My daughter is 8 and is in a self-contained 2nd gifted classroom. She started in the gifted program last year. It was a VERY tough transition. The years before 1st grade were at a Montessori school where she thrived. She always had issues at home as far as tantrums, hyperness, and lack of focus. These issues started to show themselves at school as soon as she entered a traditional school. The new rigid classroom setting coupled with the fact that she was no longer the smartest in the room and schoolwork was suddenly a challenge, made for a tough year.
Over the summer she was diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety disorder. The diagnosis was made by a psychiatrist at Seattle Children's hospital after 2 evaluation visits. The dr also had a copy of my daughter's wisc-iv results. She is currently taking medication for ADHD and doing much better. We have started taking some breaks from the meds because of her weight. I've found that when she's off them, she is "more" of everything. This is good and bad. I love that she is more vibrant and silly. But I can tell her little body is ready to explode inside. She gets so frustrated and she can't calm herself. This makes me feel pretty good about the ADHD diagnosis, but I hear so much about how gifted kids sometimes look like they have ADHD when they don't. How do you know for sure? It kills me to think I could be medicating her if she doesn't need it.
I should add that she has told me how much easier it is to pay attention at school and she enjoys not getting in trouble all the time.
Thanks!
