We used to think that all it meant was that a kid was hyper and did not focus. We were wrong.
We have a child with ADHD. M. was diagnosed in 2nd grade after an intense and expensive psychological education evaluation. Apparently, it manifests itself very differently in little girls than it does little boys. Boys tend to be on the hyper/aggressive end and girls tend to be on the lack of focus/depression end. (Not always the case, though.)
Since then, it has been quite a ride. The analogy of a “roller coaster ride,” while cliché, is actually quite accurate.
We have learned so much about not only this diagnosis, but also about our wonderful daughter and ourselves as well. (Her dad and I think we both may have ADHD as well.)
In looking back, there were many things that we thought were just her unique little quirks. While it is sometimes hard to differentiate between what is a quirk and what is being ADHD, it is easy to see that her brain just works “differently” than our other daughter’s brain.
As a toddler, she would find loopholes in any rule that you came up with. She would follow our instructions to the letter, but would still find an alternative way to accomplish what she wanted. For example, we kept finding her sitting on the kitchen table. We did not do much at first, we figured she would lose interest after the first couple of times after we would remover her. Not so. Finally, we sat her down and told her that “we do NOT sit on tables, we sit in chairs.” We thought that we had that taken care of. We came in later and found her on the table. However, she had dragged her little chair up onto the table and was sitting in the chair that was placed right in the middle of the tabletop. When asked what she was doing, she clarified for us that she ‘was NOT sittin’ on da table. I sittin’ in my chaiw.’ (sic.) We had a similar situation with writing on the wall. We thought we had learned to be more specific in our instructions when we stated that we do not write on the wall with pencils, pens, markers, or crayons. We forgot to mention stamps. We learned that using stamps on the wall is not covered by the “No Writing” rule. “Keep your hands off of that” does not cover the use of your feet, elbows, or tongue to touch things.
In Kindergarten, she had to write down someone that she admired. She wrote down “Andrew” from her class. When I asked her what she admired about Andrew, she said that he could sit still in class and not talk. For a long time. And she thought that was amazing.
Not all of it has been fun. At least not at the time. Some of it now is quite comical. Right around the time she was diagnosed, I had the following situation happen at my house. It was morning and we were trying to get ready for school. A friend’s son, E, rode with us in the morning. E was later diagnosed with ADHD as well. So I had 2 ADHD kids to try to get out the door. Here is a copy of an email that I typed to a friend and ADHD advocate regarding that morning:
Okay – here are some phrases that were uttered by me this morning in my attempt to get everyone here this morning. My goal was to get everyone here in one piece, go over “borrowing and carrying” with M. for a minute, and stagger her medicine. Small and seemingly easily attainable goals.
“M., I printed out a few math problems for you to make sure you remember how to borrow, do them real quick and let’s make sure.”
“E., could you please quit singing to the turtles?”
“M., show me how you did this problem because it is not right.”
“E., could you sing to the turtles in your head?”
“M., this is still not right. Let’s go over how to do these again.”
“E., singing in your head means to do it so no one else can hear it.”
“M., you cannot just try to do these problems in your head; you have to write them out.”
“M., you must write out EACH problem, not just the one I said to write out earlier.”
“M., you cannot decide to randomly reverse the numbers because you don’t feel like borrowing.”
“M., you need to WRITE OUT the problems.
“E., could you stop kicking the chair?”
“M., when you borrow, you do it the same way every time.”
“M., when you borrow, you borrow from the next number to the left, not the number 2 spaces away, you know, just like we did on the previous 9 problems?????”
“No, M., I don’t know where your bag is.”
“M., those shoes are wet because I washed them; you must wear your other shoes.”
“M., THOSE SHOES ARE WET – YOU MUST WEAR YOUR OTHER ONES.”
“I don’t care if you don’t like those shoes – YOUR OTHER ONES ARE WET!!
“Why are you smelling those shoes? THEY ARE WET –WEAR YOUR OTHER ONES!!”
“M., why are you drawing smiley faces on your paper? Is that helping get your math done?”
“E., the cat is not going to answer your questions, even if you follow him through the house asking him over and over and over.”
