Parent Thread

Gravy_sl said:

Friends of ours just let us know that their 18yo boy, and 23yo girl have been saving money for the last two years to send them on a trip for their 25th anniversary.

The boy works part-time as a grocery stocker while going to college, and the girl is a bank teller. Not exactly pulling in the big bucks.

I was really impressed. Feels.

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That's fucking awesome. Those are some good eggs right there

Gravy_sl said:

Friends of ours just let us know that their 18yo boy, and 23yo girl have been saving money for the last two years to send them on a trip for their 25th anniversary.

The boy works part-time as a grocery stocker while going to college, and the girl is a bank teller. Not exactly pulling in the big bucks.

I was really impressed. Feels.

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Hmmm, maybe I'm nuts, but seems irresponsible to me. Glad to hear they love their parents, but I'd much rather any kids I have invest and make good decisions instead of buying surprise trips for my wife and I.

I wouldn't be surprised if their parents would rather the same thing. But if your children had done this in secret and sprung it on you, would you really tell them 'That's very nice kids but why dont you take that money and stick it in a Roth IRA'?

Doctor wants to test my 5 year old for adhd. Her behavior at school has just gone bananas. The school wants us to do something but i don't know what I can do when she isn't fucking here.

I resisted getting her tested but the more time has gone on I think something is up. She does things like compulsively, like she knows the rules, she knows she will get in trouble, she does them anyway, and then feels like shit for doing it. There are a lot of things that just make me think I guess it is time to see if there is something there. I hope it isn't, I don't want her to have to live with that her whole life, or for us to have to make decisions on stuff like medication or whatever. But at the same time, if it comes up negative (which neither I nor the doctor think it will) then I have no fucking idea what the next step is to get her behavior under control.

Chaos,
my youngest had similar issues in kindergarten. I really resisted the testing, then I resisted the diagnosis, then I resisted the recommendation that he goes on drugs to manage it. I mean I really, really resisted it. Who the hell wants to put a 6 year old on drugs that might be for the rest of his life? It was unsavoury, to say the least.

And then I watched him. Both at home, and in his classroom -- I'm fortunate enough to have the flexibility in my schedule to spend at least one morning a week in his class. He was not controlling himself, and it wasn't because he didn't want to. He was angry with himself by the time he got home from school. He simply couldn't stop himself, and he wanted to. It was his frustration with himself that finally pushed me over the edge.

And so, he got medicated. It was miraculous. Like someone flipped a switch. His behaviour, his self esteem, and his learning all jumped like you can't believe. We look through his kindergarten materials, and we can see to the day when he went on medication. Even his handwriting improved in improbable ways. I'm not saying it's a magic fix pill that you're getting, nor should you expect it to be. The pill allows my son to cope with his own behaviour, and be consciously aware of how he is behaving in various circumstances (like school). He comes home proud of how he has behaved. I have no lingering concerns that it was the right decision to put him on medication.

I know things like this are over diagnosed. I know not every child will react like mine. The thing I came to realise is that by giving him the medication, we were giving him more chances to succeed and feel good about himself and learn better. I would encourage you to consider this. Even if for a trial period.

One thing to be aware of is that certain medications cause crashes, so that school time will be great, but coming home time is when it wears off, and behaviour is worse while the crash is happening, and it's infuriating and discouraging to everyone.

In all of this, be encouraged because there are solutions.

chaos_sl said:

Doctor wants to test my 5 year old for adhd. Her behavior at school has just gone bananas. The school wants us to do something but i don't know what I can do when she isn't fucking here.

I resisted getting her tested but the more time has gone on I think something is up. She does things like compulsively, like she knows the rules, she knows she will get in trouble, she does them anyway, and then feels like shit for doing it. There are a lot of things that just make me think I guess it is time to see if there is something there. I hope it isn't, I don't want her to have to live with that her whole life, or for us to have to make decisions on stuff like medication or whatever. But at the same time, if it comes up negative (which neither I nor the doctor think it will) then I have no fucking idea what the next step is to get her behavior under control.

