Kids And Coping With ADHD

I got to chatting with a few people on Facebook tonight, and I decided I might as well make a facebook group where we could all get together to share our experiences. Feel free to come along if you feel like it :)

ADHD Etc Parents Group

Anna

ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADD ADH ADHD tips ADHD links adhd parenting adhd advice adhd tips adhd kids adhd resources coping with adhd

This home education lark isn't getting any easier. Some days Kyle refuses point blank to do anything at all, and when he's in that mood absolutely nothing sways him. Threats don't work, rewards don't work, taking things away from him doesn't work, bribery doesn't work. It's really hard going on days like that.

Other days are better, he'll sit and watch documentaries on tv, do a few pages of English and Maths, then play some educational games on the pc.

Also having hellish problems with him not sleeping at night, he doesn't fall asleep until sometime between 2am and 3am on a good night, on a bad night he's up until 5am then sleeps until 11am!

Of course, being that I have to be constantly aware of what he's doing, it means I don't get a lot of sleep myself. I still have to be up at 7am to get Courtney all sorted and off to school, so every so often I feel totally burned out. We manage though, thankfully the bigger ones help me out every so often and watch Kyle so I can steal an hour or 2 of sleep in the afternoon. I don't think I could manage to function properly otherwise.

Anna

ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADD ADH ADHD tips ADHD links adhd parenting adhd advice adhd tips adhd kids adhd resources coping with adhd

Wow, it's been ages since I updated anything here. I'm so sorry about that. Lots of things have been going on what with the illness I had, trying to find suitable things for Kyle to do, trying to sort out the other kids, a few miscarriages etc. I think things got on top of me a bit for a while, and when I finally got well again I didn't seem to have time to sit on the pc much.

The latest news is that me and Hugh are not together any more, things didn't quite work out there, but the good news is that the kids have taken it very well, even Kyle has taken it exceptionally well, so all is good in that respect.

I'll get back to updating about Kyle and his ADHD a bit more often now, will just have to check back to see where I left off.

Not to forget, the name of that pen in my last post is YoroPen, and it's fabulous ;)

Anna

ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADD ADH ADHD tips ADHD links adhd parenting adhd advice adhd tips adhd kids adhd resources coping with adhd

Ok, let's see if we can get back on track with the story of our life and dealing with ADHD.

The kids came home from France, and of course everything was all haywire and full of excitement and happiness about being home again, at least for a few days LOL

Kyle was as overactive as you can possibly imagine, and so hyped cos he was back home it was almost like having the old old Kyle back.

After a few days, all the excitement calmed down, and unbelievable as it was, Kyle calmed down too! I'd been a bit worried that my mother wouldn't give him his tablets regularly as she doesn't quite agree with it, but she had been and they seemed to now be working wonders.

Kyle was happy again, he was calm (as calm as any other 9 and a half year old boy, anyway LOL), and he was showing more of an interest in everything again.

His concentration levels soared to new heights, he could sit with his learning cd's on his PC for a good 20-30 minutes now, and was really starting to enjoy himself.

The most amazing change in him was that he suddenly started holding a pen and attempting to write a couple of words every now and again!

You might not think that's a great feat, but when you have a son who is almost 10 and can't write (or won't), or even hold ANY kind of writing utensil, you'll understand the greatness of it.

Kyle has never even coloured pictures in colouring books, that's how bad it was. Ok, he still doesn't, and it's very rare he'll try to write anything, but it happens every now and again. Of course, I jump on the chance EVERY chance I get and help him out as much as I can.

It's strange though. He's a fantastic little reader, and he'll type small stuff up on his PC if I help him with the spelling, but he has never ever liked holding anything that even resembles a pen or pencil.

I've tried just about every type you can imagine, but it's always been a no-go area.

I recently read about a new type of pen, one that's supposed to let people see what they're writing while they're writing, that I want to try. Seems some guy came up with the idea because his little girls had some problems and he wanted to help them.

Now if only I could remember the name of the pen...

