Time to Cry Uncle — When You Suspect Your Child Has ADD or ADHD, It’s Time to Get Help
Posted By: Dr. Joan
Category: ADHD/ADD
Comments: 10
I have just come from our therapist’s office and am feeling much calmer. You read that right: Dr. Joan is in therapy.
It all started when my husband and I began struggling, badly, with one of our kids who was displaying signs of Attention Deficit Disorder: lack of focus at school, outbursts at home, blaming others for his problems, lying about homework. My husband and I knew that this was an ongoing problem, but it all came to a head as our 10 year-old child entered a grade at school where everything gets moved up a notch and he began to struggle. Being a psychologist, you’d think I would have gotten everything under control immediately, right?
Wrong.
What I got instead was pain in my neck (literally), grinding teeth at night, feelings of hopelessness, and fighting with my mild-mannered husband. One of my best friends gave me sage advice on the phone the other day: “Maybe it’s time to cry uncle and get some help.” After 3 sessions as a couple with a licensed therapist, an evaluation for ADD by a trained professional for our child, following the Total Focus techniques from Dr. Bob Myers (who happens to be Empowering Parents’ own ADD/ADHD specialist), a good massage therapist and a mouth guard for my teeth, I feel like we are on our way.
Do I have all the answers yet? No. Do we know what is going to happen next week with our wonderful, creative, sometimes annoying child? Absolutely not. Have I stopped grinding my teeth? Almost. The point is, my family is coming out of a crisis with a child whom we love, but don’t always know how to handle.
My guess is that everyone reading this has had — or will have — a similar experience at some point as a parent. The whole point of baring my soul here is to let you know that you are not alone. Every day, thousands of parents struggle to just make it through the day with their kids and this is probably the most difficult thing you will go through. But I will share some other news with you: having a plan has made all the difference in the world to my own mental health, my marriage, and my teeth. We still don’t know exactly what we’re going to do with my son (Do we try medication or do we continue on with our cognitive-behavioral strategies and see how they go?) but at least now we know what our options are.
If you are struggling with your child, I strongly recommend that you develop a plan today. This can be as simple as calling your pediatrician and making an appointment to meet with him or her to talk about what issues your family is facing. Start there, and discover what is available to you and your child. You will be amazed at how much lighter you feel by simply unloading your sadness, anger, frustration and hopelessness. If I can do this, trust me, you can too. There is nothing more humbling than being a psychologist and realizing that you don’t have ANY of the answers to help your child. And there is nothing more empowering than asking for help and realizing that you are not alone.
Life is too short and children are too precious of a commodity to not get them the help they need. There is no reason to suffer in silence any longer. Pick up your phone today and discover the world of help that is waiting for you.
Dr. Joan is a mother of three and a contributing author here at EP. Read the complete bios of all our contributors and parent bloggers here.
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October 29th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Dr. Joan,
My son is almost 11 years old and like you we have struggled for years to put the puzzle pieces together. His at times constant poor behavior was wearing extensively on our family, particularly my health (I have a mouth brace too). We’ve had our son on meds once for a year (too many side effects) and have had him to the therapist numerous times.
This year we purchased The Total Transformation Program which has been extremely helpful on the behavioral end, but we knew there was more, and we suspected it had something to do with diet. I have sugar sensitivities and this has caused some health issues for me, so I looked into the possibility of this for him (being that often it’s a genetic thing and he exhibited behavioral pitfalls after having larger amounts of sugar and refined carbs). I found the book “Little Sugar Addicts” by Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. And we now feel we are now finally on the road to recovery (albeit it may be still a long road)! He’s still a strong willed child and we have to use the behavioral management found in TTTS daily. But an obvious edge is off of his behavior, he’s much calmer, more focused and his tantrums subside much quicker. We are pretty new to the diet so I believe this will only get better in time.
Thank you for your post, I related with all of it.
Blessings, Melissa
October 29th, 2009 at 11:14 am
The wrong website was linked with my name above. I have corrected it. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/melissal89
October 29th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Hi Melissa,
Thanks so much for your support and your comments about your son. We are also looking into dietary changes, mainly adding fish oil supplements as well as foods rich in fish oil (research has shown this to be very helpful to concentration and focus) and removing food dyes. I love that you are focusing in on what your child needs. It’s hard though, isn’t it?
October 29th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Dear Dr. Joan:
Thank you for your honesty about the frusterations of dealing with your son. While you may feel incompetant at this moment, I believe this sort of humility and self awareness is what makes one a better parent. It will only get better from now on.
