advice on my 9 yr old | ADHD Information

I also think this is worth digging deeper on. The "compulsive type" behaviors he has are most likely being caused by anxiety (picking, hair pulling, ripping things). The need for a resource room for reading, but not progressing would worry me too. I do think it's worth getting the ball rolling so to speak. Why not request him be evlauated. Make your main concern the reading issue and you want him evaluated for a reading LD (could be the source of anxiety), 3rd grade is when that shift of learning to read changes to reading to learn. If you cant read well, it goes downhill (and fast) from there. BELIEVE me I know. You can add the concern of disorganization, forgetting things and distractability. Request it now and hopefully the school will at least do the testing before school gets out.

Thank you everyone. I will be contacting the school this morning to see if I can get something going on this. I went into the school about a week or two ago and ask them to have the social worker call me, so that I could talk to her about some of these things and she never did. So I don't know if she get the message or not.

I'm going to email his teacher, and call the school at the same time. So hoepfully one way or another I will get through to someone this time.

Can I make a suggestion? Go ahead and make the call and email, but type a letter to the SPED director, dated, and officially request the evaluation in writing. Ideally you would bring it to the school office, request it be date stamped and a copy made for your records. If thats not possible, mail it with return receipt  requested...........may as well start documenting things now. Get a notebook and put all documentation in it. Including his progress reports and report cards, communication with teachers.....etc., etc.........Great idea. Thank you Diane. Beting their ass doosen't help trust me I have tried LOL. My duaghter di the same thing until they got her on med in second grade. Her grade did improve after that. Now they woern't perfect but better. She started having anxtity problems this year which she is in the 5ht grade now. so they had to chnge her meds. wel after alot of trial and error she is on something that seems to be working. But they are now putting her back a year. Anyway my sugestion is go ahead and put him on med. see if he imroves.  Like I tell people that question me about meds. You won't deny your child insulin if they were diabetic would you. In my opinion it is the same thing. Melissa

i agree, he is just a little different then his brother. he's a vegetarian. yep believe it or not he is-- he isn't afraid to tell you why either. cause he doesn't like the way they slaughter animals. so he's very picky about what he puts in his body. i can't even get him to take tylenol when he has a headache. so i worry about that issue with him.

but i guess i'm going to have to because he has lots of issues at school, he's a very nervous person, he will pick at his forehead, pull his hair etc when he gets nervous. or tear up erasers. his teacher actually complained about it earier in the year, and i said i'm sorry he's a nervous child, i don't know what to do about it. he started it in 1st grade.

thank you. I suppose i will have to talk to his dr about putting him on something.

The rights medication could help.  The question to ponder is it the ADD causing the anxiety or the anxiety causing the ADD.  

I never thought about that horsemom. He has never really had a problem with the add untill last year.  Any idea how to figure that one out?

I have one really big concern that I would love to speak with the school about, he had an A- in reading the first quarter of the year, so his teacher started sending him out of the room to another room for reading resource. Which I have no problem with, I always had trouble growing up comprehending what I read. So if they can help him so he doesn't have that problem by all means, Thank you. So the second quarter I get his grades B- in reading. Then third quarter C- in reading and right now he has a 40 in reading. So I asked him if he liked going there, thinking maybe it bothered him, maybe he got teased or something about it. He said no, I love it mom. It's actually really fun. So I can't figure out why after he starts going down to resource for reading his reading grade has dropped so drastically.

I would love any ideas or suggestions, because I'm just about mentally tapped right now. I've spent the last 10 days extremely sick with some kind of bacterial flu. Thanks so much.

 That's a tough one and an issue we looked at when we started treating my daughter at the end of 3rd grade.  We had one evaluation leaning more towards ADD and another more towards anxiety.   Her teacher saw more anxiety than I did while I saw more ADD tendencies that she did.   We met with our medication person and discussed the different treatment options.  She asked my opinion and what route I wanted to try first.  I picked the ADD path. 

So far, it seems like the right one.  She is doing really well on Concerta and Tenex.  The addition of tenex is a good one.  I don't see a drastic change, it's more subtle - like she doesn't hesitant when her best friend asks her over and is more comfortable with the girls on the basketball team.  She also has fewer tics which occur when she is anxious.

