i am a mother of one 10 yr old. for years i have been hearing from different schools that he needs meds, which i have ignored! i believe that back in the days they had no such thing so why now! why do people try to control other people minds. the teachers go to school to learn how to teach a class. there are more than 1 way of teaching a person something. So needless to say i did try it for the last 3 months of his school year last year. he did ok but not sure if the teacher was lieing to me thinking that just made him more quiet. i never seen a difference on the weekends. now he goes to a new school & his new teacher is saying the same as the others. is it a way for teachers to make it more easy on thier jobs? I don't know, it is hard for me to put my son on meds. though half of me does feel that maybe he does need it! i am so confused! please someone reply to me! THANK YOU.......:confused:

It sounds like you care very much about your son and want what is best but are really conflicted about what to do. It is understandable that you might be confused about what to do, there are a lot of opinions out there. Opinions are nice and that is what we provide here as our personal comments but what you need to do is take a couple of steps to get some real facts.

Who diagnosed your son? Is this person still your son's doctor or psychologist? You need to talk to them. They had to evaluate your son and talk to you to decide that he met a strict set of criteria to make a diagnosis.

What do they feel are his areas that could be improved by medicine? What do you think he could have better control of or do better in? Also, have they suggested or, did you ask about, some other type of help to improve your son's behaviors and ability to focus and block out all the other stimuli around him?

It is important to talk to your doctor and agree on what behaviors you are trying to improve and how you can tell if the medicine is helping. Also, you will probably have different criteria for different environments. He may need to be more calm at school and stop looking around and talking to everyone else. This is not just about disrupting behavior, it's about his ability to pay attention and learn. If he is too busy with the other things he is not listening to what the teacher is saying or taking the time to do his work. His brain and body may be moving too fast for him to even be able to slow down enough to really think about anything he's doing.

Did you not see any difference in his behavior, grades, interaction with siblings or friends when he was taking medicine? This could be for a couple of reasons. First, you seem pretty unhappy putting him on meds. Did you really give it a chance or maybe dismiss small improvements? Also, medicine isn't magic. It can give you better concentration and better self control but it doesn't mean you know what to do with it. He is 10 yrs old. He already has his own habits and ways of doing things. He could probably use some help reorganizing and reframing his life.

Finally, and I add this is from my own experience, maybe you or your family have some of the same habits and behaviors. We know as a fact that ADD is at least in part genetic (inherited from parents). Maybe you don't see the difference because you don't see some things as a problem in the first place. My family still has a problem with my ADHD diagnosis. Knowing what I know now I can see that my mom and dad BOTH have ADD as do 2 of my 3 sisters. My mom says, Oh that's nice, about my ADHD and is polite about it but thinks that I may exaggerate the problems it causes. When I ask her directly, did I do this or did I have problems with that she says, Yes I sure did but she thought that was just what everybody did. I don't have a problem because the things I do are normal to them. Also, because I've been sucessful in school she doesn't think it is possible. They simply haven't seen the pain and struggle that, until recently, I thought everyone went through. Someone else can't see and, therefore, can't understand putting every ounce of your energy and being into something so that when you get home you're totally wiped out and have nothing left to give.

The last thing, I feel compelled to say. I must give an opinion and reply to your comment about how they didn't use to have medicine so, "why now?". Simply put, it is progress. They didn't use to have good antidepressants so people walked around feeling horrible, crying and living a hollow shell of a life but, that was the pain and reality of life, and you just lived with it. Was it a good thing? No, but that was the way it was. This, as with about a thousand other things I could list, are improvements in mental health.

We have medicines now that I wish I had when I was in grade school. I am 28 years old and about to finish medical school. It is possible to suceed in life without help for ADHD but it is less likely. Also, my life would have been so much easier. It's possible I could have avoided being the weird kid that talked too much and never got people's social cues. I would have had actual friends. I would have done better in school (and spent fewer years in it!) I could go on and on and on and on about all the things I wish were different like so many of us diagnosed as adults. The point is that we can not go back and change our lives. Your son is at the beginning of his and has a chance to not feel that way. Maybe one day you'll talk about how different things would have been had he not gotten help.