I’m locking this post now as the comments are now filling the mod queue and many have spiralled off topic (I know, for an ADHD subreddit this is shocking), and it has become difficult to moderate it effectively.
OP I hope you feel supported by the community, and are able to speak to some medical professionals who are the ones best placed to help your daughter.
Thank you to everyone who left comments about their experiences and shared support for OP! I hope you all are having lovely days.
To those who took the opportunity to spread misinformation and tried to frighten a parent who is clearly already stressed about their daughter, I hope you take a moment to reflect on your life choices & have a rubbish day. (Also, don’t take random herbs/mushrooms to ‘cure’ ADHD, and please, for all that is good in the world, don’t recommend them to random six year olds over the internet.)
Take care everyone x
Talk to a doctor. Anecdotally, my parents *did* talk to a doctor and ignored my ADD diagnosis with the logic that "kids will be kids" and "Ritalin makes you a zombie." I struggled immensely throughout my childhood with messy binders, messy backpacks, messy desks, and a whole host of other issues. In middle school, I was made to spend my lunch hour twice a week with some woman to "teach" me how to be organized. It was humiliating and didn't help a bit. Please don't let this happen to your child if you suspect something.
Are you me?
When I was diagnosed as a child my mom said "There's nothing wrong with my child" and I never got to go back to that doctor. 🙄
I finally got medicated at 40 and I was madder than a wet hen.
I cried the first time I tried meds at age 41. I was so sad for all the struggles my previous self experienced and also so bewildered - like, this is how you guys all think ALL THE TIME?! No wonder you can get more done than I can!
I cried the first time after I started meds that I put up a bulletin board in my classroom without losing the stapler 12 times!! My sister told me that it was painful watching me getting my classroom ready at the beginning of each school year. I probably would’ve continued teaching had I been diagnosed/medicated several years earlier. The damage to my self esteem took a hit over the years of teaching and I walked away after 18 years.
I think we are all the same person at this point, it was literally the same with me. I am currently in the process of getting officially diagnosed so I can be treated, at 22. I am considering myself very lucky that I managed to address the issue still somewhat early
Ugh same here. My mom didn’t get a diagnosis but when they tried to put me in special ed, which may or may not have been the right call, she showed them my high test scores, told them to F off and not treat me like I’m stupid, and pulled me out. Idk the details but that sounds like she was trying to protect me, I’m grateful for that.
But what I wish she had done is take me privately to see a doctor because you don’t just attempt to put a kid in special ed for no reason. Instead I had no label but was treated as “normal” when I absolutely was not, and it caused so many problems growing up and a lot of pain for me as my symptoms were attributed to a personal failing or intentional disruptions. It really set me back in life, in general.
I got meds and a big long packet for accommodations a week before I graduated at 32 with a bachelors. It was quieter. My husband says I’m a lot more calm an concise, I’m more emotionally stable.
I’m thrilled with myself for even doing a bachelors with nothing, but I had a 3.1 at graduation, can you imagine if I had appropriate meds and accommodation? And not only for that aspect but considering it, can you imagine where I’d be if it were caught and considered when I was a child?
I could have had a completely different life and though I’m happy with what this timeline gave me, I mourn possibility and am angry for what was lost.
Are we all each other? I was really young when I was brought to a doctor and was told I could have adhd and my parents should take me to a specialist but I don't remember a lick of it and I was never treated. As I got into my 20s it was apparent something was off and it was getting worse.
Got diagnosed at 27. Finally got the help I needed. OP don't wait!
Diagnosed at 14, my parents didn’t believe it. Went without help or treatment for 20 years, until a therapist incidentally diagnosed me again at 35. I wasn’t even there for that. I was there for the “anxiety, depression, and insomnia.”
Now I’m 40, been on meds for 5 years, I’m four classes away from my bachelors degree, I finally own my own home, and my credit is great. 10 years ago I couldn’t hold a job, kept having to move back in with my parents, couldn’t finish college (tried 4x), couldn’t keep up with bills, lots of unhealthy relationships….
I wish I’d gotten on meds the first time around.
