Thanks for your response and advice - I guess that my main concern right now is his hurting of other children. I am not there with him at the time and cannot stop him from doing it - I worry that he will "really" hurt someone, or that a parent of one of the children is going to be very upset and something bad will happen. I also worry that if he is being so disruptive on the bus, what if the driver is distracted and they end up getting in an accident!! Again, I can't be there to keep him under control.
His teacher is wonderful - I get the feeling she has worked with this situation in the past, and I was pretty up front with her about what to expect, so she was firm from the start.
It seems that when he is uncomfortable with the situation (transition to new room, times when he has to sit still) he will act out to take attention from the fact that he can't do what he is supposed to do? Does that make sense??? And when he is unsure this is also when he acts out and is aggressive to other children - and I worry about how this will affect his long term relationship with these kids!!
At our Moms lunch at daycare, one of the little girls moms was telling me that her daughter talked about M all the time and she thought she had a crush on him - and the little girl piped up "but now M is mean and hits". So sad - he is so fun and the other kids generally love him, but his actions are starting to ruin that!
Hi everyone, I am new to this board, and although my son (5) has not officially been diagnosed with ADHD I am very strongly beginning to think that he has it.
By way of background, my son M was adopted from Guatemala, he was 8 1/2 months old when he came to us. He was a very happy baby and transitioned well. Healthy, other than having a propensity to contract every virus he came into contact with for the first couple years. As he grew into a toddler, we always described him as passionate - if he was happy, his laughter and sparkling eyes would infect everyone around him - if he was sad or mad, everyone knew it. He was always just "more" of everything.
He has always been in FT daycare - he did great in the 2 year old room, became a bit more of a handful in the 3 year old room, but nothing that the teachers saw as a problem. When he reached the 4 year old room, with preschool in the morning, he started having lots of problems. He couldn't sit and focus at circle time, became aggressive with school friends, swearing, telling bad stories and scaring the other children, etc. We were in constant contact with his teachers to try to figure out how to help him. In January, I picked him up from school at the end of a relatively rough day, and I watched him walk out - head down, shuffling his feet, he was so sad. He is smart enough to know he is struggling, and sensitive enough to be really bothered by it. I said, that is enough, it should not be this hard for a 4 year old. So, I called my ped, who recommended that we see a child psychotherapist - which we did. Preliminary analysis revealed impulse control issues, transitional issues and attentional issues. Most of our sessions with her have been focused on how to parent and discipline him best.
Now, he just started 4K. I was hoping that the excitement of "big boy school" would help him, but we already had a call from the principal - he was sent to the office two days for misbehaving on the bus. He was hurting school friends and being disruptive on the bus. I also spoke with his teacher, and she said that the first two days of school were very rough and he tested her with every chance, but that she was firm with her rules and consequences, and that yesterday he was better.
But, she did say that his inability to sit is more than just a "busy boy who has a hard time sitting". It breaks my heart to see him struggle so much. I love this little guy and his younger brother so much that sometimes when I look at them I feel my heart will break open! To make matters worse, our health insurance has changed, making our doctor out of network - and for out of network mental health, we have a ,000 deductible. There is only one in-network doctor in our area, and I am not sure how long it will take to get in to this doctor.
We see our ped next week for his 5 year checkup, and I am going to seriously talk with her about specific ADHD testing, and the possibility of medication. He is so young, I hate to have to medicate him and was really hoping that behavior modification techniques would help him to cope, but I am beginning to think it is not going to work for him.
Any thoughts, advice on how we should proceed or what we can do would be greatly appreciated! Sorry this got so long...I think i just needed to get it all out.
Hi! It is devastating to watch our children struggle with what should be a funand exciting time. Some advice: if you are struggling with the costs of diagnosis, talk to you son's school district. They may have a psych on staff who can help. You might be able to put together a diagnosis and plan of action with the school psych and your pediatrician that you can feel confident in. My only other advice, while I don't advocate that anyone take on more debt, is that the cost of testing and a reliable and comprehensive diagnosis is well worth the cost of a monthly payment. You might be able to work out a payment plan ahead of time. I know that advice doesn't really help, but it's all I've got.
Since he's so young, you could start with behavior modifications, i.e. reward systems. They tend to work for a while, and then need to be altered to hold the child's attention. They can really only work if the child's teacher is willing to give it a whole-hearted try.