How to tell if child can control behavior | ADHD Information

Tonysmom, can you edit your post to use a bigger font? It appears microscopic on my screen and I can't read it.For some boys, playing sports together with other boys is their way of relating to each other. They may not sit around chatting or whatever. Ask him if he views these kids as friends, and he'll probably say yes (at least, I hope so!). I'm glad sports are going well for him. That's such a great self-esteem booster.

I want to suggest Cub Scouts for boys who are looking for friends. The dens are small groups, meetings have planned activities, and parents are involved in activities, so you can keep an eye on your child and help as needed. This might be a great way for boys to connect with other kids socially.

I don't know about Brownies, but I'm guessing it's similar.

He was in cub scouts the problem this last year 5th grade is that it started overlapping alot with sports. We gave him a choice and he chose sports. The boys in scouts weren't in sports so he started getting out of touch with one group but better with another. What the psychologist told us if you keep punishing him for the same thing and still no change that is an indication he may not be able to control it.

before we even got on medicine or when we were just starting to find out if the medicine is the right one, he couldn't even play a basketball game, board game without having meltdowns if things weren't exactly the way he wanted them. Most people have played Sorry the board game. Imagine how he would act if someone sent one of his pieces back to home more than once or just was behind. Man was that embarassing. However now he is on adderall which seems to be better for him and he has been in basketball and football and has been enjoying it. he is pretty good in sports and the kids on the team get along with them there. He however usually doesn't have time to do stupid things which in school is where the social problems arise the most. only if he is very tired will he have meltdowns. Starts to cry, refuses to try anymore. I am hoping if he continues to do well in sports he can build some relationships even if they aren't good friends at least they will treat him decently.

That sounds great! A lot of professional athletes have ADHD. I truly wish the best for your son. My son is 10 and we have him in sports each season. He too loves it.

Social is tough for our ADHD'ers. They are truly socially immature. They act several years younger than their age. Remember that when he is doing those things in school. He is probably acting like those in a grade or two behind him.

Sports is such a postive activity for self esteem as well as exercise.

Regards!!

[QUOTE=BETHANN]

cacklingkatie,

These are the posts that really break my heart. Can you put him in some afterschool activities to have fun and meet NEW kids???? he needs to have some fun in his life where other kids are involved. I wish we lived near each other so your boy could come over and play with mine.

find any after school activities that he is interested in so he can go have fun and meet some NEW kids!

[/QUOTE]

hi bethann

we did try after school care but some of the children from his school went there too that didn't work, so we moved him and that didn't work, so we then did swimming and he enjoyed that but everyone was busy with there own things there, however, being the ever eternal optomist that i am we have just enrolled in rugby starting next week, i am really keeping my fingers crossed that this will be a really good thing for him.

I live in queensland australia so it may be a long way for your son to come on a play date lol !!!!! but he is more than welcome.

cathy

my daughter is 13 and in 7th grade. She has been on meds for several years and she still acts this way. She does goofy stuff and acts "weird". Sometimes she is trying to be funny (but really isnt) sometimes she just feels like doing it and cant recognize it's not really apporpriate. Like putting her leg behind her head because she CAN, in the midddle of social studies . Sounds silly to us, but believe me other middle schoolers are like..........Ohhhhhhkay??? She has a couple of good friends and several kids she "hangs with" at school. For this I am grateful. At about your sons age I made it my mission to get her at least SOME friends. I read every book out there, obsessively made "playdates" or outings with other girls, had sleepovers and birthday parites, anything I could to keep her with friends. This along with social skills groups (which she still does) has helped dramatically. She's not a typical teen girl with the phone ringing off the hook, but thats ok, she is having a typical teen experience and having and going to some sleeepovers and parties, school dances and sleepover camps.........

Good luck, this is SO much more work than we bargained for huh? PUSH the social stuff. Get him in activities he likes, and have him invite friends to things......anything you do with him socially, parks, bowling, swimming, ANYTHING, always encourage him to invite a friend..................