Anna



ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADD ADH ADHD tips ADHD links adhd parenting adhd advice adhd tips adhd kids adhd resources coping with adhd

It's been a rough time, so not been back to post much. Had an unfortunate miscarriage and everything just felt rotten for a while, so I got busy with my internet stuff and got the new site TrafficGamers.com and even added a wordpress blog to it.

Keeping myself busy like this has helped me to not dwell too much on the 'happening'.

A good thing did come of it though. I added all of the games to Kyles computer and him and the others are having a blast playing them all. Imagine being a 10 year old (his birthday is on New Years Day) and having over 3000 games to play on your own pc with NO internet connection. He's in heaven LOL.

Ok, so he may not be in heaven right now, in fact, he's in France again with the others visiting his Gran for the Xmas and New Year. What a mistake that was on my behalf, I really shouldn't have let them go, life and xmas has been SO dull without them!

They won't be back until the 4th January, so still a while to go yet AND I'll be missing Kyles birthday for the first time in 10 years. He's not worried though, like he said on the phone; 'That's ok mum, it just means I get to have 2 birthday parties and double the presents!'

He really is a star :D

Anna

ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADD ADH ADHD tips ADHD links adhd parenting adhd advice adhd tips adhd kids adhd resources coping with adhd

So we had the pescription and off we trotted to the local chemist to collect the tablets. We were both quite excited, as the doc had told us how it worked and we wanted to see if he was right.

He had said there were 2 layers in a Concerta tablet, one was a quick release ritalin coating that would get to work almost immediately, and the other was a slow release inner that would work throughout the day.

That meant 1 tablet per day, at least that's what he wanted us to start on, and said we could up it to 2 if it didn't seem to be working too well.

We got the tablets and Kyle couldn't wait to try it out. It was still early morning, so he got the tablet and....

Nope, it wasn't a miracle cure. He calmed down quite quickly, but not lots. Through the day he seemed a tiny tiny tiny bit calmer than he was without tablets, but it was barely noticeable.

We stuck with it, one tablet per day at 8am for the next couple of weeks. It still didn't seem to be kicking in much, so we decided that when he came back from his nans in France (he was going for 3 weeks), we'd up the dosage to 2 tablets per day instead.

All of the kids went to their nans, and although it was bliss to start with, I started getting bored after the first week and couldn't wait for them to come home. I was also really worried about how Kyle would cope with being away from home for so long when he'd just started on the concerta...

ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADD ADH ADHD tips ADHD links adhd parenting adhd advice adhd tips adhd kids adhd resources coping with adhd

Time to get back to the story of Kyle, my little Star ;)

As I wrote before, when Kyle stopped taking Ritalin, he crashed right back to the way he was before ever starting medication, yet this time it felt worse. I know it only felt worse because we'd now seen a different, calmer, friendlier and happier side to my little boy.

We trundled on, and asked all kinds of people for tips and ideas, nothing much helped. We've always done a lot of activities to help keep him and the other kids occupied, heck, I even wrote a small book of the common activities we have here at home, so that wasn't what we needed help with. We just needed something that would take away his unhappiness, if even only a little.

A friend of mine in America mentioned Concerta. He said it had been fantastic for his daughter who had been almost exactly the same as Kyle and he recommended that we try it out. So we did a lot of researching on the net, and finally decided to ask our doctor about it. He was quite taken aback at first when he realized everything we knew about Concerta and he told us it wasn't 'really' available here in the UK due to how much it costs. Seemingly it's 7x more expensive than Ritalin.

Kyle said 'I don't care how much it costs you, you have to let me try it, because it might work and it might not'. LOL, did I ever mention how grown up he is in many ways?

The specialist agreed to letting us try the Concerta and sent us on our way with a prescription and a new appointment. Would the Concerta help any? There was only one way to find out...

Anna
p.s. If you'd like to check out the book I mentioned Click Here

ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADD ADH ADHD tips ADHD links adhd parenting adhd advice adhd tips adhd kids adhd resources coping with adhd