To be terrified dd might have Adhd?

[AttentionDeficitAndSquirrel]

Dd is 8 years old and in year 4. She's born end of August so maybe age plays a factor here as well.

She's showing more and more signs of adhd:

-Never sits still (unless she's reading or watching videos). She is always moving on the spot or dancing around. Even a friend of hers recently asked her why she was moving so muxh while telling a story.

• very easy to distract. If there is anything in her environment to distract her then she will get distracted by her own thoughts. She is so day dreamy. As a consequence she is incredibly slow. Getting ready for anything or doing anything takes much longer than it should because she starts day dreaming after or during every step or gets distracted. I have to keep pushing and reminding her to do the next step.

• she used to do very well at school but now that a bit of homework and working at home is expected she js starting to lag behind. The teachers have started sending work home that she hasnt finished in school. But rhen because she is so slow she has very little time left at home to do even more work. Right from year 1 every teacher has commented on her slow pace of working though they haven't raised any other concerns. However she goes to private school (as struggled to cope with the large number of kids in her first state school). I don't think this much would be expected of her at a state school.

• she has always struggled with sleep. it takes her very long to fall asleep no matter how tired she is it takes between 30min to 1.5h. She is so difficult to wake in the morning so she definitely needs more sleep.

• she struggles with eating and very poor weight gain. Dh and me think she might have arfid. It's getting better though and maybe not related to adhd but i wanted to throw it out there anyway.

• she loves reading and if she had more time she'd just spend it reading. She reads the same books over and over again. She will read new books if they are the type she likes but if she doesn't have a new book she will read an old book for the 10th time or so rather than doing something else. It's very difficult to get her to stop reading or just to get her attention.

• she talks nonstop (unless she is reading or watching something)

• she isnt as skilled socially as her peers. She isn't exactly shy and she has a few friends but sometimes I feel she struggles when it comes to joining a group or making friends. She also won't compromise on what she wants to do, e.g. won't join a game if she thinks it's boring and she would always rather read than make the effort.

• she has a very, very vivid imagination, which sometimes scares her.

• I am diagnosed with adhd and there is a very large genetic factor when it comes to adhd. I was diagnosed as an adult though and sometimes I doubt my diagnosis.

I keep thinking that maybe her 'symptoms' can be explained away by her being sleep deprived, the youngest in the class or just because I'm so chaotic and disorganised and if I could get my shit together and provide a well organised environment she wouldn't struggle with many of these. I don't know.

I know adhd or not I need to be more organised myself and provide a more adhd friendly environment but I'm absolutely shit scared that it won't be enough. The only thing that has helped me with some of my symptoms is medication but I know from personal experience how hard it is to find the right medication and the right dose. I went through hell every time i restarted my medication. I hate the meds. I hate how I feel on them. They don't help with everything and they don't last long enough. But if you have adhd then there isn't a better alternative. I just don't want this for her. I don't want her to struggle how i have struggled and still am every day. I just don't want this for her. At the same time I know I can't bury my head in the sand and just let her struggle. It's not a massive problem at the moment but if she doesn't grow out of this stuff it will soon be. I'm also worried that if she does get diagnosed people (including her) will blame me for giving it to her ajd I know it will be an uphill battle for dh to accept if she needs medication.

This is getting too long and I'm just ranting. I guess my main question is does this sound like adhd? Did anyone have kids who were similar at this age and did they get diagnosed with adhd or did they grow out of it? What helped to deal with the symptoms besides medication? At what age did you start meds and how did your kids cope with the side effect?

Yanbu: yes, this sounds like adhd and you should the ball rolling asap to get her some help.

Yabu: no it doesn't sound like adhd or its better to wait and see while fiddling around with the environment to make things easier for her.

Thank you.

Yes, I read that almost 50 per cent of families with at least one child with ADHD have a parent with ADHD too. So very common and very important to learn how to parent it well by putting your own oxygen mask on first and not triggering each other.

For our DD with ADHD it doesn’t present as challenges at school much, it’s all directed into negative self talk, perfectionism, people pleasing and the rejection sensitivity dysphoria. Even as a 6 year old she would continuously worry about the smallest of social situations and it would keep her up at night feeling anxious. DS has female friends like this too and some of them are super talented musicians.
So I agree it can present very differently. And often there is another comorbidity too like dyslexia or ASC. We don’t have that so routines and self help and awareness and diet have helped massively in our case.

@NDdr At the moment my clinic are not offering medication as an option unless in quite substantial cases of distress

Do you consider this to now be a modern standard of care, or see it as also traditional? There is no right or wrong, just interested as very different to the approach used to my child back in the day (was with a well respected global KOL, a developmental paed who specialised in ADHD, which is why I’m interested in changes, esp given my kids will likely have ND kids).

They assessed each child for need but also potential via a slew of educational and iq tests, psychological testing, endless parent and school questionnaires that had to be completed prior etc. It was a 2 day process. They then weighed up the benefit of meds taking both level of distress to child and potential of child. So a significant delta in potential that could be significantly narrowed with meds factored in to decision making.

In our case I find it interesting as not only is my (now adult) child an absolute horrific train wreck off meds but there is zero way they would have been able to achieve anything they have had they not have been put on meds. They are extremely bright, were able to complete a competitive and challenging degree and have a great professional position. Without meds they literally can’t put their socks on (one will end up in the bathroom, the other god knows where after getting them out of the drawer to put them on, and if you get them to write something on paper, it will be disjointed with bits somehow on the back side of the paper, stuff like that). If my child hadn’t been medicated, while they may have been ‘okay’, they would likely never have finished school and would be probably be unemployed which is a huge difference. I do know of another child that went to they same person, no meds as while they were told child had ADHD, it was determined that with even meds the child was unlikely to do that well at school or professionally, said even with meds probably end up a gardener or something, they were not distressed so was deemed not really necessary. Seems a very different approach so interested to know if it’s a morph over time, which may be relevant info re future grandchildren.

You're describing my dd perfectly, all the same behaviours, underweight (because she won't sit still to eat). She was diagnosed in year 4..no medication yet, we have to do a lot of me calming down eating chocolate spread off a spoon in a cupboard because I've asked 25 times for her to do something but generally it's fine. The diagnosis means we have an explanation and we can find workarounds for some things, be more prepared for days out etc.

I think the things you decried as part of the assessment are often used as part of a gold standard assessment of ADHd rather than to determine whether medication is going to be used, it’s very much dependant on the individual child and what is likely to be helpful for them. We all have to follow the same guidelines. In a huge proportion of children I see below 10, medication is just not necessary and there are environmental adaptations that school and home can make that would support the child. In secondary school, if the child/ family feels they really need it we would then consider the likely risks vs benefits to them. It’s really as simple as that, there are no recommendations around guessing or ‘assessing’ the potential of a child and offering medication based on that, it sounds quite unethical to do that to me.

ADHD is observable on brain scans.

Apologies everyone for going quiet. Massive thanks for all the helpful replies. Totally overwhelmed with life at rhe moment but I think the next step is to schedule a meeting with her class teacher.

Funnily enough the day I made this thread I missed a telephonic appointment with my psychiatrist so now they are threatening to stop prescribing my meds. I am terrified of not having meds as I wouldn't be able to work but somehow I'm still not able to make that call. Uggghh...😫