I have read some posts which almost describes my 10 year old son to a tee. The problems we are dealing with and don't know where to go are the following.

He has a good memory and any little slight from a classmate he remembers months later sometimes years later. He is getting paranoia that nobody likes him.

He does stupid things like while sitting in a bleachers at school, he will drift over and start hanging on the rail which goes up the middle of the steps. The thing that killed me today is that I was at school and a teacher said he is a great student but he has trouble sitting still sometimes and with a laugh says yesterday while reading he was hunkered over his desk with the book in front of the desk almost laying on his stomach. I told her politely to please correct that behavior though she is probably just glad he just doesn't blurt out answers all the time and now raises his hand.

This creates two problems with this behaviour. Kids in his class think he is weird and he acts goofy or stupid. So has no friends because of they do not understand why he acts this way. On top of that I honestly think he does this bizarre behavior subconsciously. He is on adderal xr and do not know if a higher dose will stop this unusual impulsive behavior.

Like many others my heart breaks for him because he is a kind, sensitive but is a loner and he would really like a friend. Some meaner kids call him names or make fun of his behavior. He is also the tallest in his class so he gets noticed easily and also is just assumed he should act older for his age except he acts half his age.

These things are major concerns. Is this stuff we just have to deal with for the rest of his school years? Would medicine help stop this stupid seeming uncontrollable behavior? It didn't help either that prior to this last year in a half he wasn't on meds and he would cry if he lost any type of game. So he has a uphill battle socially.

Signed

father who dreads the future and wants to cry in sympathy for my son.

My son and your's are the same age. The behaviour you describe sound like the medication is NOT helping him.

Once you get him on the right med AND right dose, all that stuff goes away and things get better.

Was he evaluated by a neurologist? Who is prescribing meds?

Our boys are also immature socially. so they like to do different things than their peers.

It sounds like he is smart academically, that is also common as well.

I agree, the social stuff breaks our hearts to pieces. They need just ONE friend.

What does he like to do? I would think of an after school program to put him in for social reasons, he needs it, but he also needs a clean start where there are no kids from his school who may influence others in the class. Mine liked chess, plays sports, etc. He joins in in school but nothing after school. So we find things to keep him busy.

I would definetly start with this meds and see if either increasing the dose helps, or try another. I wonder how long they are working???

My 10 year old is on concerta and guanfacine. Guanfacine helps with impulsive behavior. We also use a psychopharmacologist for meds. He was diagnosed just shy of 5 by a pediatric nuero psychologist. We began meds when he was shy of 7 and it saved his life!!

Please feel free to ask any questions!

