My son Andrew. He's my second born and my only son. He's also the first child my husband and I had together. 3rd in birth order of our slew of children.
Andrew has been active since the day he was born. Ok... well maybe not since the day he was born, but from the as long as I can remember. Or since he started walking... ahhh.... crawling.... yep since as long as I can remember.
Dealing with him, as active has he is, is just a way of life. You learn to deal with it. You learn which days you can take him to a store and which days you can't. You learn to pick you battles and to adjust to the way he is.
Looking in from the outside, its easy for someone to say "he needs discipline" or "I wouldn't let him do that" its always easy for people to judge when its not them or when they're not there 24/7.
I've always thought of him as ADD. He's never been tested though. I can't see putting him through that just for them to say, "yep, you were right, its ADD". Makes not sense.
For us, medication is out of the question. I can't see giving drugs to a little boy just to chill him out or to make it easier to deal with him.
This past September Andrew, who's 8 1/2 started 3rd grade. Within the first month of school, I had several calls from his teacher and several from the dean (the guy who does the discipline at this school). Things weren't looking good. He was in trouble all the time. He was being disruptive and putting his hands on his peers... something he had never done before.
Since he's been in school, he's showed to be and excellent student. Even know, he's exceptional in math and a good reader...if he had been getting grades for the past 3 years, I wouldn't doubt that they would all be A's and B's....academicly.
So here we are, Andrews out of control. He's yelling at me. He's getting mad at himself, he's getting in major trouble at school. Something has to give. Medication is out. We have to do something. Things are NOT working like they are. We need to make changes and soon!
Changes we did make! I'll write about changes soon. Right now I need a break and my wonderful son need to get his little butt to bed. :)
-Kapechick
