My 12 year old has to have his concerta everyday, or he can't control himself. He is on 72 mg., and needs this to as he puts it to think right. His eating has gotten better, he is just very Hungary every night at 8:45, so he has dinner or a large snack at this time.
I give my son a break from the 27mg concerta on a given day if there is nothing scheduled.I think its totally up to you. Whatever you decide is fine. Personally I did the same as you, until I found home life terrible, then there was homework issues, then there was not being able to trust the little bugger outside unsupervised. So eventually, so he could have a better quality of life, and so could everyone else, I chose to medicate for evenings and weekends as well. I tried to go with as little medication as possible, until I felt there was no choice. There are too many positive changes in him. At 15 we know what we have to do for him. Depends on the child and level of ADHD symptoms etc. etc.I do not give my daughter her Concerta (She's on 27mg) on weekends or breaks from school. The doctor said this was fine. I do give it to her if she has a party she is going to or if we have a family get together just so she is able to make it through without a major incidentWe never give our 12-year-old son ADHD meds on the weekends or on school vacations, including all summer. We were told by our doctor to do this.
Does anyone that has a kid on concerta give them a break on weekends from the med? I do on weekends so he will eat will good. But I was told that its not good to give them a break.
Concerta tends to build up in the system and the same dose usually stops working effectively after a while. I found that when my child was on 36 mgs, we had to either stop on the weekends or give him 27 mgs on the weekends in order to keep up the effectiveness. The next step up was too high of a dose.
Some kids have issues with stopping completely on the weekends, b/c they have side effects from starting & stopping. You need to evaluate it on your own and see how your child does. If they can handle no meds on the weekends I think thats great, b/c usually they eat and sleep much better.
I don't give my son meds on the weekends, vacations, or summer. We never had a problem with this. I asked his Dr., and he said it was okay to do that as long as we were comfortable with it. He eats much better during this time, and he doesn't really have anything to concentrate on or sit still for.My son takes his meds everyday, otherwise I could not deal with him and I do not think it is fair to him to constantly get into trouble. He is very impulsive. So he gets his meds daily. Summer vacations and the weekends are the same as well. He does not stop the meds.
My son doesn't take his meds on weekends,holidayssummer,or snow days. We already had 3 this year. His doctor said this was fine. He does well. Maybe a little more hyper. It's okay though. Now that he is 10,he doesn't have to stay right with me in the store. So he can go exploring while I look for stuff.
I have tried several ways, not on weekends, yes on weekends. The bottom line is this, if your child is old enough to tell you how they feel on it or without it, maybe you can let them decide. My son is 14 and I tried to take him off it on the weekends, because he ate and slept better. He said he didn't like how he felt and couldn't calm down, so he takes it on weekends too. We have also found that it has a sort of rebound effect once you take them off, and on, off and on. It seems to take longer to get it working again, and once they are off, they are even more hyper. Just my observation though. Our doctor said it was up to us, and there is not any kind of medical problem with taking him off on weekends. Try it different ways and see what works best for you.
hope this helps
my son is on concerta also he was on the 18mg for six months but now had to be increased to 27mg. I'm scared that it might be to strong, because he is such a small boy. But the other one wasn't helping at school anymore because he wasn't focused enough. I just don't want it to be increased every 6 months because it doesn't work anymore after all he is only 5 years old. moms2boys38774.3246527778