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!

My Ds is 9 and just recently diagnosed ADHD. What meds did you have her on? We are afraid to medicate for the same reason but are willing to try if it makes him happy.

I think that you know for sure - look through what you've written before you asked the question. Your dd responded positively to the ADHD meds, she reacted the way you would expect a child who has ADHD to react to the meds, they made a positive difference in her ability to function.

This too:


polarbear

You're probably right. I'm new to all this and worried I'm screwing up

She's on Ritalin. It has helped a lot. I was against it for a very long time. When I finally decided to try, I think I spent a week in bed crying about it. In the end, I'm happy with the decision.

DD9 sounds very similar. Her unmedicated personality is very bubbly, exuberant, and excitable, like a little puppy dog flinging itself into a lake. When we medicate her, she seems to gain about 10 years in maturity in 60 minutes. Her affect is definitely flatter, but not necessarily in a negative way, she is just acting more mature. The over-excitablities decrease. It makes her less "fun" but she doesn't function well when she is so excitable. She does say that she feels "freer" when she is unmedicated, but school is really tough for her, as she would probably be wandering aimlessly, completely distracted by what all of the other kids are doing or talking about. So there are trade-offs. If we miss a dose she becomes sort of manic for a couple days so we really can't take med breaks.

Yes, what was said, I think you answered your own question. The medication helps her calm and focus, and you can see that it's doing what you'd expect for a child with ADHD. My DD was also dx with ADHD and started medication about 2 years ago, and it's made school much more doable for her. When it wears off in later afternoon it's a little rough, and in the evening she'll hyperfocus like crazy on whatever's caught her attention. She takes the Adderall XR and Intuiniv -- fwiw she can miss an Adderall and it's ok. But if she misses the Intuiniv, she's a total manic wreck when the Adderall wears off for the day.

You described it perfectly! Thankfully we can take a day off and she is able to get back on track the following day. The day off is usually painful. This weekend when she was off her meds she spent an entire hour screaming about how I love the TV more than her because I wanted to watch the Super Bowl. It's like she's more exciting and vibrant for a few hours, then she turns into a crazy person. But she's not on the charts as far as weight, so we do what we have to in order to keep her growing so she can stay on the meds.

The eating is probably a whole other topic but DD only eats well before she takes her pill in the morning (around 8am), and then some random time after about 6pm, often (but not always) after everyone else has eaten dinner. I do not know how she survives on the amount she eats.