Anybody's kids have ADD?

[fett]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

Cleve, you have made an interesting point. You can change a kid's diet and maybe that will help. The bottom line is: You have to love, help, listen, correct and nuture a kid. That means: If you are going to be a parent, you have to make that 'Job 1".

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

Believe me, I think everyone here understands that parenting is job 1.

I just think all the chemicals, hormones, insecticides, antifungal, preservatives that are in EVERYTHING we eat, and whatever has to be put in the nasty water we drink to make it potable is screwing us ALL up. So many Americans are on anti depressants it's amazing. So much cancer and mental illness that wasn't so prevalent in the older days.

And you can hardly get away from it all no matter how we try... Scary stuff.

[atomic charvel guy]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

take a walk from my front door to go get smokes down the block and you tell me if girl's looked like they do now at 13 when we were 13.. hell, i talk to them all the time and then it hits you, "i'm 14, cool tats dude" and i just shake my head in dismay and walk. it's tough when they look 20.

[fett]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

[ QUOTE ]
Believe me, I think everyone here understands that parenting is job 1.

I just think all the chemicals, hormones, insecticides, antifungal, preservatives that are in EVERYTHING we eat, and whatever has to be put in the nasty water we drink to make it potable is screwing us ALL up. So many Americans are on anti depressants it's amazing. So much cancer and mental illness that wasn't so prevalent in the older days.

And you can hardly get away from it all no matter how we try... Scary stuff.

[/ QUOTE ] I will the devil's advocate. Yes, there are chemicals and additives in almost everything we eat or drink. I think the media has focused on the exception and not the rule. How, in the span of 15 years have we produced so many people that need help, drugs, to cope? This is not a crisis of the individual, this is a crisis of the masses being sucked into " I want an easy out, and I have found it."

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

Yep!

[atomic charvel guy]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

i want an easy way out, i found it, it sucked every last penny of a once decent empire i was the ruler of. trojan "horses" everywhere these days.

[micha]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

hey em,
didn't have the time right now to read all of the posts (it's 2 am here, and 5 hours for me to go, so I'll better make this short... [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] ), so I'm not sure wether this has been mentioned before, but,
I'd be really careful with this medication stuff.

sure they meds do help, but they're often given without any real need for them.
my mum's a teacher, I'm on my best to become one, and spending lots of time at schools I can tell ya, that there's really an immense amount of parents giving meds to their children. sure this might be meant for their best only (and I'm sure that's what you do), but ADD or ADS how it's called here is by far not the only reason for a behaviour like you mentioned.

you said she had awesome grades before and is a bright child.
you're sure she's not only looking for something more challenging? maybe the class is too easy for her?
maybe it's her moving around what you mentioned, changing schools often and so on...

you never can be sure about a childs mind.

but what I know about ADD is that it's genetical. so if you think this could be the reason for your daughers problems, I'd first check out your parents, your grandparents and the same in your husbands family.

ADD is pretty new, so there are millions of older people having these problems and never knowing about it. simply cos the medical science didn't know about ADD at all.

if your daughter has ADD, it is more than possible that you find these problems in the older generations of her family as well.


I don't want to bring you off the med thing, but please be sure to test out everything else before you get something for her.

[Emthrax]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

Good points.
Thank you Fett and Micha, I completely agree with you.

I've been reading more about this and have talked to Khosi's teacher as well. We are meeting again next week when we have more time to chat.
To me, medicating your child just to make things easier is a cop-out and in my opinion, is child-abuse if it is for that reason. It's just how I feel. Children NEED to learn to cope with their problems in order to be functioning and capable adults.

Granted... there is a flip-side and I am in no way discounting ADD being a reality for many. I just think that in some instances it is used as an excuse. Turn the kids into Zombies so its easier to control them. Many Doctors hand out meds like Pez dispensers and that is wrong.

Medicating is the very last thing we will do, if it even comes to that. But there are some homeopathic and holistic approaches we will be utilizing, and Khosi's teacher has a counselor referral for me. We will discuss that more next week.
According to the "symptoms" of ADD that I have found and from what her teacher has told me, Khosi does not demonstrate enough of the characteristics to truly be ADD.
She is bored, no doubt about that.
Khosi sat down and talked with me today, I found out she is totally FREAKED OUT about this TAKS (Texas Assesment of Knowledge and Skills) test that the third graders have to take this year. The whole "Leave No Child Behind" is BULLSHIT to me, I hate it. I don't know one teacher who likes this program. But they have to teach it and all they do is teach the kids how to pass the test. It's asinine. There is no learning, it is all memorization.
Anyway... it's a hellacious amount of pressure. If they don't pass they have to do summer school, it doesn't matter if they are a straight A student.
Khosi is just like me, if I even feel an oodle of pressure or expectation from anyone to perform I won't do it. No way.
I am extremely selfish that way. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

And No, no one in our family on either side has been diagnosed with ADD. Keith's sisters I think are all mental cases, but then.. well... you'd have to know them. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[fett]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

I think everyone is suffering from "IO". That is "information overload". "TO", "task overload", and "EO" expectation overload. The world, and that filters down to you, has become so compact, that every little news item affects the way you live. Kids pick that up: patents pick that up: teachers pick that up and everyone else does. Now that all these people have been overloaded and they are about ready to crash. So, instead of just going back to the basics of having a family and taking care of said, parents and kids are smothered by the world . I contend that your world should not be more than a 10 mile radius from your home. I lived in a three block area when I grew up. I kinda knew about the "Cold War". I had a nightmare about a mushroom cloud over my "hood. I was in school when JFK was killed. But, I will tell you this, I did not have the media overload and the video games. We just went out a played. We had our "world". Why can't that be done now.?

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

But Fett, you are in your own little world! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[fett]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

[ QUOTE ]
But Fett, you are in your own little world! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ] Yes, I am. Married 10 years and then she died. Raised a kid in Marin County and he turned out perfect. I lived the world and now I am on my own and liking it. I have a "world" of knowledge and the ability to observe what goes on around me. All I care about is they don't sell the trailer park. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

Sorry about your wife bro... Great about your boy though, good work!

[fett]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

There are two points to my post. 1. We went through a horrible time. 2. The Boy and myself made it through those times with no meds for him, but lots of beer for me. What he had was a stable? homelife and a father that cared. (It really helped that he was very shy. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]).

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

I understand, I also raised my son since he was 2 yrs old, by myself (his mom may as well been dead), and mine is pretty close to perfect as well. No drugs for him either... yet...

A pretty awesome kid, other than being a bit lazy, but he gets that from me. Hehe..

[fett]

Re: Anybody\'s kids have ADD?

[ QUOTE ]
I understand, I also raised my son since he was 2 yrs old, by myself (his mom may as well been dead), and mine is pretty close to perfect as well. No drugs for him either... yet...

A pretty awesome kid, other than being a bit lazy, but he gets that from me. Hehe..

[/ QUOTE ] Get this back to EM. It all cones back to the kid, one way or the other. At the ripe old age of 8, she is realizing that she "IS". All a parent can do at that point is guide, educate and love her and hope to God she buys it. That goes back to helping her filter out all the bullshit and get down to being "herself"