Two thoughts - you could get another evaluation done and try to get a more concert diagnosis - but it is hard in this situation.   If you want to try medication, you could try treating one or the other and see if things change.   Go with your gut instinct. It's probably right.

I too would be concerned about his reading grade going down.  Something isn't right.  I would definitely look into that one.
I would never consider hitting or spanking a child, but meds ...the right meds do help.

I know its the end of the year which is why i hesitate to do anything about it, but I've gone to his teacher all year long and he has been no help at all.

Chase is add but not on anything for it. Last year we just helped him adapt. Well this year I don't know what has gotten into him. The year started out, very first few weeks of school something happened with a friend and anyway he slapped the friend in the face. I know there is more to the story but unfortunately he doesn't tattle so he wouldn't tell the school. So of course he got a mark on his file. So what it happens, kids get frustrated. Especially when his friends are makign fun of him. Anyway, we got over that.

All year he forgets papers or books at school or at home, he doesn't want to do his homework for no good reason. he will sit at the table from 3pm when we get home till 10pm and still not have his homework done. this has been never ending.

I don't know what I'm going to do with him, yesterday he brought home about 8 papers that had failing or almost failing grades on them. said his teacher made him clean out his desk.

I dont' know what to do with him. i've officially grounded him and he has nothing left in his room but his bed. But it doesn't seem to phase him. Does anyone have any suggestions? I think he might have odd as well. His teacher has said all year he doesn't want to be the bad guy, my son isn't the only one doing this with homework and papers, he says half his class does. So i've asked him all year to take away recess or something. he wont cause he doesn't wanna be the bad guy. now all teh sudden bam its the end of the year now he decides he is gonna play bad guy and my son is taking it really really hard.

any advice? should I consider medicine? I know one thing, i'm sick and tired of hearing people tell me i just need to start beating his ass and he will shape up.

brtsqd339541.638275463

[QUOTE=edbson]I would never consider hitting or spanking a child, but meds ...the right meds do help. [/QUOTE]

I agree.  I used to spank but I stopped.  Sometimes my dd has bad days and just tries me over and over.  She gets irritable with me, and talks to me badly sometimes.  I'm the one steady in her life as far as family.  I think that is why she takes things out on me and so harshly too.  Then some days she is the sweetest pea in the world.  She just got Terrific Kid of the month in her class.  I was and still am very proud of her for that.

well last year we tried strattera and it was horrible he became very angry and cried at the drop of a hat for no reason. so we stopped it immediately.

Please see a specialist experienced with ADHD or anxiety.  If your child is experience anxiety issues now I strongly think stimulants would make it much worse.

 

 

 

brtsqd3- The fact that your son was able to compensate for the ADD in lower grades may mean that less stress was put on him by the teachers.  reruho is correct that 3rd grade is a whole new situation with a lot of extra work, more homework, and less repetition of instruction. In most classrooms, assignments are written on the board and the student is responsible for copying them down. Also- in k-2nd grade, students learn to read while in 3rd grade and higher students read to learn.

Perhaps it is time for you to make an appointment with your child's doctor and get a referral to a specialist. Punishing your child and making him sit for hours to do homework he can't even get started on is just more frustrating and confusing for him. Best of luck.

Good luck brtsqd3, try her idea and keep in the loop.

Third grade is really a tough year because the teachers stop repeating their instructions over and over. Also they start giving daily homework, instead of the once a week assignment to work on all week.

Our district has a requirement that all students must read 25 books over the course of the school year. My son was getting his reading grades lowered because he was not recording his reading in his reading log. (But, he was often getting in trouble for reading during class.) Does he have something like a log that he must record data in?  Ask the teacher what is up with his grades.  Diane has some good ideas about documenting your conversations.

Our school district uses an agenda system to teach organizational skills. On the first day of school all students receive an agenda. The students carry them to and from school daily in their backpacks. The students write their spelling words, assignments, and notes to their parents about up coming events. These are the size of a regular notebook and a week covered a two page spread. In the primary levels, there was a place to record daily conduct grade. There was room to write notes for the parents and for the teachers.  I used to send information into school and to document my conversations with the teacher.