Hello All,
I do not know if this is the right place to post but here goes.....

I just found this site and I am hopeful someone can help me. I have a 12 yr old son with ADHD who is on Strattera. He is not the problem tho. I also have a 7yr old girl who has been having problems with what I call ODD. Here is some history... in kindergarten she would spend half of the class in the coat closet refusing to go to class. She "shuts down" when she is uncomfortable and no one can get through... not even me. She, as her teacher put it "..is not there. She looks at you but she is not in there." Eventually her doc put her on 10mg of Prozac. This helped. It made the mornings getting ready for school, bareable. That was for K and 1st grade. Now we have moved to a new city and the teacher described her as "busy". Her new doc tested her for ADHD (when she was on meds) and said that she was not ADHD. (I KNEW THAT!!!) He proceeded to take her off all meds and said one more appointment and she would not have to see him again.
My problem is that these last two days of school I have had a GREAT deal of trouble getting her in the car, or even getting dressed for that matter, to go to school. When we get there I have had to leave her at the office kicking and screaming. I am drained. I do not think I can do this all over again!! I have made an appointment with her Dr. but he can't see her until the end of the month.
From the reading I have been doing on the websites that I have found I think this is my fault. I had a baby just b-4 her that died and I was scared to get "attached" to this new baby. It took me 9 months after she was born to realize that she was mine and that no one was going to take her away. Her signs are just shouting out at me but the dr. implies that it is my parenting skills that are the problem. I try to praise her but the next min. she is beating the crap out of her younger sister for touching her crayons. I usually describe her as mean and defiant, She does what she wants to do, when she wants to do it, and thats that, and there is nothing you can do if she chooses not to do whatever it is. The teachers have noticed that she is getting worse, refusing to do in class school work refusing to do things in class, but she very much likes to be the center of attention. When she is class leader she does fine. They take away her outside time at least twice a week for not doing in class work or not turning in her homework. She has been off her meds since about the first of the year.
I guess I just need to know that I am not alone and someone to bounce stuff off of. What can I do to help my daughter? What can I do for the rest of my family? She has a lot more "symptoms" but I didn't think I should list them all.
momof4

Hi and welcome to the Forums!

You are not alone and please don't blame yourself for all of the difficulty. Certainly, as parents, we do some things right and some not so right, but I am sure that during the time you were struggling to cope with your newborn and the issues of having lost a child there were others who made sure that your daughter was totally loved, cuddled, and taken care of. On top of that it sounds like you have be totally committed to her since the age of 9 months and nothing can cancel out that love and attention.

I, personally, would find a new doctor. First of all, testing for ADHD while medicated would certainly skew the results. Secondly, it doesn't sound like they took the history into consideration at all. Thirdly, simply taking her off all medications without tapering off is going to cause distress.

You didn't mention if this was a psychiatrist, pediatrician, neurologist. Maybe this doctor just isn't qualified to deal with your situation.

My son is ODD/ADHD and they are certainly a challenge. They push you to your limits every single day and it sometimes (or often) seems that you will never get through to them. Hard and fast rules that are consistently applied were a must for us. Medication was also a must...it took a lot of experimenting to find the best one and the right dosage, but it allowed us to reach him to teach him all those things that were missing.

My son is now 15+ and we are finally seeing a huge jump in maturity and willingness to accept his issues and work with us and the school.

Again, you are not alone. Feel free to vent here anytime. I'm sure you'll meet a lot of people with tips and tricks and, most importantly, support!

Kim

Hey --welcome to the forums! It sounds like you've been through (and are going through a lot). When there is a family history of ADHD, there are a number of other disorder that are frequently found -- ODD, anxiety and depression issues, OCD, Tourettes, autism, Aspergers syndrome, etc. Please don't blaim yourself -- you may not have done things perfectly while recovering from the loss of your other baby but this really sounds more organic in nature, possibly exaserabated a bit by circumstances but unlikely to be caused by them. In other words, a kid without genetic weaknesses in this area would be likely to have a much milder response to being a child born after the loss of a previous child.

If ODD is at play, it is extremely common that it is associated with ADD and not as likely to be a stand alone disorder. Besides you alread have experience with the fact that Prozac helped -- so something of a biochemical nature was at play. You really need a highly trained specialist to tease this out.

I went through a pretty severe depression when my 2nd daughter (who followed on the heels of a late miscarriage) was a toddler. In spite of how much I messed up as a parent during that time, she's doing well. Genetically her disposition let her weather that storm more easily. Please go easy on yourself. Get support for yourself too -- this kind of thing can be really draining and you need understand and validation, not judgments!

Read all you can. One book that you might find useful to John Ratey's Shadow Syndromes -- he contrasts the milder versions of ADHD, autism, depression, OCD & anxiety disorders, intermittant rage disorder, bipolar disorder and such with the more serious forms of those mental disabilites. It might help you understand some of the genetic pathways and the interconnectedness of some of these disorder as well as medical and lifestyle changes. Another good book which explores how different "comorbid" conditions are associated with ADHD is Thomas Brown's (the guy who created the Brown ADD diagnostic scales) book Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults. And I definately encourage you to take a look at Russel Barkley's book Taking Charge of ADHD -- he really covers the waterfront on how ADHD and associated conditions and how to address them medically and behaviorally. These books will certainly have application to your son and may give you a better feel for what is going on with your daughter and how incredibly genetic these things are -- whatever the specific diagnosis turns out to be.

The first thing I would encourage you to do is to find a psychologist or child psychiatrist familiar with ADHD and related conditions -- most medication doctors not as qualified to make differential diagnosis as a professional mental health worker will be.

Take care and let us know how things go for your family.
Scattered