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If you're that conflicted about it, get a second opinion regardless of whether the first test is positive or negative, but follow the first doctor's instructions unless you get a conflicting diagnosis. In that case continue following the first doctor's instructions while you seek a third opinion, and go with the best two out of three. Unless you get three different diagnoses, in which case good fucking luck. Don't feel too bad about what she has to live with, if she has ADHD then she has ADHD and she needs to be medicated. Better to be stuck on medication for the rest of your life than to be stuck growing up with an untreated developmental disorder. Also, don't invest too much into that 'for the rest of her life' bit, because less than 30% of children with ADHD continue to have problems with it in adulthood.

Get a second opinion regardless of how much you like the first doctor or how much his diagnosis sounds right to you. Regardless of how long she has trouble with with whatever she is or isn't diagnosed with, the treatment she receives during her childhood is what affects the rest of her life.

chaos_sl said:

Doctor wants to test my 5 year old for adhd. Her behavior at school has just gone bananas. The school wants us to do something but i don't know what I can do when she isn't fucking here.

I resisted getting her tested but the more time has gone on I think something is up. She does things like compulsively, like she knows the rules, she knows she will get in trouble, she does them anyway, and then feels like shit for doing it. There are a lot of things that just make me think I guess it is time to see if there is something there. I hope it isn't, I don't want her to have to live with that her whole life, or for us to have to make decisions on stuff like medication or whatever. But at the same time, if it comes up negative (which neither I nor the doctor think it will) then I have no fucking idea what the next step is to get her behavior under control.

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I really can't believe that when a 5 year old can't sit still for hours listening to a teacher drone on we need to medicate them. I had the same diagnosis when I was 6 years old. I took Ritalin for several years and then quit that shit around age 12. It's not a disease when you can't sit through shit you don't care about without losing focus. I make a bit more than any school teacher does at this point, so I seemed to be just fine. Totally anecdotal I know, but in my opinion human beings wernt designed/didn't evolve to sit on there ass listening to people talk about shit for hours on end.

Yeah I'm not talking hours, I'm talking minutes. I see her in the class, they give the kids a writing assignment. Which at this age is like "write this sentence" at most. Normally they write their names and home addresses. She can almost always do her name, sometimes her address. The sentence shit? Forget about it. She immediately loses focus, starts scribbling or whatever, or just gets up and refuses to do it. Other kids her age do it. But it's more than that. Like she'll be doing something and just lose track of it halfway through and move on to something else. I know you're saying "all kids do that" but she literally does that with EVERYTHING. You literally cannot bargain/incentivize/bribe her because the concept of getting a reward later means nothing to her, she's cold as fuck like that. I don't know, explaining every little nuance makes it sound like blowing isolated incidents out of proportion, but I'm saying it isn't isolated incidents, it is all day every day. Lately the behavior has gotten so extreme at school she is in danger of being kicked out. And she is supposed to start kindergarten in like 2 weeks.

The other day was the tipping point she loses it, start having a meltdown, striping her shoes and shirt off, tipping over chairs, throwing toys, kicked one of the directors in the shin. All this over some stupid writing that escalated to that. She gets worked up and like can't control her emotions, and it seems like she just does stuff impulsively without really thinking, idk. Something is up. Maybe not this, I really don't know. It could be me or the teachers, maybe we are doing something wrong. Bro, I just need help to keep this kid in school.

