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feydaykyn | 1 year ago

From my experience as a parent of a 11 year old with ADHD:

- we start the diagnosis process because he was very depressed as being bad at school, everything was hard, while there was no need.

- meds are fantastic, they let all his qualities shine. They do require some experimentation at the beginning. At the beginning I was not at ease with giving him meds, but it turns out there's no lasting effect, and the difference is night and day. Depending on the severity, meds are not mandatory when he will be adult

- ADHD people often have issues with handling emotions, that's why he sees a psychologist (avoid psychoanalysts at all costs, they cause so much damage) twice a month, to help him process, vent and learn how to manage them. That part is slow to improve but that's normal.

- if we hadn't done the process by ourselves, school wouldn't have detected it because it wasn't so explicit,and there's a lot of misconceptions. I strongly suggest reading books/blogs, to have the correct words to describe what kind of ADHD your nephew has. He needs to understand it too, that his brain needs glasses, it's nothing to be ashamed of (even if it's not easy)

- I really like this short book : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35888681-my-brain-needs-...

- you will have to monitor teachers and school, because some will be downright abusive, or will ignore your nephew 's disability. Others will be great of course, but school in general has troubles adapting...

- tools and methods will help a lot, actively experiment to find out what works and alleviate your nephew specific issues (attention? Excitation? Time blindness? Social interactions? Etc)

- sleep is key, melatonin is great

To finish, ADHD is not easy everyday (especially in normative contexts like school), but as others hinted it is also a strength, with lots of great qualities and intense emotions.

discuss

order

hirvi74|1 year ago

> others hinted it is also a strength, with lots of great qualities and intense emotions.

The universe can take our "strengths" back. I'd give anything to get rid of this disorder. The reality is that people can have strengths and great qualities despite ADHD and not because of ADHD.

I do appreciate the encouragement and reassurance of your message, but I do believe such talk only downplays the true severity of ADHD.

Which you can read a good synopsis in this journal: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8328933/

feydaykyn|1 year ago

It's not easy every day that's for sure, and your experience as well as the studies are very clear on that. ADHD severity varies of course; the 5+ people with ADHD in my company do struggle at very varying degrees.

I'd like to be a bit positive anyway, because it gives more agency. My own experience is that by knowing how ADHD works, one can use it to focus on where it shines and avoid where it's definitely not great. People aware of their strengthes and weaknesses, whatever they are, are so much more effective.

The strong emotions, the energy from novelty, even the erratic curiosity are powerful capabilities in the right context : - fuel on anger to speak your mind when an inappropriate situation occurs and no one dares - use your energy to Kickstart new projects, and then give them to someone else to finish - emergencies often require to look everywhere before the root cause is found - etc

It would be easier without the emotional roller-coaster and focusing mayhem, but I'm convinced I couldn't do those things so well without ADHD .

To finish, I wish you all the best!