My son has ADHD and he takes Adderall

Brace yourself. This is a long detailed, emotion filled post. But I feel like shouting it from the rooftops so let me say it again. My son has ADHD and he takes Adderall. Now before you form any judgments on my behalf, I want you to keep reading. Because there is always more to the story than meets the eye.

Fifteen years ago, I married a man with ADHD. We have four beautiful, amazing, unique children together. Fact: If a parent has ADHD, a child has more than a 50% chance of having it. It didn’t take long for me to realize that one of my sons processed things differently than other children. When he was in preschool, I described him as a wild card because you never knew how he was going to react to a situation. I gave anticipatory guidance to teachers to help prepare them. I accompanied him on every field trip because new situations were particularly challenging. When he entered kindergarten, he was put on a behavior plan that provided positive reinforcement for appropriate behaviors at school. By this time, inattentiveness had become more of an issue than unpredictable emotions. If you left him alone, he was an easygoing child, lost in his own imagination. But if you had expectations, he floundered.

It wasn’t just at school that his behaviors were a problem. Home life was hard too. It was nigh to impossible to get him to do chores without following him around and physically guiding him, step-by-step. He would not maintain eye contact, and anytime you tried to carry on a conversation with him, he would look away and disengage. Getting out of the house in the morning was a nightmare because he would get distracted during the most basic tasks. I’m ashamed to admit that he experienced more yelling and negative feedback over the years than any of our other children because our patience was exhausted. Because I knew that ADHD ran in families, I had done my own “research”. Which, thanks to Dr. Google, did not have good outcomes. I came across lots of stuff on why labeling children was such a bad thing, how claims of ADHD were related to poor parenting and how medications used for ADHD were permanently mind altering. These claims guilted and terrified me and kept me from moving forward with a diagnosis or medication. As did conversations with well-meaning friends who shared many of the same opinions as the internet. FACT: ADHD is not caused by bad parenting, too much sugar, or too many video games. It is a brain-based, biological disorder. Brain imaging studies and other research show many differences in the brains of individuals with ADHD.

We tried plenty of other strategies to help my son through the years. There were several rounds of counseling which were either play therapy focus based (pointless because again, no expectations=easygoing) or parenting based (coaching me in different strategies to engage my child.) I’ll admit that I am nowhere near a perfect parent but I fail to see how changing my approach will help my son improve his focus. We tried a vibration reminder watch, developed for kids with ADHD. And I prayed that I would know what path to take. Prayer helped me to feel at peace and move forward but nothing else made much a difference. I had broached the possibility of ADHD with many of my son’s teachers, and his pediatrician, but they all just looked at me like I was crazy. School administrators told me that having him evaluated through the school was not a viable option. Something about nondisruptive behaviors and long waiting lists. Don’t get me wrong, he has had some great teachers through the years. But it was like they were afraid to acknowledge that his challenges were outside of his control. Which made me feel all the more guilty and responsible for his inadequacies. FACT: Studies show that brain chemicals, called neurotransmitters, don’t work the same in children and adults with ADHD. There also tend to be differences in the way nerve pathways work. Certain parts of the brain may be less active or smaller in children with ADHD than those without the disorder. The brain chemical dopamine may also play a role. It carries signals between nerves in the brain and is linked to movement, sleep, mood, attention, and learning.

As expectations increased, and my son had more difficulty functioning at home and school, I became more desperate for answers. At one point, I even had him evaluated for autism because if his teachers didn’t think he had ADHD, maybe there was something else going on. That is not our challenge, thank goodness.

When my son was in the middle of his 2^nd grade year, we moved. I decided to try an experiment. Instead of giving anticipatory guidance, like I had every other time he started a new school year or teacher, I’d just see how things went. Maybe it was me that created issues that weren’t really there, I thought. Only a couple of days into his new school, I got an email from his new teacher. It said – is there something we should know about your son’s history that will help us teach him? (Validation!) Several months later I talked to my new pediatrician about my concerns and she encouraged me to move forward with an ADHD evaluation. (Again, validation.) But still, one baby step forward, one step back, because those old fears and whispers continued to haunt me. What good would a diagnosis do? I thought. It’s not as if I would medicate him. I had read all about the horrible effects of ADHD medication. I worried about what kind of parent it made me to even consider medicating my child. It took me until the middle of 3^rd grade to work up the courage to even give the ADHD eval to his teachers. The diagnosis came back solid but still I was reluctant to consider medication. I mentioned to his 3rd grade teacher that I was contemplating trying meds. I can’t remember exactly what her response was, but I remember it made me dismiss the possibility of medication all over again. Another step back. In 4^th grade, a member of the school admin team took over his behavior plan. He was more open in his communication and for the first time in my son’s life I felt like a school viewed me as part of a team helping to support my son rather than a parent who had raised a poorly functioning student. Baby step forward. Near the beginning of the school year, the admin member suggested a meeting with himself, the principal and my son’s homeroom teacher, to make sure we were doing all we could to support my son. As I mentioned, I had been praying to know what to do to best support my son. Little did I know that this meeting would be the answer I had been waiting for.

