FINALLY!!!

[Anonymous]

I suppose I should start at the beginning.

When my son was in kindy, we contemplated having his hearing tested. He just didn’t seem to hear us, or pay attention. Basic testing showed all was normal, so we didn’t pursue the full hearing test. He was otherwise a bright kid and we were always being complemented on what great, well-adjusted children we had.

In his early primary years, his reports often read “could do much better if he’d only apply himself, or pay better attention. But was doing well, so nobody really was worried about this. A grade one teacher used to tell us at the end of each day whether our son was “there” today or mentally absent. Started to worry about the inconsistencies about his known ability and his written output. Pushed for testing and school arranged a test, but it was basically an intelligence test. Showed he was above average, and suggested measures be put in place to help his organisation and to motivate him. Hmmmm. No real follow up. Moved schools.

Did well the following year with more friends, and a fantastic teacher who went above and beyond duty to meet the learning needs of each child. He thrived and learned to enjoy school. More responsibility the following year resulted in intermittent homework efforts, notices going missing, and him giving up on activities that required sustained effort. Final year of primary school saw the onslaught of puberty and his first girlfriend. Schoolwork suffered big time (but the girlfriend got dux of class!!). Big motivation issues and missed out on fun activities as consequences of poor schoolwork. But nothing changed.

High school this year. Multiple teachers, different classrooms, more textbooks and exercise books to organise. Big problem! Lost bus tickets, lost school shoes, lost iPod. Chatty in class. Incomplete homework. Distracted in class. Teachers complaining.

All of this on top of him being a child at home who doesn’t complete chores, drops extracurricular activities as each starts to require more effort, then picks another one that he obsesses about until it, too, becomes too hard. Losing his temper more when we nag him to help (gotta love that testosterone!). Socially he can quickly get “over the top”, being crude, or silly and giggly, and unable to stop even when warned seriously.

Finally, I talked to my daughter’s pshychologist, who suggested ADHD testing. It was today. Arrived there and I went in first. Gave a history, answered some questions. She asked things like “would he benefit from consequences to his behaviours”, and “do you pick up after him/cover for him when he forgets something” and all sorts of other things that really made me feel like a bad parent. I was then convinced that she believed that it was all to do with our parenting, especially when she gave me some forms for his teachers to fill in so she could get info from other sources. Then it was my son’s turn. I sat and stressed for an hour and a half!!

When they came out, she told me that he definitely showed signs of ADD. I asked if she still wanted the teacher feedback and was told that the test was so obviously conclusive that she didn’t need the teacher feedback forms at all. I felt so vindicated at long last. I had always felt something was not quite right, and the whole time I was waiting, I was thinking that if it wasn’t ADD then I was a bad parent who couldn’t discipline my kids effectively. I told the psychologist this, and she replied that my son was a wonderful boy who was a delight to test and that I was certainly doing plenty right. I could have cried!!

Now we go back in a couple of days to find out more about what our options are and how we can help my son function. Now I have to deal with the fact that my son is me through and through, so I most probably have ADD myself. He told me some of the areas of the test he failed at (repeating a sequence of numbers backward, remembering a sequence of numbers that were recited at a slow pace, putting a sequence of numbers and letters into numerical and alphabetical order) and I noticed that I struggled with the same things. Something to bring up at the follow-up appointment.

I just can’t express the relief I felt that my son does indeed have a medical reason for his behaviours and is not just lazy.

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