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I posted last week about my DS having trouble paying attention. It's becoming more and more apparent to me that he is not just your average distracted kid. It's like he seriously can't help it. Example: This morning he's supposed to be doing phonics (TRL Lesson 8 ), reading the word 'swim' in the story. I had all the other words on the page covered up, told him to run his finger under the word while he read it, put his trifold cardboard thing in front of him... He glances at the word briefly, then stares at the ceiling and tells me it says 'smile'.. By the time he finishes the stories, I'm convinced he has no clue what he just read. He knows the rules, and he can read it when he's focused, he just doesn't pay attention and makes careless mistakes. Another example: Right now he's doing his handwriting. The word he's copying is 'fill'. He asks me, "Mom, what does this say?" I tell him to sound it out, that it's an easy one. Without hardly giving it a glance he asks, "Feel? Fell? File?" Argh!

I try so hard not to get frustrated with him. I really do. But it is so hard when he spends 5 minutes on one simple word and wastes our time. He tells us all the time that his brain doesn't work right, and he'll hit his forehead with his fists when he gets frustrated. I'm at my wits end. It just seems to be getting worse. We spoke with our pediatrician about it 3 years ago and all he did was give us a pamphlet about a facility in town that deals with children with mental retardation. Then we took him to the local public school to be evaluated by their child psychologist, speech therapist, etc. This is the first step to getting a proper diagnosis, we're told. After all was said and done, he tested normal to high for his IQ and the psychologist said he did not see any need for further testing. This in itself is terribly frustrating. I just keep thinking, if there's nothing different about him, then I must just be a horrible mother/teacher.

Some of the other things he does: he throws tantrums, loses his temper at the drop of a hat, yells often, goes into crying fits... He's a very emotional child and gets stressed easily (which makes the rest of us stressed as well). He talks very loudly when just making conversation. In fact, he never quite talks at a regular "indoor" volume. He's not what I'd consider a hyperactive child, at least not all the time, but he does get these bursts where we have to tell him over and over to calm down. I just don't know what to do. I really do think he has some form of AD(H)D, but I'm afraid to talk to the pedi about it again since he was not helpful at all, and I really don't want to go through the public school again either. Most of all, I do NOT want him put on any type of medication unless it is absolutely necessary for him to function. I just feel like too many kids are misdiagnosed and given drugs they don't necessarily need to calm them down.

Can anyone give me any advice? I just don't know what to do. I told DH this morning we need to eliminate all food coloring, and as much sugar as possible from his diet. I thought about eliminating all caffeine (not that he has much), but someone actually told me once that sometimes caffeine helps AD(H)D kids. I'm tempted to try giving him some coffee in the mornings. I just want to help him and to make our household less stressful.

I once babysat for a friend whose daughter was diagnosed ADHD, so I only have limited experience. My friend is a single dad, and he got very ill and was hospitalized for a while, so I offered to take in his two girls, 4 and 6 at the time. When he was well, the 4-year-old had lost her spot at preschool, so he asked me to teach her as well.
Some observations I made about her was that just before she would lose focus of switch gears, she would experience a "tick", almost as though I could see her "short circuit". I began timing how long between these "ticks" so I could plan lesson time with her accordingly. She was also tested with a very high IQ according to her father, and was pretty good at trying to get her way with tantrums.
My strategies with her included lots of physical activity before sit-down instruction-it helped her focus longer; lots of tactile acivity, such as writing in shaving cream or building with blocks while listening; and as for tantrums, I sat her in a chair and told her she could rejoin the rest of us when she behaved properly. If she behaved especially well, I would reward her with some time on an educational computer game, which she loved.
I'm not an expert, but these measures worked. She was sounding out short CVC words before she left for Kindergarten and could count to 100.
I also have a daughter, now 12, who was a handful when she was younger. She was an active learner, though I never had her evaluated for ADHD. She could not sit still for a story, but would instead hang upside-down off the sofa or twirl around the living room-but lo and behold, ask her to tell me about the story and she sure could, in great detail! If I made her sit still her mind would wander and she could not tell me a thing. I noticed she was very good with math, numbers, puzzles, patterns, but she could not make heads or tails of reading. I started trying to teach her to read at age 5, but no dice. Kept trying to use phonics with no success for 2 years. Finally, when she turned 7, I stopped all phonics and just kept reading to her. I read to her on all subjects as well as fiction. I had her copy words and sentences I had written for her and would read it back to her. I had her dictate to me stories, answers to school questions, etc, and I would write it down for her and have her copy. Then she began copying passages out of her favorite books on her own. Mostly these were science, nature books. When she turned 8 I decided to give phonics a go again. This time she took to it instantly and was reading independently in 6 months! Now, at age 12, she reads above grade level, and still loves science and math As I said, I'm not an expert, just trying to share what worked for me and hopefully something I shared will be useful to you!

