Introducing Myself! | ADHD Information
Hi! I'm Melissa and I have 2 sons: Anthony (10), and Reese (4). As you can tell by my screen name, I'm on this board because of Reese. I've known for a long time that he's different from other kids. He's runs-never walks, he yells and screams a lot, constantly gets hurt, he can't follow simple instructions because he is so easily distracted, the list goes on and on. His teacher suggested that I have him looked at last year, but I was told that he was too young and a diagnosis at the age of 3 was not likely.So...here I am! I'm trying to get help for him and for myself. My patience sometimes wears really thin with him and I feel so guilty because I know he can't help it. I want him to enjoy life and I'm not so sure that he can do that with the way he is now.
If anyone here lives in SE Michigan I would love to hear suggestions of doctors in the area. Another mom suggested Children's Hospital - I think that's where I'll start.
Also, do you have any tips on discipline for a child with ADHD? Yelling, spanking and talking to him don't work. I'm trying to stay consistent with time-outs, but for as much as he acts up, it seems kind of pointless.
I'm really new to researching this seriously, so any suggestions would be great!
Hi Melissa, and Welcome! I'm fairly new here myself, but have gotten so much information and guidance from all the posts and most importantly, support. As you said in your post, we know our child is "different" even without a diagnosis, and that sure is a lonely feeling. I'm not in Michigan, so I can't help you there, but we did get our son diagnosed through doctors at childrens hospitals in both Baltimore, MD and Wilmington, De, so a childrens hospital is probably your best place to start. We saw a developmental pediatrician at both places. As for discipline, the only thing I can suggest is positive reinforcement and redirection. Yelling and punishing never worked for our little guy, who just turned 6. He is a visual learner, so we have found that reward charts work very well for him. The toy line Melissa and Doug has a great Responsibility Chart, which is wooden with magnetic pieces. We used that daily with our son, and have made a "reward system" depending on how well he has done each day. He is on medication now, so he is much easier to deal with but still loves his chart. Just try to remember that the child who is hardest to praise, probably needs praise the most. Even on the days I wanted to pull my hair out over Kendal's out of control behavior, I always tried to find something he did well and made a big deal out of it. We all have a long road ahead of us, but the greater the challenge, the greater the reward. Good luck with your journey, and hopefully you will find these boards as helpful as I have!Welcome to the board Reesesmom and Kathleen0515 Reesesmom, a childrens hospital is a great place to have an assessment of your child done. As far as the child being too young to diagnose, it depends on what the disorder is and at age 4, at the very least the clincians can rule certain things in or out. If the behaviors interfere with the child's ability to function normally on a daily basis then your wise to reach out to professionals to ascertain the reason for the behaviors.
Losing patience is very normal and please know that you are not alone. Good luck and please feel free to ask questions or seek out support
There's a book called "1 2 3 Baby Magic" that outlines a technique for discipline and it is the only thing that ever really had much effect on my son. It obviously works better now that he's medicated but we had some limited success when he was not. The key to the technique is to keep your cool (soooooo hard to do!) and never argue with your child. You are in charge and the consequenses come quickly. If you haven't read it you might want to give it a try. It was a big help to me!
Also, the "marble system" works well for my son. There is a thread on this board that talks about it but basically it's a behavior reward system. As your child does something right he gets marbles to put in the jar. The bigger the accomplishment the more marbles he gets for the act. He can watch the jar fill up and when it gets to the top he gets something-like a toy, ice cream etc. Again, this is another one that worked very differently for my son on meds vs. not on meds. But I agree with Kathleen0515 yelling and punishing never worked for my son either. He just didn't learn from the discipline like a "normal" kid would. Everytime he did something wrong it was like the first time...like he didn't remember he just got in trouble for that yesterday! Arrrgg! 
Hopefully some of these techniques work for you! You're on the right path to getting your little guy some help and that's a great first step. Good job mom! 
Good luck!
I will definitely try the Melissa and Doug chart and look more into the marbles system (I looked at it briefly last night). Reese loves "hi fives", so I try to do that and make a big deal when he does something nice.
LOL Logan's mom, Reese totally acts like he didn't remember that his actions were bad!. Today he was running through the house, and when I asked him to walk, he said "I need my exercise mom"!
This has also been great for my boyfriend (not Reese's dad) to learn more about ADHD. He has been very set on the whole "You need to discipline him more" style, and I've been trying to tell him that that won't work for Reese. I've been having him read your posts and now he is on the same page as me and can't wait to see how the positive reinforcement will work. I'm sure you can understand that this has caused problems between him and I as well... Now I know we can work through this together.
Thanks again! I couldn't do this without you!
Hi and welcome to the board. Just wanted to tell you that my son was at his worst at 4 years old. I think that I was ready for the looney bin myself from that year. It does get better. You got some great advise. But I wanted to suggest you look into your school district and see if they have early intervention. That is what saved me that year before I could get a real diagnosis from doctor and medicate my energizer bunny. They help both you and your son deal with his behavior, and get him ready somewhat for school. Give you suggestions on how to help and deal with your son.