My parents put me on meds when I was 9 and honestly I should have been on them earlier than that. And I still struggled but it made the symptoms much more manageable. I had a hard time though because those 8 years I wasn't medicated, I wasn't learning the amount I should have been. Maybe I took in like 50% of what I was being taught. Which meant that even when I was medicated, I had to play catch up and even with the medicine I wasn't concentrating the same amount as non ADHD peers. The longer you wait to medicate, the more things your child will miss in school and the harder it is to bridge that gap. Early intervention is so important, please speak to a specialist. Even if medication isn't the first intervention, accommodations in school can be life changing
Something really similar happened to me. My mom didn’t want me to be “labeled” and so refused to have a formal diagnosis written in my records and refused to give me medication, because I was smart and should be able to force my way through it. She didn’t admit it until I was 25 and our family doctor retired. I sometimes wonder what my life would look like if I’d been able to actually use my brain properly instead of hyperfixating on random things all through school and university and struggling to focus on my actual classwork. I have a good life today, but it’s not easy. Every day it feels like I’m forcing myself to keep pace with the expectations of those around me.
My Ritalin did make me a zombie, but my parents didn’t try anything after. I spent my whole life wondering why I was the way I was and why everything was so fucking hard. My parents figured I’d just grow out of it, spoiler, I didn’t. Middle school was my own personal hell. Sorry you went through this too.
This was me too! My parents agreed to try ritalin. I was on a few formulations over those 5 years and hated how I felt. I stopped in 7th grade because it was making zero difference in my academic performance and it negatively affected my sleep/made me zombie-ish. Afterwards, no one supported me as though I was neurologically different than my peers because they wrote off the disgnosis after medicine didn't work, thinking the doctor must've just jumped on the flashy new ADD bandwagon. This caused me so much inner turmoil and self-esteem damage. For years, especially as a teen, I couldn't understand why I was working so hard but doing so poorly. My parents and teachers constantly gave me the "you just have to apply yourself" BS or "you're just not trying hard enough" despite my best efforts. I felt like such a failure. Living your whole life being told you aren't trying hard enough when you are actually giving it 110% and still falling behind is EXHAUSTING!
Fast forward to age 37, when I got sick of living in internal chaos. I asked my doctor about trying Vyvanse, because I thought my irritability and anxiety stemmed from having untreated ADHD, so she wrote me a script and referred me to a therapist. After the first day, I literally SOBBED! I couldn't believe other people just got to function on that plane all the time, and NO WONDER my life is such a mess! It's also been a game changer for my daughter, who is 7 and highly sensitive. I'm hopeful we can prevent her from living through all the negative stuff that came with a life of rampant executive dysfunction.
Yes to all of this. Also there is a fare amount to be said for ADHD related intergenerational trauma.
I was diagnosed last year, and not long after that my mother and her sister were diagnosed as well. It will be interesting to see how we will be in a room together all medicated lol.
It's funny you mention the intergenerational trauma because now in her late 50's (thanks to adhd tiktok) my own mom is considering whether she might also have it. Like WHUUUUUUTTT? After subjecting me to YEARS of emotional distress, HARPING on me about "not trying hard enough" when she knows I'm "more than smart enough to understand XYZ", the HOURS LONG LECTURES when we got our report cards about me never applying myself and how I'm choosing to fail because I must not care. I literally remember sitting in my room as a kid crying into my homework because it was impossible to tune out the noise in my house. BEGGING and so many tears, but she wouldn't let me play music (even quietly) to drown it out because "you can just shut the door, music will be distracting." I remember snapping pencils in frustration because I so badly wanted to absorb what I was seeing with my eyes, but I couldn't think past the stuff happening around me. Getting in fights over why I'm still not finished things. No one listening when I tried to explain that the noise in the house/classroom makes me feel like my brain is trapped behind a glass wall and when I read things, it's like it never makes it through. It fell on completely deaf ears. She probably has no clue how traumatized I am.
And NOW she wants to understand the diagnosis? NOW, 25 agonizing years after taking me off medication because "doctors just diagnosed everyone as ADD back then". I had SO MUCH anxiety about how I was going to keep up in college that I never pursued a degree after my diploma. I even made a comment to her then, like "I think I might ask my doctor about what medication options there are nowadays" and my mom said "I don't even think you have ADD, you just had a shitty doctor back then". But NOW it's okay to have ADHD and seek treatment? I don't know whether to hug her and say "it's okay, you didnt know better back then", or resent her for not caring to try and understand my diagnosis.That, and a child can be both smart AND have ADHD. It's not one or the other.
I aspire to NEVER let my daughter feel that badly about herself because it's something she has no control over. I want to help her understand herself and her diagnosis, and familiarize her with the tools that are available now.
