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Post by MomX2 on Jun 2, 2004 14:31:05 GMT -5
I would really like to know how many parents feel educational problems are common or typical with ADHD? And if so what type of problems do you find most common, ie. reading or math?
Also does anyone have a child diagnosed with ADHD who does well in school and doesn't seem to have significant problems? I ask because I'm somewhat suspicious my daughter may be misdiagnosed and may actually have some level of bi-polar disorder. My daughter has few difficulties in school and usually makes the honor roll. Even on nationwide tests she is always above average. I wonder if the ability to do well in school could help diffirentiate between ADHD and a mood disorder? The keep asking me if she has any signs of depression and I honestly had to say no but that was before I found out about mixed symptoms and that extreme irritability can be a bi-polar symptom.
The only thing that doesn't quite add up is her anger is usually short term (no more than a half hour if we leave her alone). That is more typical of ADHD. Everything else I read seems to lean more toward Bi-polar though, such as intentional destructiveness and challenging adults.
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Post by NativeLI on Jun 2, 2004 15:35:30 GMT -5
My son is diagnosed with adhd and tourettes, but has no academic problems at all. The most I can say is that he sometimes rushes through work and doesn't read things thoroughly, but I did that too, and I don't have adhd.
He does get tantrums also, but again they are short lived like you mentioned. They may even be from the stims.
I too wondered about bi-polar, but he is ok with the stims so I'm leaving things alone for now.
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Post by d on Jun 2, 2004 21:29:42 GMT -5
Momx, no help but more questions.
What were your dd's areas of difficulty that met the criteria for ADHD? Do they still exist? What was her ADHD dx - combined, inattentive, hyperactive? Also, what grade is she in right now? ADHDers can do just fine in school but "hit the wall" at certain grades - e.g., 1st, 4th, first year of middle school, high school, etc. when functioning requirements change.
To complicate things girls with ADHD tend to have emotional "lability" (one of my favorite newly discovered words) but BP in children can be tricky to dx.
My dd is ADHD In with learning differences so has school difficulties - but she has never been a behavior problem ever in school.
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Post by vickilyn32 on Jun 3, 2004 8:16:11 GMT -5
My DS is 14 and has had his ups and downs in school. Before meds he was a mild problem in school, and got ok grades. After meds he only had "normal" boy problems just like the other kids, and for the most part kept his grades at A's and B's. reading is hard for him, but with extra help he has almost caught up with the class, but he is still far behind in writing. We also had some behavior problems when his meds were not working right. We straitened them out and this year has been a lot better. He has the same temper outbursts you described, and is in puberty which is another set of problems in its self.
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Post by MomX2 on Jun 3, 2004 8:53:49 GMT -5
Aggression has been somewhat of a problem with my daughter since she was 1/yr/old. I don't want to give the impression that she is always aggressive though. In fact, I would describe her as mainly being a happy, playful and outgoing child who loves and has a strong desire to protect animals. Often she has been overly silly and tends to be excessively talkative. She sometimes has problems with limit setting and often has problems with transitions which leads to an explosive type anger that can last about a 1/2 hour. When she was younger she would kick me. More recently she has kicked doors to the point of damaging them in time-out (her bedroom door is all marked up from where she used to throw toys at it). We've had a lot of problems with her kicking her older brother though she seems to target family more than friends with her anger. She is now cursing at her father and me in anger and spit at me recently. She went through a phase of shoving. She has also been overly harsh in shoving the refrigerator door open in anger because she can't find anything she likes to eat. She has broken our dishes in anger because she didn't want to put them away. It's things like this that worry me. Her anger seems just barely under her control and I'm afraid it could get worse so that she loses control completely.
Her teacher's seem to like her in school and only one has ever expressed any real concern over her behavior. This years teacher said my daughter would give her dark looks if she didn't like something but would comply. We had one incident where she hurt a child on the playground in anger though he initially instigated this. He was not seriously injured but she did overreact to the situation and they don't have much tolerance for this in school anymore. Thankfully his parents were understanding.
I believe others in my family and my husbands experienced this type of intense emotion and anger as children. For most I think it was kept in check by spankings and fear of punishment that was stronger than the anger. My belief is still that she will have much greater control by the time she is 20. If she follows the pattern of most in my family she will have calmed down significantly and be much more understanding and rational by 30 years old. She will probably always be intense though.
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Post by chaknine on Jun 3, 2004 17:16:02 GMT -5
Not to alarm you or anything but Brenna is very intelligent and even more so on Ritalin. Her issue was she could not sit still or focus long enough to do the work. She got good grades even with no meds. I am sure eventually her grades would have fallen because she would of missed things. But Brenna has been dx. Mood disorder, nos. She did not fit the criteria completely for bipolar and the psych said he would not give her that dx. until she blatently dislpays it.
What I considered to be just irritable the psych. says is probably depression and that sometimes this will be the first mood you see for a while it just kind of lingers around and eventually you will see more definite cycling. He said every child is different and varies in forms of severity. Another thing was the extreme anxiety and extreme seperation anxiety. Also Brenna has a history of explosive rages. I am not talking a tantrum, I mean full blown hitting, busting windows, trying to jump from a moving vehicle, attacking you. He said that time will tell or it may not some people never fit exactly into a catergory of the diagnostic criteria. Also you are right many bipolar kids do not have difficulty in school academically. Brenna tends to be more withdrawn socially and we had a short period of interacting more and being more outgoing that stopped just as suddenly as it started. The teacher notified me of the start of this period and the end. She had no idea that we were looking into mood disorder with Brenna. I hope this helps you. I am just learning as we go and not every child is the same.
Shelli
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Post by MomX2 on Jun 4, 2004 8:08:47 GMT -5
Honestly I'm becoming more and more suspicious that this is a mood disorder rather than ADHD. For one thing I don't think the medication for ADHD is making a difference at all. It seemed to at first but now I'm wondering if what I was really seeing is cycling and that I thought the medication was helping when she would hit a calmer period.
I also need to find out if PMDD can be the same as or confused with Bipolar Disorder. My doctor gave me an antidepressant to take 10 days out of the month that worked great for my lows. I've long known that I experience increased energy and little need for sleep in the second half of my cycle and never realized that could be a type of hypomania. It just hit me that this *is* a cycle. I go from very energetic and quick thinking into a more irritable/angry mood and then sort of depressed, then even tempered for about a week. I always get through this because I tell myself that I know I will be happy again next week. When I started to feel like control was slipping away from me I practically begged my doctor for a prescription for Sarafem. I wonder if this is the case my daughter might be predisposed to a mood disorder. I've long believed that I have some form of ADHD but I don't fit the description perfectly either. Now I'm wondering if I really do have some type of Bipolar Disorder. I have a lot of coping skills and very high understanding of other people's feelings that probably keeps me out of trouble even when I struggle with my mood swings. My desire not to cause harm to anyone or anything has always been stronger than my anger.
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Post by Babs on Jun 4, 2004 9:50:22 GMT -5
Stimulants can cause rages in someone with BP. If your daughter is BP the last thing you want to do is give her a stim for ADHD. Please make sure of the dx before putting her on stims. If she is taking them now, has her anger problem worsened since going on them? If so , it could be a red flag.
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