My first blog on My children's Challenge and disabilities

Welcome to my first attempt to blog about the "Trials and Tribulations" of a Mom with two ADD/ADHD children. I thought long and hard about creating this blog. But with the encouragement of my "ADHD Coach" yes, there are coaches for Moms with children that have this disorder, and my husband, I have decided to try and give Mom's that are struggling and looking for answers some of my experiences that have helped my children. Hopefully, just one person can take some of my experiences and have some success or at least feel like you've accomplished something. So, I have two children, yes, they are adopted. When I adopted them, no one ever mentioned that the possibility they would have ADD/ADHD could be very high. Actually 17 years ago, what did everyone really know about this disorder? Probably not much. Hey alot of people still don't know much about this disability. I knew NOTHING!!! Actually when my daughter went to school she was a very precocious 5 year old that loved school. The picture that the Kindergarten Teacher gave me was not the child I had at home AT ALL. Well she was young, and could outgrow it. In 1st grade I had numerous calls from the Teacher about how my daughter could not sit still. Okay, maybe she's bored, how do you tell that to a Teacher??? Okay, well after the conference and the picture she painted me we were off to the pediatrician. Right, this is what my Mother would have done? I thought this was the first place to go, well after a physical, she told me my daughter was fine. Okay so I told this to the teacher and that was like the wrong thing to say, but what came out of this was that she thought my daughter had signs of ADD. ADD is hyperactivity, impulsive actions and difficulty maintaining concentration. I was 45 years old, a college graduate and NEVER heard of this before. Okay, back to the pediatrician, and her saying she did not think so. Okay, how do I proceed? Remember this is 2002, there were not tried and true tests. No we perservered through 1st grade. In second grade I had to send my daughter to Sylvan Learning for 2 months to re-learn math, does that give you a clue. In 5th grade we finally diagnosed my daughter through a licensed psychologist through Yale New Haven Hospital. She was put on a drug called concerta, which she still takes to this day. But the most important thing I try to stress to parents, the part of the evaluation which was priceless was the comment the psychologist made. Although ADD is the diagnosis, as your child gets to 9-12 have them re-tested as learning disabilities are associated with this disorder. Disabilities???? This is where I will leave off for today!.... Stay tuned for my next blog on Disabilities associated with this.