It's interesting, because DS doesn't seem to be too bothered by who he is, which could be part of why I'm in no rush. I've thought of the fact that a diagnosis would explain to him why he thinks the way he does (ie racing brain), and I guess I'm waiting for it to be clear that he needs that info.

He seems quite secure. He matter of factly says to DH and I: "I'm smarter than both of you because I have a young brain." He likes to be silly because he thinks it's funny - if you ask him what the other kids think, he'll say "they don't think it's as funny as I do." ok... so how does he feel about that? "I don't care what they think. I like to be funny."

I think part of the reason is that he's in a class with other quirky kids, so he's not the only atypical one. Also, he has friends, and the school staff seem to really like him. Basically he doesn't really have any reason to feel badly about himself. He likes recess and PE, which are prime times for kids to be bullied, so that seems to check out ok. (I was bullied as a kid, so I'm hyper-vigilant to the possibility of him being bullied).

Self esteem is SO important, and he doesn't really present as having self-esteem issues. Both the school anxiety counselor and a private anxiety counselor at our psychologist's firm say that he doesn't seem to have any atypical or problematic anxiety issues. He's very happy go lucky.

I don't know. I think my feeling is that if I tell him he might start to feel down on himself. The upside is that there's no medical test for ADHD, so I can present it to him as just "the doctors' opinions... no one really knows for sure."

The AWESOME part is that he's SO much like me (I think I have it too), so we can relate to each other.

I think when the time is right, I'll be able to tell him, but the benefits will have to out weight the possible negative effects. He seems pretty content with himself at the moment.


Last edited by CCN; 02/24/13 11:01 PM.