"I am hoping this will be helpful to create an awareness of the dangers of relying on medication to solve behavioral problems. " Before even reading your position statement, my immediate reaction was that you are going into this with at least two hidden biases: - First, that the adults are relying on pills to "solve the problems" rather than mitigate the severity of the issues that cause the symptoms, or to assist the child in overcoming the problems, and - Second, that the problems are "behavioral" in nature and not medical. But after reading your stance, it seems like your position is the familiar "overdiagnosing, overmedicating, underparenting" argument. I do hope you'll dig much deeper than this. As the parent of two boys with labels, I will admit that there is some truth to your stance. But that pendulum also swings the other way, with the "overdiagnosing" argument preventing children from receiving the legitimate medical treatment that can help them succeed. My older son was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, and is also gifted intellectually and artistically. Prior to his diagnoses, he struggled to learn to read and his self-esteem plummeted in response to his unexpected difficulties. I had always been an active and involved parent and had a close relationship with my son, and while he WAS very active, I did not experience ANY discipline problems at home. So when the educational psychologist I took him to (suspecting dyslexia) suggested ADHD in addition to dyslexia, I was surprised and reluctant to believe it. But teacher interviews overwhelmingly supported that diagnosis, and after considring the issue carefully, I agreed to a trial of stimulant medication. It made a significant, immediate and positive difference in his schoolwork. He was finally able to concentrate enough to benefit from his reading instruction, and caught up to 'grade level' relatively quickly. He was also able to curb his impulsiveness, which smoothed over some of his previous social and classroom difficulties. He was happier and doing well again. Then his stepmother got involved, citing the "overdiagnosed, overmedicated" argument, and his father, citing the "He's just like I was!" (therefore?) argument threatened to sue the doctor if he continued to prescribe stimulants, so I agreed to take him off the meds. DS's schoolwork began to slip and problem behaviors re-emerged, though with even more active parenting, those issues were held in reasonable check. He is still disorganized, forgetful, impulsive and very distractable, problems that were much less severe when he was medicated. Does he absolutely for-certain have ADHD? I guess I can't say for sure. Without a scientifically validated medical test, no one can say for 100% sure. But what I can absolutely say is that being on stimulant medication helped him significantly, and the "overdiagnosed / overmedicated" argument harmed him. My younger son is diagnosed with PDD-NOS, a mild form of autism, another of the "wildly overdiagnosed" conditions. There is absolutely no question in the minds of anyone who knows him that there is something going on, some disorder of some sort. What exactly that diagnosis should be is still up for discussion, among experts and parents alike, and PDD/NOS is simply the best (if imperfect) fit. But he too has been harmed by the "overdiagnosed / overmedicated" mindset. Even among treating professionals, there is a certain amount of "overanxious parent" skepticism. With some physicians you can see the skepticism when they first walk in the room, and watch it melt when they determine that there actually IS a basis-in-fact to the parent's concerns. "With this campaign, I hope to bring to light the exorbitant amount of children being diagnosed and medically treated for "disorders" like ADHD." Believe me -- this 'issue' is hardly in the dark. It is out there and being trumpeted far and wide; it needs no advocate. But please know also that this viewpoint harms some children as well as helping some of them. " It will show that many of these "disorders" can be corrected simply by a parent paying more attention, or a teacher altering the way a subject is taught. " Certainly, active, involved parenting and creative teaching strategies geared toward the needs of each individual child are good, effective tactics. But to suggest that medical biological disorders can be "fixed" by simple good parenting / good teaching are simplistic in the extreme, and harmful to the children who actually do have these problems. Now there IS good science being done that establishes how intensive behavioral patterning and effective one-on-one and small group teaching can actually change the structure of the brain, re-wiring neural pathways. (Look into dyslexia remediation strategies and Applied Behavior Analysis in treating autism.) To investigate how intensive training and instruction can actually "cure" medical disorders that originate in the brain by realigning neural pathways -- a similar but more scientific and greatly intensified approach to your 'active parenting/individualized teaching' argument -- there's some thesis material.

