I am a regular - have been on MN since 2005 but am using a different posting name for this thread.
I have an 11yo dd in 2015 she was given a diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder - High Functioning. She has follow up appointments with the paediatrician very infrequently. One this week, last one Dec 2015. So every appointment is precious time to get some guidance / input from the NHS minimal as it is.
Dd is a very well behaved child at school, she does not get into trouble and her school are helping by giving her life skills classes and there is a centre she can use for breaks and lunch time so she is not wandering aimlessly during unstructured time.
At home she is a bit insular and tends to spend all her free time on her special interests - at the moment Undertale and minecraft - so she plays these games, watches videos inspired by these games and draws pictures inspired by these games. She is a bit difficult to get motivated to do other things she will quickly lose interest and focus when doing homework, she will occasionally forget to go to the loo she will be asked to do something do half or less then wander off. She will lose things constantly and is incapable of getting ready in the morning if I don't line up her clothes and prompt her throughout. She can walk home from school alone but I need to talk to her on the phone all the way (this has been the arrangement since year 5) it is a ten minute walk.
We asked dd what she wanted to raise with the paediatrician and she spoke to them about her obsessions and how much time she spends on them. We raised the disorganised and forgetful, unfocused side of things as that is the main barrier to the smooth running of her life - as so much is incumbent on me being 'on' all the time to compensate.
The Paediatrician then raised some very specific questions and filled out a checklist - she suggested dd was exhibiting signs of ADD non hyperactive Attention Deficit disorder. This was a bit unexpected - then she ran through the drugs that would "help". Basically Ritalin and similar.
We were handed a couple of questionnaires - one for school and one for us, we are to get them back to the paediatrician for assessing and then if it seems she has enough indicators for ADD she will be given a prescription for a Ritalin type drug. We will get an appointment in 3 months to run through the drug affects/ side affects see if it is helping adjust the prescription if necessary...
Anyway I am trying to get my head around it all - we kind of nodded along and tied down a schedule yesterday - the appointment was quite fraught as dd was a bit upset, having all the focus on her 'problems' was stressful for her - she was lovely afterwards though and needs us to help her decide what is best. We are certainly only going to consider a drug treatment if it will help her and she wants to do it. But I am completely outside my comfort zone - I know a couple of parents with children with ADHD and they are very different - the children are hyper and need some help calming down and managing a school day. It is not like that with dd she is very quiet and well behaved at school, but she reports herself how difficult she finds it to settle and focus in lessons, other children are distracting, she is better in lessons she enjoys of course but there are not many of those aside from English at the moment. She will do homework and forget to hand it in, she will forget to do homework and she needs cheerleading to get through homework once she starts.
Anyone know / have experience of Attention deficit without the hyperactivity? Do the drugs help? I am scared to contemplate them but I don't want dd to be held back by my ignorance. AIBU to have an instinctive resistance to the idea?
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AIBU?
Ritalin???
34 replies
procrastimater · 17/10/2017 09:48
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