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I've been told that if it is not ADHD that is causing the problems, the medication won't change anything.
My husband has ADD. He was always called an underachiever throughout his schooling. It very much affected his self-esteem. While he always seemed to keep things together, working excessively, night school, M.B.A., taking care of a family; he always felt as if he was spinning his wheels.
After his diagnosis and treatment with Concerta, I noticed a huge change immediately and so did he. If he doesn't take it, I also notice.
There is controversy, because some of the symptoms of ADHD overlap with some of the traits of gifted people. Especially HG. I was misdiagnosed in elementary school as having ADHD and had to take medication I didn't need. There was no change in my behavior on the medication, if anything I was more out of control.
As moms we all have to make the best decision for our children based on the information we have and our gut feelings. If your decision is to medicate him and you see a noticable change, then no one really gets to have an opinion about that. Except maybe your son, and since he was the one to bring it up.....
I hope your treatment plan helps your son meet his potential and his own goals for education and performance.

Can I just give a collective back-patting for the sanity and supportiveness of this forum?

There are a lot of places that would get into an ugly fight over this topic--foolishly, I would say. I love that we are a case-by-case kind of place that respects parents and the individual needs of kids. I think the responses to this thread have made it clear that no one here believes in willy-nilly medicating kids, but that we think medication is a valid option worthy of consideration in some cases. That's a smart, sane response I think.

And every time we back any parent who is doing the best job s/he can do, I feel proud to e-know you all.

Yay, us!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Rampant-Emotion-free thread...

Hear, hear!

got a question - what is the minimum age for diagnosing ADHD/ADD? For some reason I think it's not until 7 or so?? I'm kinda keeping some thoughts in my back pocket about one of my kids, but he's only 5 y.o....

Thank you everyone! It's great to hear someone else had walked the same path to some extent.

I knew he was fustrated in 8th grade when he asked his GT teacher if she thought he was gifted. Luckily, she was the one who screened his test a few years ago and told him without a doubt.

This whole ADHD thing is new to me and ultimately, he has to find some way to overcome these obstacles. I'm hoping while on medication, he learns to productively accomplish school so it will become a pattern/habit he can fall back on if meds don't work. (I'm learning the effectiveness for some wear off after time) I'm also interested in seeing what the researcher at the university will find if he's able to participate in her strategic learning and social developement study.

I have read where some children as young as kindergarten were diagnosed with ADHD. I know in my 4th grade classroom, students who were diagnosed ADHD show significant difficulties with reading long text, often blurt, or get off task quickly/repeatedly. I did not recieve these types of complaints from his teacher

FWIW.... he was a hypersensitive baby to light, sound, and touch.

Yes! YEAH US!!!! BIG HUG!!!

I suspect that trying to diagnose ADHD too early might be part of the reason for the frequent feeling that kids are overmedicated today. Some people forget that young kids are not normally able to sit and focus for long periods of time, that they are really supposed to be active and moving a lot. Being appropriately active for one's age is very different from being ADHD, but in a classroom where the teacher expects quiet all the time, active kids stand out, and not in a good way.

I DO have a very big problem with medicating a small child for the teacher's convenience! But obviously that's nothing like what's happening in this case. Very different thing. When your child asks for help in junior high, it's pretty clear there's a real problem in need of a real solution.

Combine a GT kid and the tendency for extended focus (especially on subjects that interest the child) with ADHD and the scattered focus there, and you probably come up with the 50%-or-100% scenario. Something to think about...

Welcome JustAMom,
I'm really, really glad to hear that your son is in preAP classes and getting perfect grades. I'd love to see what his IQ score would be now, on an individualized IQ test. I'll bet it's beyond 140, and that his near perfect scores may still represent him not being truly challenged. So when the folks say you are using the medication to get the scores, you can at least think to yourself - for all we know he could still be underachieving, even with the medication! Actually my hope is that he is perfectly placed, perfectly diagnosed, and perfectly challenged. After all these years - Yippee!!!

Smiles,
Grinity

Thank you Grinity,

I've always been curious about his true IQ though in the state that I'm in, the school districts rely on OLsaT, ITBS, or Stanford (or a combination of). I looked into the WISC however, it's quite expensive since he doesn't show a learning disorder, at least the definition of one in this state. I've read Colorado's handbook on 2E children and found it very interesting how they diagnosed children using the discrepancy between the verbal and ability portion of the test. I wonder if this occur for my son.

His IQ has not been very important to me except what he chooses to do with it. We were very lucky to have a retired medical school professor teach his 7th grade biology class a few years ago who inspired him. He's very interested in biomedical engineering.

I just feel a little lost trying to do what's best.

Thank you everyone for your words. They mean a lot to me!