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:13 am
Dr. Joan,
Thank you so much for this blog. I too am struggling as a parent who just so happens to be an Occupational Therapist with experience in pediatrics. I feel totally out of my league with my 4 year old. I have cried until I can’t cry anymore. I have seen symptoms of something not wanting to label it for a couple of years. She exhibits signs of behavior disorders, ADD, OCD, etc as you can probably understand we professionals think the worst. I have tried schedules, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, time outs, sensory input you name it I have tried it. My child has had several “bad days” at pre-school in which she would get to a point of no return and I would have to go get her. This last time she was not allowed to go back the next day for the Halloween party due to her behavior. This is the best pre-school in town and have dealt with behaviors in the past. Her outburst and “fits” all stem around transitional activities or removing her from her art work (which she can do for hours if I let her). I finally realized I can’t fix this alone. I call my family physician who is setting us an appt with a child psychiatrist and behavior child psychologist. We haven’t gone as of this blog but I already feel relief just knowing I don’t have to do this alone. Thanks again.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Isn’t it amazing how, as parents, we take our child’s illness as a personal failure?
I’m a foster/adoptive mom, who started fostering my now 12 year old child when he was 2.5 years old.
What we were not told by the county was that we were his 9th foster home placement in 15 months, that he was a failure to thrive (10th %ile) at one year… and a host of other traumas that certainly explained why he was such a hard child to raise.
But it wasn’t my baggage, my job was to step back and see what needed work, then roll my sleeves up and get the work done. Doctors, Psychiatrists (yes- at 2), OT, PT, Speech…
Dr. Joan- cut yourself some slack. If you learned anything, it’s that sometimes you have to step back, see what needs to be done, then roll up your sleeves and get it done. It’s all anyone of us can do as a parent. Not that you still won’t need that mouth guard sometimes ~ it’s great during a heated CSE meeting too!
That, and a huge admiration for how our children cope with their disabilities, be it ADHD, RAD, PTSD, ARND, LD, SI, (cripers, there are too many to name) ~ knowing full well that there isn’t a reason in the world you can’t add PhD, MD, MSW, etc etc when they grow up!
November 4th, 2009 at 11:29 am
I have just read the comments of Suzette and Cynthia, two bloggers responding to the article When Kids Get Violent: “There’s No Excuse for Abuse.” When my son was 6, a psychological assessment determined that he had ADHD. After years of stressful parenting (our children force our issues) I was diagnosed as celiac, and started the Specific Carbohydrate Diet to heal my digestive tract. Because celiac is genetic and because my son, like me, exhibited irritability, poor adaptability to new situations, poor academic and social problem-solving skills, etc., he was tested as well. My son is gluten sensitive, and our ‘celiac’ doctor says my son could have been spared 14 years of ADHD behaviour, had we excluded gluten from his diet. My son is now on a daily supplement of 50 nutrients, mixed by Nutrichem, and has been tested for deficits of folic acid, vitamin D, etc., as malabsorption of nutrients by the small intestines means that the brain becomes starved of nutrients. My husband and I have been using the Total Transformation program for a month, and together with the addition of the deficit nutrients to my son’s regime, have become the proud parents of a compliant son whose grades have improved and who, on several occasions, has said, “I love you, Mom.”
November 4th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Dr. Joan,
Thank you so much for your honest and insightful blog post this week. I think too often we are hard on ourselves as parents, when the answer, as you and Joan M. said, is to get in there, roll up your sleeves and find some solutions that work for our kids. Bravo to you and your family for doing everything you can for your son! I’m not saying the road is an easy or short one, but as they say, “The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.”
November 11th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Dr. Joan,
I identify with many of the feeling that you have in regards to parenting. I have two children with ADD and two children without ADD. For me, it’s a constant daily struggle to deal with many of the issues that arise. I also grind my teeth and have insomnia. Many times, my husband and I have been at odds with each other over the ADD kids. The hardest part for me is trying to tuck away that “protective mom” part and allow the kids to experience natural consequences. This is very hard for me as I’m a nurse and we like to fix problems.
One of my children is now 23 and a very responsible adult; however he had a rocky path with substance abuse, difficulties in school, and was incarcerated for 4 months. The other child is now 14 and my husband and I have to be hypervigilant about school, friends, and activites. The best advice I can give other parents is to find a sport that your child truly enjoys and encourage them to “train” for that sport. I think it’s ok if it’s more of an individual sport like snowboarding or taekwondo.
The time that they are in lessons or class for a sport, I use to decompress (read a book, hot tub, get a massage). As parents, we must take care of ourselves too.
I love the newsletter and I often find guidance in the articles. My 14 year old has a great therapist that does art therapy with him. When our child was first diagnosed with ADD, we thought that medication was the answer. After trials of several meds and the horrible side effects we determined a course of action. The meds are probably less than the therapeutic dose; however somewhat helpful.
In summary, for us it’s a combination of techniques that work; involvement in a sport, medication, rules with natural consequences, therapy, and in our family we add humor.
Gretchen
November 16th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Gretchen,
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with all of us. It’s just nice to know sometimes that there are more of us out there, grinding our teeth, worrying about the future.
I love the idea of choosing a sport for your child. For ours it has been running/track. He excels at it and, as a runner myself, I find it joyful to sometimes run with him when he’s not with his “team”.
I know there are challenges ahead for us, but I appreciate knowing there are other parents like you out there making it all work.