Joshie was 8...

When Joshua was 8 we decided that we needed to deal with his behavioral issues both in school and at home. We had him evaluated and they diagnosed him with ADHD. Honestly it was one of the hardest decisions we had to make but we chose to try medication with him to help some of his behaviors and attention issues. One of the things that happened prior to this decision was him trying to start a fire in the basement when he was playing "camping" with the girls. One of the big things with him was that he had exciting ideas but no concept of the consequences. Honestly that incident scared us almost more then some of the other things he had done in the past. His school work also was suffering and even though we knew he was smart he just couldn't seem to get anything done in class or at home. His attention span just wouldn't hold for long enough. Prior to deciding medication we tried everything as we had assumed it was ADHD long before the diagnosis we had done all the research and talked to many people we changed his diet along with all of ours. Gave him more structure, although he fought that. Many other things we tried and none of them worked for him. The other kids were getting frustrated as they never knew what he would do and sometimes they would be the victims of his temper tantrums as well. I trusted my family dr who talked with the specialist and we started him on meds. Our dr saw him constantly to make sure he didn't have any side effects and fortunatly he didn't.

The change was dramatic and he was finally doing well in school and able to complete things and not get in trouble. I didn't feel like I was having to get on him constantly and could actually do things with him and have normal conversations. He was still Joshua. I wouldn' t have kept him on it if it had changed him. He still had the energy but he had more of a sense of consequences. He thought more before doing things that could hurt him or anyone else. It wasn't always perfect but suddenly the home seemed more livable. Like I said it was a hard decision for us. For years we were convinced we would never use meds for him but like I said he was suffering both in school and in relationships with other people. There were times we felt like we couldn' t take him anywhere because we didn't know what he would do.

That year we were able to afford to take a vacation as well and it was like night and day compared to some of the others we had taken with him. He is still as creative as ever still has tons of energy and even though its not a popular decision we are okay with it know that we have done it. He himself will tell us he can tell the diference and feels he can actually get things done.