My dd has similar traits, but not as extreme as what you described. I am also trying to find ways to help with school work. I agree that too many are put on medication that shouldn't be. So, hold your ground in that area. I have a friend who also had some problems with a dd. She began cutting certain dyes and ingredients from her dd's diet and I believe that helped. That is something you just need to experiment with. Maybe that would help some.

My sister's oldest son, who is now 30, was diagnosed with ADD when he was in elementary school. He attended a Christian school. He was not put on medication. My sister took him to a Christian psychologist and they found ways to work with him in school. His first teacher did not know how to deal with him and just labeled him as a trouble maker and would punish him. He was feeling very low and was calling himself stupid and would even say he felt like killing himself. This was probably kindergarten. But, after seeing the psychologist and finding ways for him to function at school AND getting a teacher who understood his needs, he did very well. He attended college, worked in Christian camps, is married now and has a good job. I don't know if she would remember what methods were used, but I will ask.

I know my dd is very bright, but some days I can tell she just isn't with me. Like this morning. Everything was distracting her. Sometimes, when she is reading, she can read a word perfectly. Two lines later, the same word comes up and she will act like she doesn't know it. I may try what the pp said and let her do some physical activities before we do work. I also agree with the pp about tantrums. DD does not throw tantrums so much. She usually whines and acts like she is tired. She just wants to be doing other things. Since we started school two weeks ago, twice I have set her on a chair with nothing in her hands to do and said that she can sit there until she is ready to work. It usually is not long until she is ready. She is also very emotional and gets frustrated easily if she makes a mistake. Then she wants to give up. She's very impulsive and with constant reminders and training, she is learning to think about what could be the results of certain actions. She has hit her head once or twice when she became frustrated. We tell her that it is not a good thing to do. It can hurt her brain. She understands that and hopefully will remember it when she reacts to frustration.

Praying you find ways to help your ds.

We're about to go to gymnastics so I don't have long, but just wanted to say that your ds sounds SO MUCH like my dd. She has a very high IQ when we tested her but she also was diagnosed with ADHD combined type (which means both the attention and the hyperactivity). I agree with the idea that after a bit it's like they just short-circuit. It's the most interesting thing to watch! But my dd definitely moves quickly everywhere, everything she does is just very big (running, jumping, voice, emotions, everything is just big), she doesn't hold attention for long on many things, but then she does also hyper focus, meaning that she'll be so absorbed in something at times that the house could fall down and she wouldn't notice, but most times if there's ANYTHING ANYWHERE nearby (dust in the air, a bird outside, etc) she's paying attention to that's not school. When she's in the right frame of mind we can get school done in 1 1/2 hour, but some days it takes us THE ENTIRE DAY.

