I don't have any experience with medicine but wanted to say that if you're seeing the behavior and you think that there might be something else going on you can always get a few opinions from doctors. I'd be leery about just trusting what the school is telling you but now you have your DS telling you things and you're with him more to observe his behaviors.
I know that in my case the schools were pushing me to put DS on medicine but I didn't see the ADD behaviors at home and after getting a few opinions I'm fairly certain that he doesn't have ADD at all. If I did see the behaviors that they were mentioning I'd probably be getting a 4th opinion
You have to trust your instincts as a mom. You know your kid the best!
I believe that my daughter (mostly) and son each have difficulty with auditory discrimination and processing and probable attention difficulties. In fact, when my daughter was around seven, two different educational psychologists deemed that she was 2E and I was warned that her compensation abilities would fail eventually by late elementary or middle school. (
So we skipped her up a grade into a more advanced per grade school)
This 2E conclusion was reinforced by a developmental pediatrician and by a university educational testing department when she was in 5th grade. (
So we looked for the most ambitious high school program that we could afford within driving distance)
Not to jinx the situation, but dd15 is doing extremely well at a challenging school where she takes eight classes plus an additional computer programming class through Gifted Learning Links. She leaves at 5:15am in the morning for swim practice and arrives home around 6:00pm on average after her extracurriculars ,including a club that she founded and leads, then does homework until bedtime. She is kind of a grind on weekdays, but has plenty of social invitations every weekend and maintains relationships by multi-tasking communication with friends while she studies and completes her schoolwork.
This sounds like a brag, and I am terribly impressed by her (and her friends), but my point is that I don�t think she could have achieved this well had we left her in the original, under- challenging environment. I had always said that I would not be opposed to seeking medication for either kid, but I intended to try a different approach first.
I hope our BTDT experience helps.
