New Here

[MommaofandwithADHD]

I am a mom of 5, we have yours, mine and ours. The last 2 are adopted from different families from being in foster care. I was diagnosed as ADHD in 2021 after years of struggling.

My youngest has been diagnosed with ADHD/ODD and dyslexia. She is 6. After some time I have discovered that I have some ODD also when I want things done my way, so our house is in a constant fight mode. I am here looking for advice and support.

[julieboolie]

Hi! I'm new here too, but can share some of your struggle! We have adopted our youngest 2 (after being foster parents for years) and my 5 (almost 6) year old son has similar struggles. He is in Kindergarten this year. He was diagnosed with ADHD but also has high anxiety and trauma disorders. We have tried a few stimulant medications but they only increased his anxiety and aggression. We are now trying Clonipine (night time dosing until he adjusts) and it's a bit better. The added aggression and anger has lessened but we still have a lot of struggles. There has been some improvement at school but he's still disruptive and uncooperative. We're working on an IEP or 504 but that'll take some time to establish.

Just wanted to let you know you're not alone and we're all working on helping our children find the best balance and support we can find. I've learned a lot from the posts here and continue to look for suggestions or ideas from others. One day at a time!

[MommaofandwithADHD in reply to julieboolie]

Thanks, we were luck enough that we were able to establish an IEP before she entered school. The school system here starts evaluating them at 3 to give them a head start on a good school year. Ours has some trauma also but she has been with us since and infant so we are not sure and neither are any resources we have, who can treat these without a specific memory. She doesn't have any, but her little body is in a constant state of fight or flight. It is hard to watch and hard to live with most days. She has learned the buttons to press and if we are home by ourselves she is fine, the minute her brother gets here WW3 happens in the house.The first medicine they put her on was Ritalin and it made her so mean and aggressive that we had to immediately stop that one. I was getting the brunt of her aggression and bare the scars and one day will have to have surgery to fix my finger and thumb. She is on a very high dose of adderall xr and I have begged the Dr to try to change it to Risperdal but she doesn't want to put her through the quarterly blood tests. Her bio dad is bi-polar and I am pretty sure she is too. We have had other foster parents tell us that risperdal is a game changer for kids that their emotions flip so fast. I will continue to beg.

Stay on the school system, advocate for your baby. They want to drop our IEP because she hasn't needed it in the last 6 months of school or so, and I have refused. There is going to be that one time and they are going to want to suspend or expel her and I will not put her through that.

[julieboolie in reply to MommaofandwithADHD]

Thank you. I will look in to that med too. My son is always on edge, with the smallest threshold before flipping his lid. That trauma reaction and fight/flight is so baffling. He did have trauma but most of it isn't a conscious memory. The holidays are a big trigger for him (last year was awful!)Ritalin and Adderal just made our son worse - combative, angry and uncontrollable. Treating the anxiety first is going way better for us. Still working through the adjustment phase with it but it's encouraging.

I am involved with getting the IEP and will stick with that. They've been really good about working with me. What I don't understand is the zero resources until that IEP is in place. there is no "staff" available until that magical paper is done. It's so strange to me and I'm sure frustrating to the teacher.