My second grade son was diagnosed last year and I am still trying to understand his ADHD. I have noticed over the years that he has a pattern of behaviors that he engages in when his meds have either not kicked in or have begun to wear off. He tends to find great joy in crumpling paper, popping bubble wrap, throwing things, making large body movements, throwing or bouncing objects and repeating words over and over again loudly. I think all of these things possibly feel good to him and in some way are calming. He has mentioned before that standing instead of sitting when he does homework helps him focus. He loves to move his body by either running, swinging or riding his bike. What function do you feel these behaviors have? When I see an increase of these types of behaviors I believe his meds are wearing off. Is that accurate? Am I on the right track? I appreciate your input. Thanks!

I'm a little overfocused tonight, so please bear with me as I ramble on...

It sounds like he is getting a bit fidgety, restless and is spilling over a bit. Repeating words over and over again is a bit reminiscent of OCD... It is not unusual for an ADDer to be a bit OCDish when anxious or stressed. Maybe it is the meds wearing off. It happens to me from time to time.


Myself, I do all those things. I'm going to speak of ADDers collectively (I hope nobody minds) We have so much constantly going on in our heads. Our minds are perpetually busy with tons of things going on at the same time. Sometimes we tend to spill over , and we will move around, rock, or fidget, and maybe do some ocdish things like repeating words, or endlessly checking things, etc. We are attempting to burn off some of our stress and anxiety when we do these things.

You are correct. These things calm us down.

Now and then it can backfire and we can sometimes get overfocused on things that we are concerned about and be so very hypervigilant such that our anxiety increases. We can be hard to deal with at these times. :(

We skip around a lot. I might be talking to you about politics and then suddenly switch to fishing...or whatever, and then return back to politics just as suddenly. Amazingly, two adders in conversation seem to be able to do this without any difficulty, but I've found that normal people are understandably a bit rattled by this.

It is all about attention. We can't control our attention very well, and we have to work so hard to function that it can cause some anxiety. This might be why we get so overfocused on things that bother us and can't seem to let go of them very easily. It's no fun when that happens to us. :(

A few of us have sensory issues. Some environments can really overload our senses. At times it can be nothing short of shattering to us. We can't focus very well when this happens , and it makes our anxiety worse and some of us will typically react by getting anxious and stressed. Some get hyperactive, and some others just kind of shutdown...We might start spilling over and fidget, rock, or express some OCD traits, or we might get a little agitated. In every case it is misery , but it varies from individual to individual. :eek: :faint:

We also hyperfocus. For us hyperfocus is sheer joy. :) It is a calm clear, incredibly fine-grained focusing ability and when we use it to do work, what we can do is sometimes impressive. Unfortunately , we can't always control when or what we hyperfocus on, but usually we hyperfocus on things we like to do if we are not distracted by something in our environment. I get grumpy if you distract me when I'm hyperfocused. :p

Oh... environment! We are sensitive to our environment... Some of us love the rush of our hyperness, and the constant bustle of a chaotic environment is downright soothing to some ADDers. For others, we struggle against our hyperness, and a noisy chaotic environment is overwhelming and we don't function well in it. In general, if we get overstimulated, things can get out of hand. A lot depends on the individual. :)

ME :D