Here are some things that have helped. We now do the Feinfold diet, which not only eliminates artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and scents in everything in the house (even cleaning and bath products) but also eliminates natural salicylates at the beginning stage (such as apples and grapes) in order to discover if those effect the child. You do add those back in and watch for changes. We also severely limit screen time-tv and computers both. She loves both and will sit still during that time, but the more we've watched things in a day, the harder our day is. So we try to limit these to just when absolutely necessary for school. (We've been watching Liberty's Kids along with Beyond and it was great, but we limited it to one 20 min episode every other day and it was still a lot). Other things that have helped is lots of physical activity before school time, sitting on a large ball for school instead of a chair, sitting on a trampoline for school (both give the child feedback and make it easier to concentrate), giving something to hold/mess with like silly putty during school time. We did OT for a while and it was SO HELPFUL Unfortunately she graduated. She certainly could stand to do it again. Gymnastics has helped a lot. I just wish we could go more than once a week. Oh-caffine helps her a lot! It works to stimulate the brain and it actually is the opposite effect of what it is on most of us. So we give her tea fairly often.

I have found that HOD is great for her. Since there are varied activities it is just about perfect for active children. Please feel free to PM me if you have any other questions or want some ides of books or the diagnosis process or anything.

This may not help at ALL, but I had trouble like that with my dd last year (1st). I was at my wit's end and just started looking for info. I came upon an article in HSLDA about Right-Brain learners. At first, I wasn't sure that it would really be something that would affect her behavior/schoolwork, I just thought that Right-Brain thinkers were art-sy and visual. They are, but that's not all. They learn in a completely different way. I've learned so much from articles and ordered a book, "Right-Brain Thinking in a Left-Brain World". These children are often mistakenly diagnosed with AD(H)D, but also display characteristics of gifted children. I typed in different curricula for RB thinkers and got tons of ideas.

Like I said, I have no idea if this will help at all, but I'm so excited that this may just be the answer that we were looking for! Good luck in finding something that works for your child.
Kelley

Khara, and any other reading this or posting here...if this below helps you in any way and you'd like to talk to someone, pm me and I'll give you my phone number.

My 8 yo dd has put us on a journey the past two years.

She had lots of emotional/behavioral issues from birth. The yelling/talking loud all the time, would get upset at the drop of a hat, couldn't focus long, took long to learn things, etc....

We found out she was gluten/casien intolerant. She isn't autistic, but these foods bother her the same as with an autistic child.

Three weeks on the diet, she was normal. I was floored. The screaming and yelling and emotional issues the past 6 years of her life stopped. Her focus greatly improved. If there was a gluten slip, she was worse. She has a "leaky gut."

We found out even more. After a year on the gfcf diet, at this point we were seeing a DAN Ped just because a normal Ped could not help with the food issues and supplements...after a year the DAN Ped felt that she should be fine to try gluten/casien foods again. I refused until we did a gut test. It came back that there was still a leaky gut. The diet didn't heal anything. It did help the behaviors, but not the insides like we thought it would.

When we did more testing, we found a yeast (candida) overgrowth in her gut. We started treating that with a medicine/supplements and after 7 months we are getting back normal gut results. She si still on a strict gfcf diet. We may do dairy again with her, but I have no intention of ever putting her back on gluten as gluten in itself is not a good thing and can cause the very damage to her gut that the yeast was doing.

Check out this site. If you think it in anyway describes your child, please, let's talk on the phone and I may be of more help.
http://www.gaps.me

When you say your child can't help their behavior, if it is food/bacteria induced, then they certainly cannot help how they behave.

The changes in my daughter were amazing. She is behind in some areas due to the learning battle we faced prior to figuring out what was going on with her.

I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who responded. For the first time I feel like we're getting somewhere in figuring out what's going on with our little guy. He's got such a sweet, gentle heart. I just want so badly for him to feel better all around.

God bless you all for your responses!
Khara

P.S. Because of these issues, I've decided to tackle LHFHG at 1/2 time for now...at least until we get some answers. I just feel like pushing school is taxing our relationship right now and I just want the opportunity to love on my boy and not stress too much over school.