My son used to complain that he just couldn't read and that it would take him hours to finish a homework assignment that his friends read in 30 minutes. Luckily he is exceptionally bright and graduated high school and college with good grades. After taking the SAT he came home and said he probably failed because he kept finding himself looking out the window rather than answering the questions. Even he college he'd often call saying that he was up all night trying to finish his research so that he could write his paper. Then he went to law school - you can imagine the amount of reading required there and quickly began to fall behind. Well he was desperate and finally went to his adviser who sent him to the school psychologist for testing. They also had us fill out a 15 page questionnaire describing my son's behavior. They wanted to know everything about him - behavior in class, home, ability to make and keep friends, leisure activities, illness, health, physical abilities.... Two of the tests they gave were significantly alarming- one test had him sit and watch a computer screen. He was instructed to click the mouse every time he saw a specific number on the screen. He started out great but within minutes his recognition dropped. They did a similar test with his hearing recognition. He wore headphones and was instructed to press a button when he heard whatever the specific word was. Again he started well but quickly began missing the key word. These were just 2 samples of the multiple tests he was given. The outcome was that the psychologist looked at him and asked how he even managed to graduate from high school. My son had a significant focusing problem - indicative of ADD. However since he was bright and had a great memory he coped. My husband is a physician and I taught but we didn't recognize his ADD. His teachers didn't either. Perhaps if he had been disruptive or a discipline problem this might have been suggested as an issue. Since taking the 2 prescriptions that are commonly given for ADD he has been able to keep up with his reading and graduated from law school last year and is doing great at his job. I do believe that ADD and ADHD is often over diagnosed and too often children are unnecessarily medicated. But for those who suffer through this they deserve our compassion not our critiques.

Welcome debunny! You've already gotten some very good advice on breakfast in particular so I was going to address the situation in general. It seems to be a recurring theme here where Dad has/gets custody, but SM is the one who spends the most time with the kids, trying to maintain consistency and keep to the agreed schedule and rules, only to have her DH pop in and start making "exceptions" and un-do all of the progress SM has made. As for SS's trying to get a rise out of you, I wonder about that. My SS is only eight and has lately started arguing with me about everything, and I mean everything - if I mention a news story I read he'll try to argue with some part of it! But, he mainly does this with me, not with DH - and he only does this after weekends at BM's. I'm wondering if he's testing me. He's already said if he pushes at BM she either gives in or screams at him and spanks him. I don't know if SS is trying to see if he can make me reach my breaking point, or if he's checking to make sure that I don't push him away too. I can't imagine how a 14 year old must feel when their mother announces that she doesn't want to deal with him anymore and wants him gone. I'd have to think that he has some issues right now with maternal figures - and unfortunately it is now you who is right in that spotlight. To make matters worse, it sounds like your DH just wants to stick his head in the sand and dump most of this onto your shoulders - so of course now you look like the "bad guy" on top of being a woman - and thus likely to kick him out with almost no notice yourself. I don't have a magical solution (yet!) because we're struggling through some of our own things right now. Some of the things that have helped us are to have very clear, very well-defined, agreed upon expectations, with set penalties for violation thereof. I try to make sure that the "rules" do not involve any judgment calls - because that's when DH is most likely to want to make an excuse or an exception. So, instead of saying, for example, "room must be tidied" it would be "floor must have nothing on it but furniture, all clothes must be either in dresser if clean or hamper if dirty, bed must be made, all toys must be in toy box". SS knows exactly what to expect, and I have that clear guideline as well, so there's less of DH wandering in from work to find a room two-thirds of the way tidied and saying "Oh, I think it's pretty good - what's the problem?". Meanwhile I'm ready to pull my hair out because I've spent the past four hours with SS coming to me every five minutes saying "It's done!", when I check, the only thing he'll have done is maybe make the bed - and SS will put away one more toy and then find me again - "It's done!" Over, and over, and over. Maybe you should all sit down and come to an agreement - here is a list of foods SS can eat for breakfast. He can eat as much of them as he likes. He is not to have breakfast at school. (You may have to negotiate in "exceptions clause" because guaranteed otherwise DH will say "Oh, it was only one time! Let him go!"). Here is what will happen if SS eats breakfast at school - the cost comes from his allowance, he is required to do household chores, whatever. Done, post them, proceed. Now, it's not incumbent upon you to convince SS he needs more milk, apples are good for him, he didn't eat "enough" breakfast, or anything else. Did he eat food from "the list" or not? Did he eat breakfast at school? Yes or no, true or false? See what I mean? It's no longer your judgment that's in question - it's a clear infraction of rules and boundaries agreed upon by all of you. And the complaining about meals needs to be stopped now. I'm usually the one who cooks dinner as well, and I told DH in no uncertain terms that I was going to stop cooking entirely if I had to ever hear "Ewwwww! Yuck!" at the dinner table - it's just very bad manners. You don't have to like my cooking, you certainly don't have to praise it - but since I went to the effort to put a nice homecooked dinner on the table you'd better not disparage it while I 'm sitting right there!

