Child given ADHD medication unnecessarily

[beatrice82]

Does anyone have experience of a child being given medicine for ADHD when they don't really have this condition? I think there's been a misdiagnosis because when I spend time with this child in an educational setting, I don't see any ADHD behaviours. His parents are at the end of their tether when them at home though. I would say this is more likely because of lack of boundaries. I wasn't asked what my observations of him in school are, which I find odd as I spend 3 days a week working with this child. I'm sad he's being medicated and hope it doesn't change his personality. Will he be ok? ☹️

@ittakes2

OP I delayed putting my daughter on meds for years - and when I finally did I wished I had done it sooner. She was not only still herself - she was more herself than she had been in years. Having ADD causes a lot of anxiety in children because they subconsiously know things aren't quite right and they try hard to follow the rules and they can often manage it in a school setting - but it can't be maintained 24/7.

Thank you for sharing this.

Here you go, Op, this is one explanation of what it's like for parents of a child with ADHD, how difficult it is for them to be heard and how long the process takes. It's also very similar for parents with children dxd with ASD, and don't forget, many children have both ASD and ADHD and other conditions too.

english.emmaclit.com/2021/03/18/lucine-and-enzo/

Although it's based on the French system, it's not vastly different from the experiences parents and children in the UK face. It also details the effects of medication which work for some children with ADHD.

Maybe when you've read it, read additude mag, watched the youtube videos, listened to the TED talks, and asked for and received professional training in being an effective help for children with SEND, you may understand the absolutely justified reaction that your first post caused.

The original post left me incandescent with rage, although I'm glad to see the poster is willing to learn more about ADHD and to rethink some prejudices.

My ADHD was diagnosed in adulthood. At primary school, I was a ditsy, dreamy teacher's pet, who devoured every book in the school library, researched each topic until I understood it backwards and was a talented writer. At secondary school I was always among the top few pupils in the top set of my selective school, winning prizes and taking part in lots of extra-curricar activities. I got detentions for my lateness, forgotten books/PE kit etc, late homeworks, but the teachers didn't know about inattentive ADHD and thought I was some kind of absent-minded professor in training.

By 16, I was suicidal from the pressure of succeeding when just starting a piece of coursework, or turning up on time took so much effort.

I don't know what you think ADHD looks like, but we aren't all naughty kids who get into fights. My impulsivity mostly takes the form of finding it unbearable to sit there when someone asks a question or looks for a volunteer, so I contributed loads in class and was on a gazillion teams and committees which I struggled to find the time for.

And having poor boundaries at home is actually pretty consistent with ADHD - there is a strong genetic component, so it's quite likely that your pupil has a parent who struggles with organisation and impulse control, possibly with substance abuse or debt issues and possibly with a history of criminal behaviour. That doesn't mean that the child doesn't have ADHD, but can actually be an indication that they do.

Let me tell you, it is almost fucking impossible to get a timely diagnosis for adhd in some areas and some kids can be stuck in the system for years before getting the support they need. No child would be medicated unnecessarily for this condition and if you don't live with them and have to parent them you get an opinion on whether they present these behaviours.

Don't get an opinion **

OP
ADHD is one of those tricky conditions that is diagnosed on the basis of behaviours. There is always scope for error. It could be that there is an error here. But it's worth also bearing in mind that ADD can be about focus and attention and not always about hyperactivity. Another possibility is that as he has some kind of physical limitations significant enough to have 1:1 support, he could well find the school day very tiring indeed and this could spill over into meltdowns at home.

ADHD meds are usually offered on a trial basis. If they have no positive impact they can be stopped easily enough. Occasionally they do have a dampening impact on personality which parents find unacceptable; in those cases the meds are usually discontinued. He will be monitored as there can be an impact on growth and appetite. If you have concerns about his presentation when trialling the meds, make sure you record them in writing to the senco.

