I never mentioned this before but one of my children has Attention Deficit Disorder and it drives me crazy! There isn’t a day that goes by that this ADD does not frustrate me in some huge fashion. I once read “hate the ADD, not the person” and I try to remind myself of this quote all the time, but I suck at listening to this wisdom. I am embarrassed to admit it, but as much as I can handle all of Tiara’s craziness, I can’t handle dealing with a child who loses everything, is always running late, can’t remember to bring home the correct books to study with and constantly struggles to do her homework each night. I find myself screaming at her for one reason or another every afternoon and then we both feel really bad. It sucks!
It wasn’t until second grade that I noticed she was having some problems in school. Her teacher mentioned she would be sitting at her desk perfectly quite and appeared to be paying attention and yet nothing on her paper was done. Third grade came around and she had a wonderful teacher who was super organized and really kept her on task. Plus, during the second half of her third grade I wasn’t around, I was living with Tiara in the hospital, so I really had no idea how she was doing in school. Her grades were fine, so I thought she was doing fine.
Once she hit 4th grade, everything started to fall apart. I started feeling like her forgetfulness and difficulty completing tasks was more than just laziness, which was my original suspicion. One of my friends had been dealing with ADD for years and I told her what was going on and she thought I should have my kiddo assessed. So I did and the doctor told me what I already knew. She had ADD, “the inattentive type”. He gave me a letter to provide to the school and bunch of literature to read and some helpful suggestions to make her more successful at home and school. I followed the recommendations and in addition I started giving her “Focus factor” vitamins in the morning which seemed to help. I wanted to avoid putting her medication if at all possible. She made it through 4th grade and did fairly well and then the hormones hit!
I have learned with girls that hormones can make absolutely every problem tenfold and that is our current situation. Even though she is surviving 5th grade so far, it is a big struggle and life shouldn’t be that hard for her or me. As a result tomorrow we are going to a new doctor that specializes is ADD and ADHD and the plan is to start trying some medications. I am praying they work because we both really need something to help her so she feels better about herself and I don’t want to tear my hair out every time she walks in the door.
Wish us luck. It would be so nice to have this problem be less of a problem.
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend…
xoxo tiffani