My ss has some (not all but some) of these tendencies.. Some of them have changed or evolved over the years but are still there in some form He often doesn't know where a sound is coming from (I had put this to that he had ear infections as a kid and has tubes, but then I found out tubes shouldn't do that) *** Not one that he has has problems with He often doesn't realize someone is speaking - he says he just hears a sound, but doesn't realize it's talking. I had thought he was just hyper-focused on something else, but he's getting WAY better about hyper-focus and it's still happening. ***ditto but I am guessing not as bad... I will be talking to SS and unless I have grabbed his attention and make sure he makes eye contact with me ... it's like it was all just a buzzing in the backround. He forgets the meaning of everyday words frequently. Poor little guy cried the other day because he was so frustrated that he couldn't remember the word "armpit" :( ***had some difficulty with this when he was younger... sometimes still has this issue. It's like a little roadblock just popped into his head. I know he had used the word before and I know he knows what it means but it just isnt there and he will get himself frustrated. I usually just use it in several sentences and he'll catch on. His speech therapy is going very well, but our big struggle is that he doesn't hear the difference between phonemes. *** not a big problem with him right now... mostly I am sick of the 'ghetto talk' (or at least that is what I call it) He babbles a lot, much like how a baby or toddler babbles. Random, meaningless phonemes strung together... Last week, just out of curiousity, I popped my head into his room and asked "Hey, whatcha talking about, kiddo?" and his reply was "Huh? I wasn't making any noise." *** he did used to do this and it would confuse me because I would have no clue what he is talking about. Usually telling him to calm it down and sometimes take a break would solve it. It was like he was so excited about what was going on or what he was doing he just didnt take the time to form full words. Now he (quite frequently) will be moving his mouth. No sound will come out but he is definately 'talking'. I asked him the other day if he realized that he was doing that and he said 'doing what?' I have no clue how to fix that... right now I am taking a no harm no foul approach to this one. We have so many other things to work on. He can repeat your words back verbatim, but has no clue what they mean when questioned on it. For example "Put on your shoes, A__" and he looks right at you while you say it, but then he walks away... When we ask "What did I just tell you?" he can say "Put on your shoes, A__"... but when we ask what he should do with that instruction he is puzzled and has to think about it before he cheerfully exclaims "I should put on my shoes!!" and promptly does it. So I don't think it's just attitude or not listening. ***Big Big problem with SS right now. I ask what did I say... he repeats it... I ask what does that mean or what should you do... he is clueless. I mostly just make a point of asking more questions... like so what should you do... what do you think would be the next step... that way I can be sure he understood what I said in the first place. I keep telling him listening is active that means he needs to think about what is being said. Hearing is inactive ... thats just hearing words bee bop around in your head. I want you to listen to what I am saying... so I want you to think about it and repeat it in your own words (big deal) usually if he can word it in his own words he has got it. If not we know to take a step back and try again. He often doesn't know if the TV is loud or quiet. He'll be STRAINING to hear it, or covering his ears because it's blaring, but when asked "Why not turn it up/down?" he says he doesn't notice it was quiet/loud. I would chalk it up to lazy or just being a kid, but he will get up to change the lighting or get a blanket and so on. It seems like he has a physical reaction to the volume, but he doesn't have any clue how to affect change to it. Does that even makes sense? ***this could be a bigger problem ... but it could be nothing .. I have had similar situation with all of my kids not just ss with adhd... it's like it just doesnt click that oh yeah that would fix the problem. I guess it would really depend on how often it happens. Sometimes when listening to a simple instruction, he cannot carry out the task - like folding a towel "Now bring the bottom up to the top" - and he says "I was listening, but I didn't get it" He genuinely appears to be listening - he is watching, is being quiet, has attentive body language, and so on, but he just doesn't hear it. ***another big one with SS... sometimes it is like I am speaking a foreign language to him and sometimes I do find myself getting frustrated with thinking "How in the hell do I say put the lid on the tupperware container a different way..." I dont really know what the key is here ... I do know I just keep trying to think of different ways to phrase things... and often time I physically put the lid of the container while I am saying it and then he says "Oh! I thought..." and then I take it off and say here you go. I feel like it defeated the purpose of asking him do it for me in the first place but I would rather get him to understand directions than get upset over having to put the 'lid on the container' myself I honestly dont know anything about auditory processing disorder so I dont know the answer there. But, my ss with adhd has some of these problems/concerns. It is mostly just a day to day thing for us. We know what it takes to get certain things across... ie eye contact or he isnt listening and we make sure other know this. Since he is getting older I am more and more pointing out things like SS, you know you will forget these things if you dont write them down, so you need to write them down... and ss you know you are not listening if you arent making eye contact so make eye contact... take the initiative. My theory is that we are not always going to be able to tell teachers and coaches what his deal is. He needs to realize it and take control of it in order to benefit his life in the long run.