A reader illustrates how impactful our reader threads can be:
I have been extremely judgmental of parents who have put their children on ADHD medications in the past. I still believe there is a broad swath of parents who use medication as an easy path around engaged parenting.
However, life has a way of mocking hubris and making you eat your words. My 12-year-old son started
6th grade this year, and he has been struggling with the new responsibilities that middle school entail. Rather than a group of 20 to 25 kids herding from one class to another as a group, which was what he was used to from elementary school, in middle school each student is assigned an independent locker and schedule and must find his or her own way to class and keep track of homework. When I would get home from work every day, he would have done none of his homework, which was a heavier load than most of his classmates, since he didn’t get anything done during the school day, either. Thus would start a 4-5 hour nightly battle of wills to get his homework done. That is no exaggeration: 4 to 5 hours every single weeknight. It was so bad that I dreaded coming home, and he would burst into tears when he saw me drive up the driveway. He even mentioned several times that he wanted to kill himself. That’s when he started seeing a psychologist.
I started reading the Dish’s discussion on “Hyperactive Prescribing” with a sense of smugness, since I was fighting the good fight and wasn’t letting the fact that my son was struggling push me into being a bad mother reliant on better living through chemistry. But then it struck me that the reader who talked about being diagnosed at 32 years old could be my son in 20 years. His struggles sounded so much like what I observed in my son, and it literally gave me goosebumps. Another excerpt you posted from the man whose life fell into place after his diagnosis and prescription resonated deeply, too.
So the next time we saw my son’s psychologist, I asked her opinion on whether medication could help. She told me that she honestly hadn’t considered medication because she doesn’t have a degree that allows her to prescribe, but now that I mentioned it, he probably would benefit from it. Next stop: pediatrician. She said it seemed clear that our family was suffering, and medication would almost definitely help. Prescription obtained.
The first day he took the medication, he came home with 15 minutes of homework to do, since everything else had been done in class. He finished it while I was cooking dinner. Next night, he had his
homework done before I got home from work. A sample test of 15 extended-response questions (which I don’t believe he had ever finished even ONE question on before) was finished before class was over, with a score of 100%. My husband literally started crying with relief when our son told him about it.My home no longer has a gray cloud hanging over it. It’s seriously lollipops and unicorns. My son’s teachers have e-mailed me to tell me what an amazing transformation they’ve seen, and everyone in our house is much more relaxed and happy. Last week, out of the blue, as he was about to get out of the car to be dropped off at school, he said, “Thanks for putting me on that medicine, Mom. School’s so much easier now. I’m so happy!” I know that sounds like some sort of e-mail glurge, but that’s what he said, verbatim.
I just thought you – and the readers who shared their experiences – might like to know that they have saved the sanity of a family, and possibly the life of a pre-adolescent. Thank you.
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