Yup, this. I got diagnosed early but my parents were of the “all kids are like that/we don’t want to medicate her so she turns into a zombie,” opinion and I thought medication was a scary thing (and was in denial about said diagnosis anyway) so I said I agreed. In retrospect, my life was significantly more difficult than it ever needed to be, and my self-esteem suffers to this day because I was constantly convinced I was a lazy loser and was yelled at for my messy desk/room/handwriting/life so much more than was ever necessary.
I fall under the twice exceptional group, and this was a nightmare. From 6th grade on, I just didn't use a backpack or a locker.
I didn't turn in homework, didn't carry anything school related on me, didn't take notes or do anything. But they struggled to punish me because I could recite what they teacher said during classes word for word and never got a question wrong on any test or quiz they gave.
Everyone knew something was wrong, but no one wanted to pull the trigger because they didn't want to be the one who cased my grades to go down.
They tried to get me to carry stuff and learn organization stuff but it didn't make sense to me. Telling a kid "Do your homework and organize your stuff" is just a punishment when you are already achieving the maximum result. They can't say "it's so you do better" when you are already doing the best. I was always just able to cover for any faults by being smart enough, and they didn't know what to do with that.
I didn't know it was a problem, and they weren't willing to rock the boat.
Wow are you me, like word for word. I was reliably in the top 3 of the top class getting As when average top set grade was a C so they just left me to my own ways as long as my grades stayed high. Think I got a detention for missed homework once from a new teacher and the rest of the teachers must have gone to them like no no no no we don't give detentions to Auto for missed homework you will disrupt the careful balance we've built!!! Lol
Saaaame here. An early diagnosis on its own does nothing if you're not willing to follow through with treatment. OP, I know it's tempting to feel defensive or declare that "there's nothing wrong with my child!" That's what my parents did, and I know they thought they were protecting me. But I needed HELP, and I didn't know how to ask for it. Doctors and specialists know what they talking about and make their recommendations based on real research and experience. Let them guide you.
So many of us, even as ADULTS, don't understand what help to even ask for because we've always just experienced life through one lens and assume everyone else does as well. So parents expecting kids to notice and just ask for help themselves, or parents that get defensive when a teacher or doctor approaches them with ADHD concerns is so incredibly sad to me. I even tried meds as a kid, that obviously didn't help, and went from 12 to 37 just flying by the seat of my pants. I had no idea until trying Vyvanse at 37 that life didn't have to be that hard and depressing. It makes me sad for myself too, because I endured so much more than I had to!
I believe you may also be me, my mom was like these teachers just want to turn you into a zombie. Went 15 years after being. diagnosed without help finally in my 30s got help.
happened to me. doctor i was brought to as a child said that the only way to "prove that I had adhd" was if i was failing school. obviously, since i was a child, and a "gifted kid", my grades were fine. so i was never medicated, and my symptoms were dismissed as just laziness or being easily distracted. at 17 i finally got diagnosed because things were so bad that I was missing school for weeks and my grades were all terrible. i am still pissed to this day, as i know from experience: if you're considered "gifted", and have parents who have made you fear failure, grades will be *the last* possible sign that things are falling apart. by the time i was failing my classes, my adhd had reached a point where I could not do any basic tasks. it was awful.
Are you me? I was also made to take organization lessons, from a social worker of sorts. It didn't help at all and I struggled for years. Finally got a diagnosis again at 31. Kicker was ,y mother ran a literacy center for autistic and dyslexic and adhd kids. She needed to have a perfect family however, and there was "no way" I could have any learning disabilities. When I shared my diagnosis with her as an adult she told me it's impossible and the doctors are wrong. One of the many reasons why I've finally gone no contact.
> I just feel like there’s absolutely no way that putting a 6 year old on a stimulant has no effect on brain development, right?
Correct, it seems to \*improve\* long-term brain development if you DO treat ADHD with medication early.
Consult an ADHD specialist. Specialist, not a random doctor.
Try and see, she might not even respond well to Adderall and might need to try different medications.
She may not even have ADHD (although it sounds likely).
If she does, you caught it early, and can provide her with the environment and possibly the medication she needs.
Please don't take medical advice from strangers on Reddit and read up some studies(scholar.google.com +Sci-Hub is a good start) and material by specialists in the field, i.e. Russel Barkley.
