Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional PG/2E missing childhood? To med or not to med?

That is the question....
So my DS9 has severe ADHD when not medicated. Weekdays we have him on his medication which works wonders. The downside is he loves reading and learning so much that it feels like he is missing part of childhood. He doesn't really want to go outside and play and would rather stay inside and read non-fiction books.

However, on the weekends, we try to have him off of his medication to give him a break and he is wild! He will be insubordinate, irritate his sister, and drive us up the wall. He can't concentrate on anything but does act more like a kid, albeit a wild one. So the dilemma is should we just have him on his medication all the time, to save our sanity? But he doesnt enjoy participating in things kids his age like to do. Or skip medication on weekends and let him act like a kid and deal with it? This has been a big friction between my spouse and I.

He can't seem to be able to focus or concentrate enough to pursue his interests when he is not medicated.
So is it pretty normal for gifted kids to pass by childhood quickly? I kind of feel sad because being a child is such a short time and they should enjoy that innocence and freedom. I don't want my kid to grow up too quickly and just be a little adult in a kid's body. I know medication is a parental choice but this is where my spouse and I can not agree, so im hoping people can chime in on their thoughts.

Enjoying childhood looks different for every child. I think it may help to start from his subjective experience: is he enjoying his childhood? And along the same lines, does he appear to be distressed by his unmedicated state? Is he then dysregulated to the point that he is damaging his relationships with others, his self-image, or any physical persons or objects? While childhood spontaneity is valuable, these may be more.

There is also something to be said for distinguishing between innocence and ignorance, and freedom and chaos.

ETA: I spent a good portion of my childhood reading quietly (in the house, and also in trees), and really don't feel that I missed anything of value. We did also take a lot of day and overnight trips as a family to interesting museums, zoos, historical sites, and natural features, where we all immediately read every word available.

I read a lot. It sounds like he is happier medicated. Why make his weekends so hard for him? You wouldn't stop asthma meds or insulin or whatever for the weekends would you.

Medicating a child is a personal choice and I am no expert on the topic. But, there are 2 points that I would like to make.
1. Your child is PG, which makes him abnormal when it comes to intellectual abilities. There are simply too few people of that ability in the population that it is a rarity. Since he is not typical, it is not a surprise that he is not spending his childhood in a conventional and typical way. Is it fair to compare his life choices with that of the neurotypical child?
2. If you do not want to medicate him on the weekends and if he is unable to be well regulated because of that, why not make the weekends truly unstructured? Take him to hike, bike, rollerblade, picnic, eat out etc etc so that you all are not cooped up with each other and feel that he is driving you all up the wall. Also look into involving him in activities like scouts, basketball, archery, soccer etc that are outside the home on the weekends. That looks like a typical child's weekend activity list to me!

Well those are life saving medications. He can still function with ADHD, and it doesn't seem to bother him if he is on medication or not. Either way he is a happy kid. It just bothers us as parents more when he is not medicated. So I feel like we shouldn't make him take his medication on weekends just for our benefit. When we ask him for his opinion, he says he doesn't care either way.

Yes Ashley that is what we are currently doing. Weekends are structure free days and we kinda have to make him go out and play. And run off some of that energy built up during the week where he is just sitting inside.
Thank you everyone for your advice. Yes his giftedness does make him very different indeed compared to other neurotypical kids.

It sounded like it was more of a problem. Having asthma and depression I am more accepting of meds than most. You could try it and see what he thinks after a few weeks.

That is good that he is happy either way. Is his relationship with his sister equally positive and healthy either way? Sometimes persons with ADHD may not have the self-awareness to realize that others are distressed, or not in healthy interactions with them, so that the apparent happiness comes from obliviousness, rather than truly being consciously happy with the situation. It may be that he is genuinely happy, and so is his sister, even with all the uncontained energy. (My unmedicated bouncy person is just about deliriously happy all the time, and, though there are moments when it can be exasperating to those in the vicinity, more often than not, the happiness is so contagious that you can't help but succumb. So I'm saying that, from personal experience, I know it can happen.) It may be that he is happy at the expense of other people, in which case it's not a well-founded happiness. From here, it's not possible to tell which of those is more accurate.

And outdoor activities are extremely good for persons with dysregulated attention. The natural world provides a much higher level of stimulation, but of a different kind (it allows for passive-but-engaged attention), than man-made environments do, which feeds the stimulus-seeking brain. HIs brain is also seeking stimulus on multiple levels: both from an ADHD sensation-seeking aspect, and from a GT intellectual/knowledge-seeking angle.

