1st grade because it was not working. Now he is off of it because the medications were not agreeing with him. Gonna try no meds for awhile. He was really agressive. Now not so much. Just has a need to be first, best, and the one and only. Doing well in school though. He was raised in a home where violence was present when mom shared custody. We think that is his problem. The meds helped at first, but then the no sleeping and mood swings are horrible. Try avoiding foods with red and yellow dyes. Also try taking out gluten from the diet. And Vitamin B complex and omega is good for them too.

[ckmiser]

Thank you for the information. It is always helpful to talk with someone who is also going through or dealing with the same obsticles in life. I hope the non medication way works for him as well.

[jenn0527]

My oldest son who is now 14 went through 5 febral seizures between 12-18 months he lost all his speech and would rock constantly and was not physically able to be social. He was extremely tuned out emotionally which was very hard for me as his mother.

Everyone told me to put him on medication of some kind. I refused. At age 4 he started talking with small words but stuttered heavily to the point where it was hard to understand him. In Kindergarten the school offered a speech therapist and officially diagnosed him with Autism.

By the end of his kindergarten year he sounded like everyone else in his age group. It took a few more years for him to stop rocking and be able to sit still but it did correct on it's own. Now my son is in 9th Grade Doing College Math and Science. He is known as our family clown and is now very verbal and affectionate.

Sometimes you just have to get some outside help and be patient with the process which can be very hard.

I have been told that my 7 year old younger son has ADHD and I have refused to put him on medication too. Through a lot of trial and error we have discovered that his behavior is actually tied to food allergies. He is basically allergic to everything under the sun. We give him his prescription Claritin, A daily Multivitamin with extra vitamin C and only use soy products to replace dairy, no tomatoes,ect.

Every situation is different so I would say do what works for you and your child.

[SarahPunk]

I don't know first hand, but I believe that medications should only be given to a child in dire circumstances. These days everyone medicates too much and they wonder why they have so many problems. God gave us immune systems for a reason. As far as ADHD goes, my sister is a school teacher and has had children with ADHD both medicated and unmedicated. She says that lots of times when the child is medicated they become almost comatose. She says, that the ones who are not medicated are hard to deal with in the classroom but once you find they're calming twitch so to speak, it makes things easier and is better in the long run. You have to teach your child self control rather than just medicate them and call it done.

I remember my sister never shutting up and running around constantly and NEVER able to sit still, one time her teacher set her desk aside from everyone else and put tape on the floor around it and said "Here is your box, you can be wherever you want in this box and that's ok just don't bother anyone else". That worked perfectly, she sat under her desk or on top of it or whatever as long as she got her work done and didn't bother anyone else. Looking back I think she was/is ADHD. But Mom taught her to control herself. Now she teaches 1st grade and has no problems keeping up with those kids.

I think you've done well nt medicating your children.