In that meeting, I was open and honest with my son’s teacher and school admin. I shared that we had been considering medication. It was the principal’s words that finally catapulted me into concrete action. He is a fabulous involved principal and has had the opportunity to observe and interact with my son over the last couple of years. He commended me for considering medication and shared that he thought that there was something holding my son back from reaching his full potential. He mentioned that some people might think that schools were in favor of medication because it would make students easier to manage. But he pointed out that my son is not disruptive, just distracted. (Again, validation!) When he was sharing these thoughts with me, I felt strongly that what he was saying was true. It was a clear answer to my prayers that I had been seeking all these years. It wasn’t as if the school was telling me to put my kid on medication. But they listened to me, recognized that we had tried everything else and encouraged me to move forward with a plan of action.

My pediatrician was another advocate for my son. Even after the meeting, I hemmed and hawed. I presented to her all the ridiculous stuff I had read on the internet. She reminded me that all medications come with risks but that ADHD medications have been around for a long time and that overall, the benefits outweigh the risks. Her sensible words reminded me that I knew how to find reputable websites and source credible information. I’m a dietitian after all. Before, I had let my emotions get the better of me and searched the internet without bothering to filter fact from fiction. After our conversation, I stuck with websites I knew were credible and they backed up everything my pediatrician had been saying, reassuring me that there was little risk to a trial of medication.

In the back of my mind through all of this were a couple of conversations I had with dear friends. They each had sons diagnosed with ADHD. They each eventually decided to try a trial of medication. And they each had night and day results. Their success stories gave me the courage to fill the prescription.

The last obstacle was getting my son on board. He was adamant about not taking medication. He worried that it would destroy his imagination. We convinced him to give it a try for a month. We agreed that if he didn’t like how it made him feel, we would stop it or try another medication. I expected there to be a transition period where we had to adjust the dosage or experiment with other medications. What I did not expect was how quickly he responded to the medication. And how significant the impact would be. The first day, my child, my baby who had not looked me in the eyes for more than a second for the 9 years of his life, was able to maintain eye contact. He engaged in conversation with me and didn’t require continual verbal and physical prompts to keep his attention. He came home from school and got right on his homework without any cues from me. There were rave reviews from school too. Behavior plans that had been riddled with comments like blurting, not listening, constant reminders changed overnight to comments like engaged, participated in discussion, leader in our class. I started to notice other changes too. His handwriting became neater. His drawings became crisper and more detailed. When I asked him how he felt he responded that he noticed a lot more things than he used to. And that he liked not being in trouble. To top it all off, we really haven’t had many negative side effects. Initially he seemed to have a harder time going to sleep at night, but that isn’t a problem any more. We were a little concerned about the effect on his appetite but that also seems to have resolved. Now, on days when he doesn’t need to sit for concentrated periods of time, I give him the option of skipping his medication. Most days, he chooses to take it because in his words, “It makes it so much easier to focus.”

It’s been a couple of months now since he has been on his medication and what a difference it has made in our lives. He’s no longer on a behavior plan. He gets things done without constant supervision. His grades have improved and so has our relationship. But I would be lying if I didn’t tell you how mad I am. I’m mad at our society for spreading the myths that surround ADHD. I’m mad at how reluctant teachers were to validate my concerns. I’m mad at the pediatrician that tried to give me parenting guidance rather than suggest I have my son evaluated for ADHD. I’m mad at all the voices in the world and on the internet that paralyzed me from helping my son. I’m mad that my son’s self-esteem and our relationship suffered for an extra 3 years because it took me until he was 9 to try medication. Most of all, I’m mad at myself for letting all that stuff keep me from helping my son sooner.

But I’m grateful for things too. I’m grateful for the pediatrician and administrators that listened and validated my concerns. I’m grateful for the friends that were willing to share their positive experiences with me. I’m grateful that my son still has plenty of his life ahead of him. Most of all, I’m grateful that Adderall is helping him reach his potential. His teacher sent me this picture on Halloween (post medication.) It was captioned "Nothing can distract him now!" I'm especially grateful this his teachers have celebrated his successes with me.

I’m sharing this because I’m tired of the stigma that surrounds ADHD and other mental illnesses. Because I hope that if there is someone with a similar experience, our story will give them the courage they need to move forward. Do I think that medication is the answer for everyone with mental illness? No. But do I think that it needs to be considered as an option in every situation? Absolutely. ADHD medication has changed our lives for the better.