Khara - you already received such sage advice here, and I'm so glad you've been encouraged! I would say that in addition to working on his diet and moving to half-speed, I'd give him an active playtime first thing in the morning. I'd also set the timer for each box and endeavor to clip along and complete it by the time it rings. Here are the suggested times for LHFHG:

LHFHG time it takes:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4244&p=31219#p31219

For reading, I'd reward him somehow for working through a word and getting it right the first time (a sticker chart, one sticker for each word gotten right, and a reward such as for every word gotten right, 1 minute of "x" - like computer time, throwing the baseball with dad, etc.). I'd set the timer for say 15 minutes and when it rings be done.

I'd firmly tell him he is very bright and that God made his brain to work just right. I would quickly squelch any comments he makes that are in opposition to this fact. I'd also grab his hands and pray with him in a loving way if he hits his forehead (a tough task I know when he's doing that), and let him know there are better ways to deal with frustration - prayer for one, running in place or doing jumping jacks for a bit can be another, etc. But hitting his head when he's frustrated isn't an o.k. way to deal with frustration, as our body is a temple to cherish and take good care of.

If you can try to find things to compliment him on often, I'd try to standardly do that too - and I'd also make sure your ds hears you talking about him to his siblings and your dh as if he's bright, capable, and doing some worthy good things in school. These few changes did wonders for my middle ds when I tried them last year, as I found I'd been in the habit of not doing this, but rather of sharing my frustrations about him with my dh/other dc. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Taking it slow and steady is a wonderful way to go. If either of you get overwhelmed, it's okay to stop and take a break, and then come back to it later or even the next day. I think lots of times us mommies are too hard on ourselves and feel we can't do this.

I so agree with Julie on the words of encouragement and building up. We tell our dd that God made her special, all the time. We tell the other girls that too.

Interestingly enough, it's our dd with the health/food issues that reaches out to others more. She always wants to share, wants to make other children/adults feel included. She understands more of being in that situation, and it shows.

Oh-I forgot to mention something we just discovered works with our dd with ADHD. I'm not sure if this applies to you, I didn't go back and read it again. But just in case it helps I thought I'd share. She reads well but gets distracted really easily and one sentence can sometimes take for.ev.er. And if it looks long to here she'll just shut down. So we just happened to get given one of those little ruler looking things that sometimes schools use. It's a see through yellow on top and solid underneath and she uses it to help her when she's reading. All of a sudden she's liking to read long books! Who knew that's all she'd need? This way she only sees the line she's reading. What's above isn't highlighted in the yellow and what's below can't overwhelm her because it's not visible!

Thanks guys! Julie, I LOVE the sticker chart idea. I just made him a chart with 30 spots and when he fills it out I will give him 30 minutes of screen time. His favorite thing is video games, and if I'm not careful he could play for too long. This way he will be earning it and the time will be more limited. Plus it gives me a chance to use my new toy....my laminator. Thanks!

Mommamo wrote:Oh-I forgot to mention something we just discovered works with our dd with ADHD. I'm not sure if this applies to you, I didn't go back and read it again. But just in case it helps I thought I'd share. She reads well but gets distracted really easily and one sentence can sometimes take for.ev.er. And if it looks long to here she'll just shut down. So we just happened to get given one of those little ruler looking things that sometimes schools use. It's a see through yellow on top and solid underneath and she uses it to help her when she's reading. All of a sudden she's liking to read long books! Who knew that's all she'd need? This way she only sees the line she's reading. What's above isn't highlighted in the yellow and what's below can't overwhelm her because it's not visible!

Can you tell me where you found this? I just checked our local teacher's store, and they don't carry them. But it sounds like it could be something we could use. Right now I'm using an index card.

I just found it in something given me by my in-laws who work in a school. But my sis (4th grade teacher) said you should be able to get them at a teacher supply store. I found some that were called Reading Trackers, but they're only sold in classroom size boxes. They're different then what we had, but you might do a search and see what you can find.