Gav, the multiple opinions may not work. The test isn't some simple thing, it is days of observations, questionnaires for us and the teachers and her pediatrician, interviews, etc. Our Dr said that if insurance doesn't cover it, it could cost $2k+.

chaos_sl said:

Yeah I'm not talking hours, I'm talking minutes. I see her in the class, they give the kids a writing assignment. Which at this age is like "write this sentence" at most. Normally they write their names and home addresses. She can almost always do her name, sometimes her address. The sentence shit? Forget about it. She immediately loses focus, starts scribbling or whatever, or just gets up and refuses to do it. Other kids her age do it. But it's more than that. Like she'll be doing something and just lose track of it halfway through and move on to something else. I know you're saying "all kids do that" but she literally does that with EVERYTHING. You literally cannot bargain/incentivize/bribe her because the concept of getting a reward later means nothing to her, she's cold as fuck like that. I don't know, explaining every little nuance makes it sound like blowing isolated incidents out of proportion, but I'm saying it isn't isolated incidents, it is all day every day. Lately the behavior has gotten so extreme at school she is in danger of being kicked out. And she is supposed to start kindergarten in like 2 weeks.

The other day was the tipping point she loses it, start having a meltdown, striping her shoes and shirt off, tipping over chairs, throwing toys, kicked one of the directors in the shin. All this over some stupid writing that escalated to that. She gets worked up and like can't control her emotions, and it seems like she just does stuff impulsively without really thinking, idk. Something is up. Maybe not this, I really don't know. It could be me or the teachers, maybe we are doing something wrong. Bro, I just need help to keep this kid in school.

Gav, the multiple opinions may not work. The test isn't some simple thing, it is days of observations, questionnaires for us and the teachers and her pediatrician, interviews, etc. Our Dr said that if insurance doesn't cover it, it could cost $2k+.

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I really have no experience with this type of shit at all, but to me that reeks of needing attention, not a problem with paying attention. Also could be a major lack of discipline. If she is allowed to fly off the handle 24/7 and is never punished in a way that actually comes across as a severe punishment then I could see how your situation could arise, but again take that with a grain a salt as it's nothing more than my own intuition and gut feeling...

I don't know, maybe. I hope it is something we're doing wrong, that I can fix and I surely don't want her to have to live with this.

She is disciplined, she is punished, and she gets plenty of attention. I don't know, it is frustrating when you think you're doing at least ok and then you just run the fuck out of ideas. Meanwhile there is a little girl who is like another person half the time getting branded as a "bad kid" and she is barely 5.

Ortega_sl said:

I really have no experience with this type of shit at all, but to me that reeks of needing attention, not a problem with paying attention. Also could be a major lack of discipline. If she is allowed to fly off the handle 24/7 and is never punished in a way that actually comes across as a severe punishment then I could see how your situation could arise, but again take that with a grain a salt as it's nothing more than my own intuition and gut feeling...

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You don't have children, do you?

Does she do that at home?

From what very little you've wrote there seem to be enough clear warning signs to get her tested.

lurkingdirk_sl said:

You don't have children, do you?

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No shit. I got punished instead of treated and look how I turned out.

DO YOU WANT ME FOR A DAUGHTER CHAOS?!?!?!?

Could be as simple as she is trying to write and it is too slow. Her mind going 75 mph and hand going 5. Cue frustration explosion as she loses track of where she is at. I got put into the shortbus because of that in the 4th grade, I caught amazing amounts of shit from everyone my age and failed 4th grade because of it. Of course it was 1978.

chaos_sl said:

Our Dr said that if insurance doesn't cover it, it could cost $2k+.

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That's fucking ridiculous.

Oh I missed chaos addressing me. Multiple days? two thousand dollars? What in the goddamn fuck? I know they don't want to be accused of rushing to judgement but that's fucking ridiculous. It should be maybe 3-4 hours, the doctor should interview you and your daughter separately. You should be the one bringing in shit like notes from her teachers or daycare providers, report cards, etc. After interviewing you, the doctor should be pretty confident after 15 minutes of interviewing your daughter whether or not she has adhd, and either way the doctor will likely spend the rest of the interview looking for other disorders because ADHD has a very high rate of co-morbidity.

I think what you need a second opinion on is what all is involved in diagnosing ADHD in a 5 year old before you actually go through all of that.

Ok well there's a second opinion. Guess things have changed a lot.

I don't mind that they are thorough, I prefer it really. And we are going through a place my insurance sent us to so they should cover the test I would think.