Raising a child with ADHD: My ongoing mistake

This will be something I post about frequently.

Em was always a great baby, and an awesome toddler. I never had to worry about her getting into trouble, the kid ALWAYS had to have eyes on me. When she turned four, I learned quickly that she was possibly the most disorganized child I had ever met. Throughout the years, she got more disorganized. Her self esteem was awful. She would say things like "I am stupid.. I am ugly..." etc. etc. It broke my heart, but I didn't know what to do.

She has always been... flighty. She cannot focus on things to save her life unless she really really really is interested in them. Ask her to clean her room? Forget it. That will take her days and days and days until you finally do it yourself. The more you get on her case, the more she shuts down. The more you punish her, the worse she is. Vicious cycle, and I was starting to feel like a horrible parent.

When fourth grade hit, Em started to have troubles with her school work. An A-B student went to a B-C student. I had to hire a tutor to get her through the school year. I was constantly getting papers to sign that she forgot to do. It was frustrating, but again, I figured it was my parenting. I got more and more frustrated with her inability to complete her assignments, her inability to listen to me, and oh my the drama!! My baby girl is a drama queen to the max, and it was just simply frustrating.

Then we hit fifth grade and what was already down hill went to a deep dark pit. Her self-esteem, which was already horrible, got worse. Her inability to focus got worse. Her "forgetting" to do assignments got worse. Notes came home from school, grades went to D's and F's, and I was left wondering what the heck was going on. I hired a tutor again, hoping that would get her back on track. Then, as I was on the phone with my husband in Afghanistan at 9:00PM one evening, my call waiting rang. It was her school. I quickly answered, and spoke at length with the tutor. The tutor felt Em might need to be evaluated for ADHD. This is not a school that wanted to pump my kid full of medicine. She simply wanted to see if that was a possibility, and if it was, get a diagnosis so they could better help her.

So, I made an appointment with the pediatrician. He gave me a form for myself to fill out, and a form for her teacher to fill out. We did not compare notes, I did not even look at her teachers portion. When we went in, the pediatrician said it was interesting that the teacher and I answered the form almost identically. He said questions 1-10 were about inattentive type ADHD. If the child "scores" 6 or more, they have inattentive type ADHD. Em scored 10 out of 10 on both my sheet and the teachers. He offered a non-stimulant medication to try, and gave me the form for the school...

And then came the concessions. Those saved my sanity, Em's sanity, the teachers sanity. Basically, because of the diagnosis the school would cut her work in half. Instead of having to do 50 questions, she could do 25. Here is what I have learned about my inattentive type ADHD daughter:

-When she looks at a paper with 50 questions her little brain gets overwhelmed and she thinks she just cannot do it. Limiting that work still allows her the practice, but for some reason when she knows she only has to do 25 it is much less overwhelming.
-Building on that, it helps her to have things broken down. Instead of having her clean her whole room at one time, it is easier for her to focus on one small task. So one day may be get all your laundry to the laundry room, and the next may be clean up your stuffed animals.
-Distractions have to be kept at a minimum. Even though we also have a toddler in the house, she has to be in a quiet room. You do still have to frequently check on her and keep her on task. Seriously, an eraser will distract her.
-Praise works better than discipline for her. If you tell her what an amazing job she is doing, how smart she is, it builds her confidence and she can do more. If she senses you are frustrated, she is going to shut down and forget how to spell her name.
-Check everything, twice. She will forget to turn in money for the field trip. She will forget she has a math paper. She will forget to brush her teeth, her hair, take a shower, etc. etc. You cannot list all the things she has to do because then she will be overwhelmed, and again, forget how to spell her own name.
-Be patient. Patience for me is a work in progress, because the child drives me absolutely batty sometimes.
-Tell her every single day that she is special, smart, caring, loving, a good friend, a good daughter, a good human. Make sure she knows how good of a job she is doing. Her brain simply does not work the way ours does.

This is all a work in progress, so I am sure you will see many more blogs on this.

My mistakes?

-No realizing sooner that there was an issue. I was not a bad parent, she was not a bad kid. Simply put, her brain does not work the way mine does. Appreciate these differences, be patient, remember raising this child will be different then any other kind of child.

-Not building her confidence sooner. Instead of appreciating and holding on to the little things, I pushed on the big things, and in the process I helped destroy her confidence.

-Being the opposite of patient with her. I yelled, I screamed, I had to leave the room. Sometimes I still feel like doing these things, but they do not help her and they do not help me.

-Shell