BETHANN39484.9644791667

Hi, new here and read your post. I know how your feeling , wondering if he can control himself . My son does some of the same things yours does (my son is 10 yrs old too and tall ). The silly behaviors that are not funny but he thinks is or just the wiggling all over the place stuff too. I know its annoying and sometimes embarrassing not to mention frustrating because it hurts him socially ,I know thats how I feel sometimes and its hard. My son has ADD and a LD receptive language disorder in regards to comprehension it is usually the other was around with it being expressive language as the bigger problem but he is different because he likes to talk .. It took along time to figure out what trouble he was having because I think sometimes if a child has ADD the ADD may mask some other trouble a child may be having like a LD or other issue in addition to the ADD this comes from my own experience with my son.Back to the controlling themsleves, I do notice it gets worse when he is tired so a good nights sleep helps.I also try to remind him when he does it to stop it. I also had to explain to my son about how other kids may judge the kind of person he is by a his actions and he himself maybe closing the door friendships before they happen because of the things he does somethimes he may annoy a potential friend because my son sometimes only sees himself and is not really seeing other people but also some kids are just not very nice and nothing could make them happy because they are unhappy and insecure themselves even if they dont appear so they be the problem and he cant do anything about that and just to cross them off the list of future friends ,not everybody likes everybody. He can only change himself and try to think about what he does. I him told that I really love him the way he is and that he is wonderful (because he is) and that the rest of the word can be judgemental and many people can be shallow and to get along in the world we all have to act a certain way even myself when I am outside in the world .It seemed to make a difference in his behavior ( we have had this talk more that once everyfew months or so before it sunk in), he is more aware socially , he does have friends at school he but he has had a few incidents with bullies but he always speaks up for himself and they leave him alone because he doesn't make it easy for them ..I attribute this to karate,he has been in karate since he was 4 yrs old and it has helped him. I didn't realize it at the time when he first started how important it would become in his life ( I enrolled him on a whim )but it was a postive thing because he has friends there because it is a supportive program,students all support each other and it I believe it helped build the confidence he has today although he does have periods of selfdoubt ,but who doesn't. He has tired many other kinds of sports but none of them took.Keeping him busy is a good thing I also enroll him in many of the free programs at the librarys near by sometime they sometimes have chess class ect that interests boys, it gets them out meeting other kids outside of school.Also check recreation centers nearby they also sometimes have clubs and programs for them like pokemon club ect..and they are usually inexpensive. I dont think that they realize what they are doing inregards to the moving and wiggling around I think their awareness comes with age and all kids mature differently they have their own timetable.I am not an expert and I am learning myself everyday and am not perfect but I hope this helps. Sincerely, Tonymom

P.S my son is also a poor loser in games ,temper tantrums crying ect,its a real hoot :( .... but his father and I kept playing with him anyway and he has gotten better over the years but it hasn't gone ompletely away ,maturity i guess has tempered him.

tonysmom39489.5413425926

hope your son is feeling much better. I hear Boston is a really nice place to visit to.

thanks for the offer of a pen pal I'm sure he would love to be friends with your son.

He seems to be doing ok at the moment we went to a kenesiologist how ever you spell it and she was spot on with a lot of things about him and pin pointed areas that no one but me knew about things like when he had been ill and all the stresses that he has had of late with his father and i splitting up which i had not told her about anyway she has given us some herbal type stuff to try and says it will take about three weeks to get into his system and for him to start to feel the benefits A girl at the gym took her son to see this lady and now he is off his meds and doing well, just doing well would be good for us.

anyway i have gone on enough hope you are all well now and having a good day catch you soon cathy.

My son has been home all week sick. I read him your post and we both had a laugh. He would love to go to australia. You are welcome here in Boston any time!!

How is your son doing cacklingkate? Would he want to penpal with my son on line via email maybe?

My son lies every now and then, but not over anything important. I wonder if it is his age. What do you think he is getting from it???

cacklingkatie,

find any after school activities that he is interested in so he can go have fun and meet some NEW kids!

hi my son is the same aga in grade 6 he has no friends and this breaks my heart too. he is a really loving little boy most of the time but has had a really bad time at school with bullying. I thought that after our summer holidays it might have calmed things down but they have been back a week and it's off again but this time the boy was caught and I hope it all works out. I am not sure that medicine would help I think the best thing is just to keep on telling him that you love him and be there for him. I don't think that he does stuff deliberatly. I have tried all sorts of things so that he has friends but as yet he has not kept any. But I tell him that they are the ones too miss out on some one who is so great to have around .I don't know really what to do next but it is always nice to know that you are never alone

keep smiling cathy

One other problem we have been having is lying the last month. Is this a typical 10 year old problem or is it influenced by impulse behavior. he is great at looking like he doesn't listen to what we say but most of the time he is listening. He doesn't seem to really care that much that he is lying but don't know stop this latest problem. Always a hard line is knowing when to push something and not damaging his self esteem. He can control it with a little effort or just done impulsively so it is hard to get him to correct it. This is a funny problem in a way because so many times he is so literal. Ask him something and if it is not exactly the same thing on what he did, he acts like he is telling the truth and gets upset when we say quit being so technical