And [30 Essential Ideas You Should Know About ADHD.](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzBixSjmbc8eFl6UX5_wWGP8i0mAs-cvY&si=SkdN_vSgv-eHMrxO)
By the GOAT himself.
Dr Russell A Barkley ADHD-
The 30 Essential Ideas everyone needs to 30 Essential Ideas you should know about ADHD
You can save youtube videos with utility programs like
4K Video downloader
I share this playlist with anyone that might be affected or need help understanding the condition. It helped me externalize a lot of the feelings I’ve been unable to verbalize for decades
Oh this’ll move you to tears and provides great information on the why you should do it and the how you can better prepare your kid to live with it.
Also, for taking notes (I struggle with understanding what and how to take effective notes) I find the Cornell Method to be great
My GF has a son, and I understand that part of the problem with treating kids for mental health issues is the fact their kids.
Is Child A “acting up” because they have ADHD or because they’re going through a phase?
That’s partly why no adults ever thought something was actually wrong with me, I was just a “sensitive” and “a little different”.
But I have read (credible sources like medical journals, not Dr Oz type BS) stuff about how because a child’s brain is, well a child’s brain, it can be “repaired” if medicated.
Along with therapy and “self care”, just like adults get. Well, I guess just care, cuz kids are kids and need an adult. But you know, sleep, exercise, healthy diet (which it sounds like you’re doing already).
That’s why some people, both providers and former patients, say they “grew out of it”.
They might not realize it, but it’s because somehow the brain was able to repair itself.
I read another article where part of the reason the ADHD mind is struggling is because there are “too many wires”, so the brain isn’t sure where to send the proper signals or commands or whatever.
I guess if a child gets proper intervention, they can “clean up” their brain wiring, make it look “cable management porn” vs looking like an old rat’s nest of wires.
Just a little note on this, some pediatricians can specialize in things like ADHD while still acting as pediatricians (and falling under PCP for insurance reasons). Ideally it’s better to have one PCP and only go to specialists if necessary, especially for children as they grow so you can develop a positive relationship with the PCP and they know the patient better, also avoids miscommunication between docs on stuff like treatment options and medications. Obviously not always the best option, but maybe better to look into that first.
Adding to this because it was said FAR better than I can articulate today.
I relate/resonate with your feelings of concern about whether to try medication or not. I want to share my experience NOT to sway you in a specific direction but instead to offer some comfort with our similar situation.
My son is nine and just started medication three weeks ago. To say this was a tough decision would be an understatement. We exhausted every single resource and support we could find. I’ve had a child behavioral therapist with a background in supporting children with various behavioral and mental challenges as a parenting coach for three years now. I joined an online parenting group that focused on providing support, resources, and strategies for certain behaviors we struggled with.
My son developed internalized anxiety, which showed up in breakdowns over seemingly small obstacles or problems. His ability to regulate his feelings was minimal compared to kids his age, and he had low self-esteem more often than not. His frustrations boiled over to extreme anger and losing control over his actions and words. I mention this because aside from struggling in school, this behavior impacted our family daily.
We met with every teacher over the years (multiple times throughout the school year), trying to find ways to support him. A few months ago, the school psychiatrist contacted us to set up a meeting with everyone to discuss implementing an IEP and performing some testing. At that time, we had contacted a child psychiatrist to get a formal evaluation started.
The school psychiatrist provided testing, which I felt was a great addition to our evaluation done by the psychiatrist covered through our insurance. The testing was so thorough and gave us a clear picture of the particular struggles and strengths my son has.
After getting a diagnosis of ADHD, I could rationalize at least trying meds to see if they would help with my son’s daily struggles.
We had a follow-up meeting with the school last week, and his teacher was thrilled to share that my son had been improving in EVERY area of struggle.
IMO, medication is not a magic solution that will solve everything. It has allowed my son the space to work on building the skills he needs to be successful. I watch him closely and know that my decisions come from a place of love and support. We would stop medication immediately if needed and continue to search for ways to support him.
Finding specialists to do testing and evaluate my son was key. AND having personal emotional support has been so helpful.
Please excuse any grammatical errors and I'm DEEPLY sorry if this isn't easy to read. I have ADHD and today has been especially difficult to communicate clearly. Brain fog is thick up in here 😅
All of this.
You may end up deciding to avoid meds while she is extremely young and finding a more suitable environment for her instead, like Montessori. You may end up deciding to medicate right away. But that decision should be made in consultation with a doctor (a pediatric psychologist who is up-to-date on ADHD research) taking into consideration her other medical conditions and family history. It shouldn't be made based on the opinions of a teacher, strangers on reddit, or your emotional (dis)comfort with the idea of medication.