I think there's a difference between being a kid and being impulsive, hyper to the point where you are disrupting other people's lives and making them unhappy. If the latter is true then I think medicating is a good idea, because it will improve family relationships. His happiness is important but so is everyone else's. As parents we all encounter situations that aren't pleasant (dirty diapers, tantrums in a 2 year old, etc) but I put ADHD into a different category than what is encountered in normal situations in just about every family. If a 9 year old isn't acting like a 9 year old, but more like a 3 year old, it's problematic. Is it possible he is on too high of a dose and he is becoming withdrawn? My daughter's third grade teacher described her as "quiet" and "non-participatory" and I was alarmed and knew her dose must be too high, because that is NOT her personality.

Yes I think you guys are right. He does seem to disturb and bother others when he is not medicated. He gets into time out more and is generally causing us as a family to have more arguments because of his behavior. I don't think the medication is too high of a dose because he still acts impulsive and loud, but just not as bad. The medication tones him down but he is still not a kid with great behavior. He still gets in trouble at school at least once a month, but much better than once a week when off medication.
Another reason we try to give him medication breaks is his lack of appetite and he is already very thin. But with medication he can't sit still enough to finish a meal. He will constantly get up and get distracted by something.
Thank you everyone who responded, I really appreciate all the different perspectives.

My 9 year old has ADHD. I am fully in support of medication. I have milder ADHD which is responding well to environmental change and nutrition. (Mine may be primarily symptomatic of eating disorder / malnutrition, case is not yet closed on that)

I am finding my son to be less dependent upon medication and I'm starting to have him skip it on low-demand days. This was prompted by change of insurance and his medication going from $10/month to $310/month. Ouch!

I have done a lot of environmental changes
1) minimalism. Capsule wardrobe - my ADHDer's is particularly tiny. Stripped bedroom. 4 shoeboxes for personal toys/crafts/project - he chooses what to keep and when to rotate.
2) meditation. Meditation works wonders, some authors claim it is as effective as medication for ADHD. I agree, although convincing a stimming child that he really does need to stop and meditate is not always successful.
3) no major routine shifts. We homeschool and made every day a school day. Intellectual stimulation helps him self-regulate. Schooling every day brings our required amount (in WI) down to 2 hours 40 minutes per day - very manageable. Yesterday, grandparents and cousins came over to visit in the afternoon. My son got himself up at 6:30 and did school right away, then chores and played with his cousins the rest of the day.
4) make notes to find common factors in conflict. My son has difficulty transitioning after a fun activity, so those are always after chores and school.
5) extremely limited screen use, and extremely restricted advertising help very much. We don't have tv programming, we don't listen to the radio, we barely get junk mail anymore, and I avoid shopping in stores other than quick produce and milk at the grocery store once a week. Advertising is a huge demand on attention, particularly in stores it results in decision fatigue. (Coincidentally, our variable expenses dropped by 84% by limiting advertising exposure)
6) keep him busy! My son loves music, and it has been a fabulous outlet, especially in cold WI winters when we're mostly housebound. Music allows him to set goals, gives him immediate feedback and satisfaction in his developing skills. It challenges his working memory and develops his frustration tolerance. Music is a way that he is getting the self-directed benefits of play, without the unstructured chaos and family conflict that comes with unstructured time. Music is intellectually stimulating without furthering his academic acceleration.
7) edited to add that we live in rural area on 80-acre farm, so quiet environment and nature are built into our lives -- intentionally.

The biggest problem in my son's treatment - medicated or not - is the placebo effect. He decides he can or cannot do something (like do math without medication) and he refuses to try. I've found that parental pressure can go a long way here to change the belief.

I'm finding that my son CAN go unmedicated MOST days without floundering or family conflict. It wasn't as simple as withholding medication and expecting everything to be okay. We have to put him in a situation where his needs are met and demand on his executive functions are within his capacity.

If you have not read "The Explosive Child" or wandered on the corresponding website livesinthebalance.org, I highly recommend reading there. Wonderful resource!

I am guessing you can't ask your child's doc this question.

Meds may need to be tweaked. Hyperfocus is not desireable. ADHD meds can be chosen for specific activities, for example soccer needs less focus than baseball. Different formulations of the same stimulant tend to have different properties. You can vary type, dose, and duration of Rx for the demands of situation, and a good doc should teach you all about this amd much more.

You can be coached how to coach your kid, promoting prosocial, and curbing negative, behaviors.

your kid is smart. His therapist can give him the problem to solve, of balancing solitary learning and social activities.

Cheers!

etc.