My Road To and Through ADHD

When Thing 1 didn't sit still ever, I didn't think anything about it. He was my first one. He set the standard. He was good at daycare, he was busy at home...no worries. He was a boy. Boys were supposed to move constantly, right? Boys weren't supposed to know how to clean their rooms, right? Boys were supposed to just cause chaos everywhere, right? He knew his alphabet, he could count, he could write, he was fine. He was just busy. It had always been a joke that The Husband had ADD, because he couldn't sit still without falling asleep, and while Thing 1 had The Husband's need to be busy, he was complete opposite when it came to going to sleep. No just sit and sleep for him--it was a nightly battle of the wills to get Thing 1 asleep. I didn't realize how much of a battle it was until Thing 2 came along and for the first 6 months of her life, she slept all night every night. Thing 1 never did that. But then soon enough, Thing 2 stopped doing that too. And bedtime battles were back to being our norm. Thing 2 also behaved similar to Thing 1 in the busy department, but she added a whole new level of insanity to it as well. Where Thing 1 would be busy running and sliding down the hall, Thing 2 would be busy trying climb on top of the fridge. She had no fear. So the joke became Thing 2 was way more male than Thing 1 ever thought about being. And that Chuck Norris feared Thing 2. 

It didn't seriously occur to me that Thing 1 could have an issue until he started Kindergarten (Thing 1's ADHD Story). I'd started wondering what was up shortly after The Husband deployed and we started interacting more with other families who had kiddos Thing 1's age. Whenever we'd have a play date, they would all start cleaning while Thing 1 bounced from toy to toy, not really cleaning. He would only start cleaning if you sat there and said "okay now that, and that, and that", but he never cleaned his room either, so I had always assumed it was an age thing. It wasn't until I saw other kids his age actually cleaning that it made me wonder why mine didn't clean. Then he started having trouble at school and while the other kids would be sobbing messes about their yellow days, he was all "yah, I had a yellow day...can we have a snack now?". Taking away toys, play times, etc didn't change his behavior. I started asking other mommies for advice and still no luck. 

At this point, I was so frustrated. I was frustrated with his lack of remorse about his school behavior. I was frustrated that he couldn't complete a simple task that by this time I'd seen other kids perform and knew that it was age appropriate to expect him to be able to complete tasks. I was also embarrassed to have 'that' kid...the one that was always all over the place while the other kids were sitting calmly. I knew that deployment was wearing on me and so instead of thinking that something might be off with him, I assumed something was wrong with me. I went to doctor and explained I was just tired, anxious, and frustrated all of the time. He prescribed medication and while the medication helped a bit, it wasn't nearly the help that I hoped it would have been. The Husband's homecoming didn't alleviate the frustration either. It was just another person in the house to yell at Thing 1 about how easy it is to clean up 1 thing from his room or how easy it is to sit and listen to the teacher.  

So when Thing 1's doctor said "Oh yah, he has ADHD, no doubt" it was as if a giant weight had been lifted off of me. I wasn't a bad parent. I wasn't completely failing across the board. We just had an extra hurdle in our normal lives. I never thought "oh why me?!?! why Thing 1?!?!". I was actually grateful to know that there was actually an issue instead of him choosing to not listen and misbehave. It was comforting to know there were extenuating circumstances. 

And while it was nice to have an 'excuse', I didn't ever want Thing 1 (and Thing 2 after her diagnosis--Thing 2's Journey) to use his ADHD as an excuse. It was very important to us to say to them, yes you have ADHD, but that doesn't mean you get to act like a flippin idiot. It doesn't mean there is something wrong with you. It means you have to work extra hard to focus and stay calm. It means we'll help you work extra hard and we'll be more understanding, but it's not a free-for-all bing-bongy fest. It was also important to me to not label them. Yes, we discuss it with his teachers, but it's up to them to talk to anyone else about it. We discuss it with teachers because during the school year, their teachers potentially spend more awake time with them during the week than we do. They need to be in the loop. I'm always surprised at how not bothered they are to talk about their ADHD too. Thing 1 discusses it with his piano teachers when he gets a new one (and we're up to our 3rd new one since arriving here) and Thing 2 is all blase about it. So, I take my cues from them. If they're not worried and their teachers aren't worried, then I'm not worried. 

I don't spend a lot of time googling all of the options we have for treatment, because our option is working. I don't spend a lot of time googling anything about ADHD for that matter because of the differences between Thing 1 and Thing 2. They are similar in some of their ADHD stuff and complete opposites in other ways, so that says to me that there isn't a way to say all ADHD kids respond to xyz. There isn't a one size fits all ADHD. Consequently, the available information is incredibly conflicting. One report says a change in diet works, one report says a change in diet doesn't work. One report says one type of medication is the best and one report says that holistic treatment is the best way to go. There's no one thing that works for absolutely everyone. There does seem to be an excessive amount of judging by other mommies of the best course of treatment, which just makes me all kinds of cranky. 

Here's my opinion if you're headed down this road, or you might be worried about that you're might be headed down this road. You know your kiddo the bestest. Listen to their teachers. Listen to your kiddo. Listen to you. Listen to your doctors. And pray about it. It's not the end of the world. It's just ADHD. No biggie. 

Oh, and if at all possible, have your non-ADHD kid last. If I'd had Sam-I-Am first, I would've had the other two diagnosed at birth. It's been so surprising to discover 2 year olds can do simple tasks. I'm always surprised when I tell the 2 year old "go put your shoes in the bin and your socks in the laundry" and she actually does it. :)