I am taking my six year old son for assessment for ADHD in two weeks (i am 99% sure he has it) and i'm unsure what to tell him. He seems completly oblivious to the fact that he has a "problem" and i don't know whether to be upfront and tell him why we're going to the hospital or not. Any suggestions?

Hi LouLou

:D Welcome to the forum.

I can't give you a straight answer on what to say to your son as I think it depends on what his "problem" is.
Have you already seen anyone and who is the assessment with?

We have 2 children, one of whom we could have explained in more detail to, at the age of 6, the other, who is ADHD, would not have fully understood.

Let us know what your sons problem is and we will try and offer more advice. :rolleyes:

Dear stressed mum,

Thanks for your reply. My son has been seen by 2 educational psychologists, who both said his attention span is very poor, he is easily distracted and has very poor auditory short term memory.
He also appears very hyperactive, constantly moving, jumping, climbing and running about at home and school. He talks all the time. He's been like this from age 2 1/2.
He saw a paediatrician who thought he probably has ADHD. We are seeing the child psychiatrist in two weeks at the ADHD clinic.
The school say he doesn't concentrate, wanders around the class room all day, tears up work in frustration, becomes easily distracted and has shown aggression to other children and staff. He is way behind in his learning, which puzzles me because he seems so clever.
Like your son, he would definately not understand if i explained what the assessment is for. He lives in his own little world and can sometimes be very difficult to get through to. I don't want to stress him out too much, but on the other hand i don't want to not tell him anything and just take him to the hospital without any warning! I really don't know what to tell him.
Loulou

Hi loulou

It really sounds as if your son is like ours.

When we went to see the consultant paediatrician just over a year ago we (as parents) didn't know what to expect. So to try to explain fully was not possible.

What we tried to do was at least let him know that somebody was going to talk to him and that was in fact all that happened when we saw the paed.

The assessment took the form of the paed spending most of her time talking to Andrew and monitoring what he was doing, swinging on his chair, fiddling with things, getting up and walking round. She then turned to us and ask a few questions, but again spent time watching what Andrew was doing, whilst he was not "centre of attention".

We left the consultation with 3 questionaires, one for us to complete, one for Andrew and one for school. These were then returned to the paed for our next appointment and made for interesting reading. The questionaires were the same questions worded differently for each party. They asked things like:

How many friends do you have ?

Are you happy at school ?

Most of the answers from the 3 sources agreed and after our second appointment it became clear that Andrew was ADHD.

Back to what you say to your son. You as a parent know your child best. Be open and honest.
Explain in simple terms. 'Tomorrow we are going to see someone about you." "We're going somewhere you've not been before"

Can you try and make it into an adventure ?

I hope this helps.

Keep in touch and let us know how you all get on.

Best wishes :rolleyes:

Dear Mad Dad,
Thanks for your reply. It really helps knowing that other people have been through what i'm going through with my son. It's so frustrating that things seem to take so long and that the school haven't been listening to what i've been saying for the past 18 months. It really hurts watching your child suffer.
I'm sure the promise of a balloon from the hospital shop should be enough to coax my son into the doctors' office!
I will let you know how the appointment goes.

Loulou

Hi LouLou

We were trying to get Andrews school to do something for about 4 years :angry:

It really is time that the educational professionals (?) listened to parents. As has been said already on this forum:

WE AS PARENTS KNOW OUR CHILDREN. WE ONLY WANT WHAT IS BEST FOR THEM!

I really do hope that once you have a diagnosis for your son, that the school will begin to do something to help him.

Best wishes :rolleyes:

"Waw"

Having a really bad time this last week with my 6 year old son. Only 5 days to go now until we get a formal diagnosis of ADHD (or not).
He has always been quite destructive with toys/work when he loses his temper but it seems to be getting worse.
He flies off the handle over something really trivial and breaks toys and there is no talking him out of it. This past week he has broken something nearly every day and becomes really tearfull about it afterwards.
Does anyone else experience this sort of behaviour with ADHD kids?
If i try to intervene and stop him breaking the toy, his rage gets worse and i worry he will harm himself, so i have just had to let him break it.
Afterwards when he's calmed down, we talk about it and he gets very upset. He says he doesn't know why he breaks things and wishes he hadn't. I asked him what makes him cross and he says he doesn't know.
I'm really struggling to know what to do in this situation. He's also been off school for some while because he couldn't cope (or rather the school couldn't),so having him around me 24/7 is taking it's toll on my sanity.

Hi Loulou

We know what you're going through. It is very hard to know what to do for the best when these tempers start. All we do with our son is try to is make sure he doesn't come to any harm. Afterwards he too can't explain what caused his temper and we like you feel helpless.

When you go for the assessment tell them all about these tempers.
The more information you can provide will enable a truer diagnosis.

The diagnosis is not going to make the tempers go away but at least the medical profession can offer some solutions which will make life easier for your whole family.

Hold in there.

We are thinking about you.

Stressed Mum

Hi Mad Dad and Stressed Mum,

I've just got back from my son's assessment at the ADHD clinic and the consultant is pretty sure he has ADHD. He's recommended Ritalin, which i'm going to start him on after the weekend. I feel relieved that i've finally been told what i've known for 3 years!
Hopefully the medication works and my son can start to lead a more "normal" life.
I'll keep you posted.

Loulou

Hi Loulou

:P :P :P

That's great news.

Do let us know how it's going.


Best wishes to you all

MadDad

Hi,

My son has been on Ritalin for three days now. I started him on 5mg twice a day which is half the dose the doctor recommended. I wanted to start gently and i'm glad i did because he responded well. After about 30 minutes he calmed right down and then played quietly for 3 hours (which he has never done before). I could tell when it was wearing off because he started "hyping up" again.
I gave him the full dose (10mg) this morning but he was quite tearfull over minor things after that, so i think i should go back to the 5mg dose for now. He has only had one outburst of anger which was this evening, so overall i'm pleased.
The only thing bothering me, is the fact that i feel i have "drugged" him, which makes me feel guilty. It's really weird having a calm child in the house after having such a "hyper" one for all this time!

LouLou

:P Hi Loulou

We are so pleased that the medication is working for you all.

Our son is also only on a 5mg dose twice a day. It's really helped him at school with his work and having now been on it for 8 months he is telling us how much better he's feeling. He no longer gets bullied, children will communicate with him because he is "normal" now and this is a nice feeling for him. He is much happier and consequently so are we. :D We too felt guilty but when your child turns round and tells you how much better things are for them, you know you did the right thing - just give it time. We still get the outbursts sometimes, but that is usually only within home environment.

Hi,

Things are going quite well since my son started on ritalin 10 days ago. He was very quiet for the first few days, which worried me, but he seems to be his old self again, minus the hyperactivity, and less rude. He's concentrating much better now. He goes absolutely crazy in the mornings, running about and shouting like mad, then once he's had his medication, he calms down well. Already i don't know how i ever coped before when he was like that all day!
He said he feels happier that he's calmed down and asked me if there was a tablet that could stop making him angry. Bless him.
The next hurdle is getting him back to school, which is going to be tricky as he really has developed a phobia about school and learning after all the trouble he has been through in the past. He was always getting sent home and has been excluded twice (aged 5). This has had such a devastating affect on his self esteem and repairing the damage is going to be very hard. He's been off school for 8 months and receives home tuition 3 times a week, which has not been very successful.
I'm waiting for the LEA to decide whether they will carry out a Statutory Assessment (they refused before as they said there was a "lack of evidence"). I'm now armed with "evidence" so hopefully they will listen this time.
Fingers crossed.

Loulou