I am the Mother of two beautiful children, one daughter and a son. My daughter is an easy going cheerful girl who is in every way a normal "tween" ager. My son is a 7 year old "spirited" child. You know the type. I knew he was was spirited from about the age of 10 months when he began almost running as soon as he learned to walk. He always was extremely active, yet, this is what was expected of a boy it seemed. As he got closer to 4 1/2 years old, this activity became an unwelcome part of his preschool as he needed many reminders to listen, stay still, and to follow directions. He also seemed to not hear or remember directions given verbally. He misarticulated many words as well, which required speech therapy. As he got mid year into kindergarten, he began getting into trouble at least weekly for excessive movement, not following directions, and sometimes taking risks that were not safe in school. We had him tested his kindergarten year and found that he had ADHD and Auditory Processing Disorder.
I had thought/wished that he was just an immature little boy that would grow out of his preschool hyperactivity, but we have embraced the fact that this is not true. My son doesn't have mild ADHD, but I would say that he is pretty moderate to severe (impulsive, hyperactive and inattentive). So, I understand when parents talk to me about their child with ADHD.
I thought it might be helpful to other parents to blog about our successes and not so successful interventions.
Medication: For us, we haven't found the right medication that will assist our child fully with learning. Seems that kids that are anxious have a difficult time with typical stimulant drugs such as Vyvansse and Focalin. Focalin made our son very angy to the point that he was borderline mean to friends, teachers and family. Intuniv seemed to have promise at first, but slowed him down so much that he couldn't play successfully in sports. Later, while on Intuniv, he started having constant ringing in the ears and saying he was hearing weird things. That freaked me out, so no more Intuniv for us.
Diet: Definitely a bigge. I really try to cut out candy and junk food or anything that has artificial preservatives or food dye. I see a big difference in negative behavior and inattention when my son has moderate amounts of this. Still, it is very hard to completely cut these things out because they are everywhere.
Exercise: A must. Not just regular exercise that makes parents tired, but my son needs the kind of exercise that is intense (sweating profusely). Think sensory diet. Pogo stick jumping, jumping rope, team soccer, swinging, climbing trees, rope climbing, and wrestling with Dad are the kinds of exercise that calms and focuses most kids with this kind of ADHD. For my son, it is all of these activities over the course of a few hours.
Counseling: My husband and I did parental counseling and continue to do so as needed. I recommend this "coaching" to any parent. It is great to have an outsider observe your family and suggest parenting tips to make being a parent more joyful.
Therapy: Speech therapy has helped to make my son's speech clearer. He still works with a speech therapist once a week to continue working on articulation, auditory processing, and verbal comprehension. He will also continue with occupational therapy over the summer to help with sensory processing. Along with therapy, we have begun Interactive Metronome therapy. More updates on that below.
Interactive Metronome (I.M.) : I became a certified provider in 2012 because I thought that the program would be helpful to my son and to others that needed a tool to unlock the potential of their children. I won't go into all of the details about I.M. history and such, but feel free to browse the details on my website. The goal is to train for 15 sessions over the course of 3-5 weeks without less than 3 visits per week. Also, the trainee needs to complete around 1500 repetitions per session for the most results. After 2 sessions, we are at 1800 repetitions per session. Since my son has the Auditory Processing and ADHD component, it may take longer than 15 sessions to get the ultimate results. He basically screened at the "average" range for a 7 year old with no guide sounds, but shot up to the below average when I introduced guide sounds. His auditory sensitivity is so severe that even turning the guide sound on a volume of 2 was enough to throw him into a rage. So, we are modifying, like I would with any other client. Earphones off and guide sounds very low to start. After two sessions, his accuracy has increased 125%. I am pretty happy with that since he is attending to the program for 1800 repetitions, which is around 32 minutes. This is the part that helps kids with ADHD. Learning to stay focused on non-child selected activities for longer periods of time is very difficult. More updates this week on I.M. therapy.
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