Re: poor parenting. I feel lucky that I have other children at the school, including a twin of the DC with ADHD, so I feel that disproves the poor parenting theory (although you still have to jump through the hoops of a 7 week parenting course before even being put on the assessment list )

(The others don’t have ADHD and they don’t have issues with anxiety)

Op, I hope you have realised now how counter-productive an uneducated opinion can be. I am a parent to 3 neurodivergent children, probably have adhd myself, have been a TA and now work with schools and SENCOs. I consistently come across the issue of SENCOs believing that there is no SEN, just poor parenting - always complaining about boundaries. It pisses me off no end, and clearly others also. One teacher told me she didn’t believe my child was autistic (well, luckily cahms disagreed with her) and another even refused to hand in the cahms questionnaire for another one of my children (she was still diagnosed).

The delay of school staff not understanding masking led to years of my child’s needs not being met. I urge you to read the special needs code of practice - a must for a TA. You will see that parents are considered experts in knowing their child, please don’t judge them otherwise.

An ADHD child may do very well in a 1:1 situation because there is more back and forth and the child is engaged. I personally retaught my son the whole curriculum for the classes he was taking. It took hours of extra time but my son was just grateful and knew he needed to do more work than other children. Revision is very important for ADHD children - they seem to forget so you have to reinforce the learning the next day or even again the day after that again. Flashcards are good for that.

I remember the science teacher telling my son that perhaps he wasn't ready to learn about valence electrons because he wasn't getting her explanation! I showed him footage of the Hindeberg disaster and pointed out that was hydrogen and it only had one electron and that electron was a bit lonely and going out seeking friends so it was very explosive. I pointed out helium balloons were not going boom because helium has two electrons in its shell and was perfectly happy as a couple. We went through the various shell numbers and I tied this into the periodic table where he could count the electrons and work out if elements were stable or not. By the time I'd finished with him he knew more about valence electrons than any other kid in his class but that was easy because it was one to one and it was memorable for him. ADHD children often learn with rhymes or rhythms or having a visual image. My son caused a mini uproar in class by sharing this mnemonic for trig ratios that he found online. Apparently his classmates found it very memorable but my son's homework was to present a more g-rated version to the class the next day!

Once we learnt that while he knew phonics it wasn't his natural learning style, we put the words in big letters on a computer screen and he stared at it for 30 seconds to imprint the image of the word. We used different colours or sometimes a picture with it as well and that revolutionised learning his weekly spelling list when he was younger which previously had taken days for him to learn. You probably want to do only 3 words per session if they are fairly long because you don't want to get the images confused. We used to encourage him to imagine the a movie in his mind and we often had some animal creature coming in writing on the blackboard (Harry Potter was big at the time). It can be important to work with an uncluttered desk and plenty of paper and pens/pencils for workings so that they can write things out clearly.

I suppose in some cases there might be a lack of boundaries at home but ADHD is primarily genetic. An ADHD parent may struggle with an ADHD child. My ADHD child was very well behaved with beautiful manners but I suspect I may have been just lucky in that respect although we tried very hard to introduce good routines so some things became automatic. Boundaries didn't mean he stopped having ADHD though they made it easier for him to cope. Medication helped and it just makes children a bit more focussed but doesn't change their basic personality. My son mostly took it for maths classes.

I've put a lot of detail here but I hope it might help you to work with the ADHD child.

@FrownedUpon

Medicating so many children for ADHD is a disgrace. It’s so often without addressing the cause of the inattention, hyperactivity, which is frequently trauma related.

I’ve taught a lot of drugged up children and it’s very sad to see.

Wow. This is the most ignorant comment I’ve ever seen.

@FrownedUpon

Medicating so many children for ADHD is a disgrace. It’s so often without addressing the cause of the inattention, hyperactivity, which is frequently trauma related.

I’ve taught a lot of drugged up children and it’s very sad to see.

Do you have a child with adhd? Have you seen the difference it can make to their well-being and ability to learn and enjoy life? Are you always this ignorant?

Take it from someone who is ON ADHD medication - I am most definitely not drugged up and the cause of those behaviours is dopamine related, so go and educate yourself, unless you’re too thick to grasp the science.

