Grinity-thanks for the ideas. I will talk about that with the teacher.

We had our meeting today, and it actually went very well. Dh and I are soooo relieved after attending this meeting. The administrator, who has a master's in child development, basically said that ds is struggling emotionally and socially (which we knew, of course), and she wants to help us get to the bottom of it. She feels there is definitely more going on than ADHD, and she does have a lot of experience with lots of children, many of whom have had ADHD. She said that with the medication, the gap between social/emotional development and intellectual development should be closing to a degree. She seems knowledgeable about giftedness and understands asynchronous development, but thinks there's definitely more going on that that.

She said immediately that she didn't want me worrying that they were going to tell us ds was a poor fit for the school. She said, "We are here to support you and ds and help your family."

She suggested a child psychiatrist that she took her son to for similar issues. Also, other parents from the school have used this doctor and had a positive experience. My mother has some experience with her as well through her job, and she said good things about her as well.

Also, the administrator recommended that we see the child psychologist from the same practice who specializes in the issues that we are dealing with, including ABA and CBT! She recommended individual therapy for ds and family/parent therapy for us. She said she or the teacher would go with us to the initial psychiatric appointment if we wanted them to. That way, we can make sure the doctor gets a complete picture of what's going on. Also, she wants to make sure that we are all using the same techniques from home to school, so that ds has that continuity.

She also recommended their school psychologist do the neuropsych testing, but I think we'll stick with the neuropsychologist. Her thought on that was that we'd all be working together, and these are all people from the same team who work closely together. I like the idea of the neuropsychologist rather than school psychologist for this testing though.

They definitely think there is some mental health component going on, and the administrator specifically referred to depression. She was definitely knowledgeable and knew the signs to look for. She did say she was not qualified to diagnose anything, but she thought the child psychiatrist was the best place to start.

She and the teacher expressed concern that the current ADHD medication (Ritalin) could be contributing to the increased anxiety, aggression, and anger. Over the weekend, we observed some definite negative changes in behavior. Ds just seems angry.

I called the developmental behavioral ped today, and she said that these symptoms are on the list of "serious side effects" for stimulant meds and that maybe ds is just not going to tolerate stimulants. We can try Strattera, but I am inclined to do nothing until we see the psychiatrist. She will do blood work as well, which our doc never did. Not sure if it's necessary, but we'll take all the info we can get.

Overall, dh and I feel so relieved because we finally have a cohesive plan with lots of support. This way, we have an entire team working to help ds. Not one time was there any indication that they had their own interests in mind. They even suggested a guide (helper who is a psychology student) to be available in the classroom to help ds. We'd do this after he is evaluated and specific goals are set up. Again, this would help to make sure he gets the support he needs and the continuity of "treatment" and behavior techniques between home and school.

I can't believe we're getting all this help through a private school! Of course, we have to pay for some of the services, but it's nice to have the help coordinating it all.

I was floundering and about to fall apart myself. I needed someone to take charge and say, "Ok, this is what we need to do. We're going to figure this out together and address it." We are really grateful as this meeting went so differently than we expected.

As for now, we are going to stop the stim meds and continue to give the B12, B6, Folic Acid, Omega-3 Fatty Acid supplement, and vitamin supplement formulated for attention and concentration. We'll see how it goes. If all hell breaks loose without the medication, I'm not sure what we'll do. We can't see the psychiatrist until Dec. 2.

Thanks for all the ideas and support. If you made it through this novel of a post, thanks, and I'd love to know what you think!