“M., Mrs. Jones is going to break you all up into smaller groups during the timed part of the test so that it will be less distracting, probably into a different room.” “No, everyone is not testing at different times; during the timed part of the test, you all will be spread out a little more.” “No, the whole class will not be moving to a different room – how would that help?” “Ok – let’s try this again, during – testing, - - SOME of you will go to a different room.” “NO – NOT LESS TEST WITH MORE TIME – JUST SPREADING OUT SO THAT IT WILL BE LESS DISTRACTING.!!”
“M., bring me your medicine. ONLY bring it to me – don’t open it.”
“M., what are you doing? Why are you opening your medicine? I said specifically to NOT open it.”
“E., what are you doing? Please don’t play with those scissor things in M.’s open medicine bottle.”
“M., STOP trying to do those math problems in your head – WRITE THEM OUT!!!”
“How can 706 minus 700 be 124?” “No it can’t” “What do you mean that is the answer to the next problem? What about this problem?” “It does not matter that you could do this one in your head, you STILL need to work it out and tell me the answer, I do not have X-ray vision and know that you are jumping around from math problem to math problem.”
This was one of those days where I felt like I was that man in that episode of the twilight zone where he wakes up one morning and everyone is speaking a different language than him and they are all looking at him with pity because obviously something is wrong with him and he does not know how to communicate with anyone and he spends the rest of the show trying to rapidly learn the language they are speaking so that he is not locked away. AAHHHH.
Then, there were days where my heart would break for her. Here is another email to the same advocate and friend from above:
I just needed to vent to someone who would understand.
I love my adhd child,
I love my adhd child,
I love my adhd child.
I needed to remind myself a few times in order to not have any laying on of hands (around the neck.)
When she tells me that she knows that I hate her, I love her.
When she cries and yells at me because she forgot her homework, I love her.
When she tells me that she is a failure, I love her.
When she writes mean things in her handwriting book because she is angry at having to do handwriting, I love her.
When she says that she is the least important person in the family, I love her.
When she is screaming and crying about things that happened a year ago, I love her.
When I sit here with tears running down my face at what she must be feeling, I love her more.
She has really struggled with feeling like she is a worthy person because she cannot get her mind to do what she wants it to do.
We have gotten now to where we can have fun with it and enjoy to fun and exciting part of ADHD. The spontaneity had driven her to occasionally go throw in a load of laundry just because it was needed. The hyperfocus has made her into a wonderful reader – she had read all of the Harry Potter books by 4th grade. She can figure out strange and difficult math problems in her head. The verbal acuity she has helps her to come up with great stories as well as the ability to create wonderful analogies to explain how she is feeling. Her “thinking outside the box” process has made her incredibly adept at technological things. She figured out how to send and receive emails via the wii. She found out how to set up filters and signatures on her email by herself. She does power-points for fun. The feelings of failure she has had in the past make her a very caring person. She loves people no matter what they look like or act like. She is a true friend to those in need. The larger-than-life emotions that used to focus on what she perceived as her shortcomings now focus (most of the time) into showing love for her family and friends. This extends to her sister’s friends as well. They love M. like she was their own and she loves them right back.
She now knows her struggles and tries to find ways to work with them. Recently, Becky, who lives in our basement, went out of town for a few days. M. was in charge of feeding Becky’s cats. Knowing that she is forgetful, she took the initiative to leave just a few reminders for herself around the house. (As per normal for ADD kids - the goal was the note itself, not the spelling or grammer.)
Hanging on the wall going upstairs to her bedroom:
On a table at the bottom of the stairs:
On a napkin at her place at the table:
On the milk:
On the peanut butter jar:
On the chin up bar that she must hang on every time she passes it:
This doesn't include the notes that she left that I could not get good pictures of - the bathroom mirror, on the door, on the loaf of bread, etc.
All things considered, I would not wish for M. to not have ADHD. I think it makes her who she is, it gives her that little something extra. It helps her to stand out from the crowd. I would not wish her the pain and grief that she has experienced to go away either. I believe those hardships have helped mold her into the caring and loving girl that she is now. We are all products of our circumstances, our choices, our experiences. The tough times that she has survived have made her into a stronger person than she would have ever been without them. I think she is a really neat person and I love her dearly.