Keeping out of the main thrust of this as I've only indirect experience of it but I wish I'd had £1 every time I had a conversation with a young person with ADHD in school along the lines of 'i didn't take my meds this morning but I really wish I had now'. Being older a lot of them want to see how life is without meds for a day thinking it would be fine or even fun (and being older, being able to deceive parents about whether they've taken it is possible to engineer even with good supervision) and they then find it's really difficult. This conversation was generally had in my pastoral office either after someone had flagged up that they weren't 'right' today, or thankfully less often after an actual incident.

The only real negative I've ever had a young person express about ADHD meds is the impact on their appetite/nausea but that's by no means all of them or indeed all of the time for an individual person. I'm not sure which med it is that causes it but I've had to make adaptations to lunch routines for a number of students linked to this so I don't think it's uncommon.

Adhd meds help a lot of other conditions too. My son didn't have a diagnosis of adhd but was put on atemoxetine for his hyper focus. He'd become so focussed on something he couldn't take in anything else. He has autism.
I didn't think my daughter had adhd until it was explained to me that adhd covers so many things and can be shown in so many different ways not just what you would expect.

@FrownedUpon

Medicating so many children for ADHD is a disgrace. It’s so often without addressing the cause of the inattention, hyperactivity, which is frequently trauma related.

I’ve taught a lot of drugged up children and it’s very sad to see.

Jesus H Christ AND THIS IS WHY all teachers need proper training in the business of SEND. @FrownedUpon your comment is the very definition of the disgraceful ignorance surrounding SEND within our education system.

I've met a lot of hugely ignorant teachers and that's also very sad to see.

Perhaps he’s manageable at school because he’s medicated.

Ds is on a combination of two adhd medications.

He is still the same him, still full of personality. But now he can focus for long enough to learn and to thrive in school.

My son is certainly not sad to be able to take medication. Last year assessments before medication - the ones he managed to sit- E’s Fs or U’s. 12 months later now medicated- A*s, As and Bs. He thought he was stupid until he was 12.

@Rosemaryandlemon
2 of my children have additional needs and I would not be happy if their TA was thinking they were misdiagnosed and just lacked boundaries at home.
But you can't and don't control what your TA's think. Outwardly your TA's present as professional and offer no thoughts on your child's home life - that doesn't stop them having opinions though.

How are you rating my twins @FrownedUpon? One with ADHD, one without any traits - calm as can be.

Did I secretly just traumatise DD? (Who has been anxious and high needs from day 1)

What about autism, do you consider that to be “real”?

There is one point re: trauma though, and that it that a lot of these children are traumatised by being in a school environment that is really really hard for them, as trying desperately to mask and survive and keep up and “be good”.

Add to that the fact that their parents suffer an enormous amount of stress, just trying to get help and dealing with ignorant ill informed staff like you.

I’m medicated, nothing “drugged up” about me. On a higher dose I can be so relaxed that I can’t really be bothered to speak that much (the opposite of me without meds, I can’t let other people get a word in edgeways at times ) but I have been perfectly happy inside, in what gives the impression of a ‘zombie’ state. It just means the meds need adjusted.

Or maybe that particular child is happy on that dose and it helps them to ‘behave’ in the school system where sitting still and being quiet is so encouraged. And they also don’t have the after school meltdown - which is something truly horrendous to witness.

@beatrice82

So now people have shared some info with you, do you still think there’s been a misdiagnosis and they should have asked you?

It’s called masking! It’s hard work. I have adhd myself along with my eldest.

*FrownedUpon Mon 22-Nov-21 15:14:46
Medicating so many children for ADHD is a disgrace. It’s so often without addressing the cause of the inattention, hyperactivity, which is frequently trauma related.

I’ve taught a lot of drugged up children and it’s very sad to see.*

The misunderstanding and stereotyping surrounding ADHD is a disgrace. If you are genuinely a teacher and genuinely hold this attitude then you are a disgrace too.

I can tell you first hand that the medications that we take for ADHD don't make adults or kids 'drugged up'. The only sad thing here is the lack of understanding, compassion and the amazing amount of ignorance.