Textbook

Those are the words our pediatrician used when I took Ryan to his appointment last Monday. Let me back up for a minute. When Ryan was in Kindergarten he missed a lot of school. The reason for this is that from the end of Nov. to Feb. he had about 13 ear infections. Good times let me tell you, oh yeah and then go ahead and add asthma on top of that. Not fun!! So at the beginning of April he had surgery and his tonsil's and adenoids removed and talk about a huge difference. Since he missed so much school I discussed with his teacher about holding him back and it was her opinion that in doing so he would be bored out of his mind. So on to first grade we went and start week 3 my son is crying to go to school everyday.


The cool thing for me is that his teacher sends home a daily folder letting me know what they learned, did, and of course how well he behaved. Well my little social butterfly brought home a couple of warning's and some work that he didn't complete:( The awesome thing about me is that when something like this happens I assume the worst... The kids are being mean to him, he is struggling with his reading, and I'm a total failure as his mother. So after a very upsetting phone call from him on a Friday while he was at school I scheduled him an appointment to have him checked for A.D.D.

I pick him up on Friday and talk to his teacher about what is going on. Mrs. M explains to me that Ryan gets along with everyone, his reading and math are exactly where they need to be at this stage, and he is getting warning's because he talks when he should be doing his work and has a hard time staying on task. Go figure!! I finally found one of my gene traits. Sorry Kid!!

In case you don't know, Chase works out of town Sun-Thurs. and it's hard on everyone but I guess I didn't realize exactly how hard it's been on the kids:( So we have an amazing weekend and Sun. comes and he is sad all day knowing daddy is leaving again. We get through it and after going back and forth on whether or not to keep his appointment for Monday I decided to take him and see if she has some suggestions for me.

We get to the appointment and I fill out a questionnaire. The majority of the questions I filled out I answered with a 3. A 1 being rarely and a 3 a lot. Dr. D. comes in and begins to watch him while talking to me. I left out that when we were having issues with his ear's I brought up to the Physician's Asst. my concerns about him having A.D.D. since I have it and know the signs. We decided at that appointment to adjust his diet which really wasn't that bad but we didn't want to medicate at the age of 5. Now at the age of 6 we have adjusted the diet, and are doing behavior modification and we are still having issues. So Dr. D. tells me that by watching him she can tell that he is textbook A.D.D. and we can continue to do what we are doing which is great but so far his learning isn't affected by it but what if I do nothing and then he begins to slowly start getting behind. As his mother I felt it was in his best interest that since we were going in the right direction with his learning I don't want to do anything that can risk him getting behind and struggling to keep up. It was one thing to hold him back in Kindergarten but not something I want to have to do unless absolutely necessary at this age. I told her my concerns with the Ritalin so we have him on a very low dose and if we are unhappy with anything while he is on it we can modify it.

In the week he has been on it, Ryan has been playing quietly with his Lego's, brought home green which is great behavior for the last week and a half, and is looking forward to going to school. I have seen a 180 in behavior and am so happy that we caught this when we did.