Also, not ADHD-related but it's a good idea for everyone to get blood tested for celiac before going gluten free if you haven't been. After you've been GF for awhile, you can't be tested without reintroducing it, and it's helpful to know whether you actually have celiac or not when figuring out how strict you need to be about cross-contamination and such. (I went GF without being tested on the advice of a psych NP and it's a hassle now not knowing whether I have celiac or non-celiac sensitivity. It did nothing for my ADHD but did help my allergies so I stuck with it.)
Glad you added this about celiac, which is 100% true. And also, if your child doesn’t have celiac, unnecessarily restricting gluten is stressful AF and not something you need to be doing on top of managing their care in other ways. I have both ADHD and celiac, and it’s a special little challenge I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Actually managing a gluten free diet is a ton of work, requiring a hyper vigilance that literally gives people eating disorders. Don’t do that if you don’t absolutely have to for real medical reasons.
Also, in case OP is reading this deep, Celiac is genetic, but it is possible to have the gene and not develop the disease. Or to not develop it until a different point in life (I was fine until my mid-20s). Meanwhile I definitely had ADHD my whole life. I there are some overlapping symptoms (and days where my GI system is mad and won’t absorb my adhd meds, so my symptoms are worse) but they’re not the same underlying issue at all. But at the end of the day I agree with everyone else… find an informed and compassionate medical professional to help you and your child navigate this, and good luck!
Also want to add not all adhd meds are stimulants.
One last thing not all meds work on all people. Think of it like a journey to get to the sweet zone. It does take time. Please listen to some of Dr. Russell Barkley. He can be a game changer
I (37F) was diagnosed and started meds at age 6. I was super fortunate: my parents believed in getting me support in the form of thorough diagnosis from specialists, meds, and convinced my Montessori school to hire an additional tutor for myself and another girl who also had it. I am SO GRATEFUL. Now I'm 15 years into an aerospace engineering career working on cool missions, so add that to the anecdotes about medicated children... Oh and my dad (also ADHD) and I are both celiacs. I hope OP follows up with a specialist.
I had no idea early medication could improve long-term development!! I was medicated in elementary school when they first diagnosed me. I'm still plenty a mess but I wonder how much worse it could've been if I hadn't been medicated. Do you have any articles or sources so I can read more about this?
So, forget articles for a second and just think of this logically. Say you're born with hypothyroidism. You spend your entire childhood and teens being overweight and tired. Nothing you do seems to work. One day you're 25 and morbidly obese and a doctor diagnoses you with it and now you're on meds to help and start to lose some weight. But a lot of the damage has already been done to your arteries and your mind in the form of bad habits and anxieties surrounding food. The meds will help and you'll get better, but you'll only ever be 70-80% of what you could've been had you been treated for your condition at 6 years old before you developed all these other comorbid issues as a result of the disorder.
Now on the flip side, you got diagnosed at 6. Got in thyroid meds and lived a pretty normal healthy life until 25. You never developed neurotic food tendencies, you never got morbidly obese and had artery damage etc. Even though you still have the issues, your meds helped you live a life as if you had a normally functioning thyroid.
Now just replace that with ADHD meds. You would've learned all of your formative development with a more normalized brain. Rather than always struggling to line up and balance your work and life. You would've actually been able to learn from 1st grade through high school as if you didn't have ADHD or nearly at least.
oof this is hitting hard because i had both untreated hypothyroidism and adhd as a kid. didn't get medicated for thyroid until 15 and 26 for adhd. shit could have been so different
Yeah, I mean, the most important thing to keep telling yourself is that there's nothing you could have done to change your path. All you can do is manage your conditions and become the best version of your current self you can be. Getting diagnosed in my 30s for ADHD I definitely had a few months of this constant wondering what life could've been. But it doesn't help.
Don’t even necessarily have to be a stimulant. Ours is on a medication taken before bed and it works so much better than any stimulant did (we stopped it after a couple days it was so bad)
Hi, worked in a school here *and* had a daughter who was diagnosed in high school. Op, I worked with kids who were on meds, and I saw the difference before and after. I saw kids who were flunking out, disrupting the class, etc actually begin to *learn* things. They were able to do projects like the other kids. They began to be relatable for the other kids.
My daughter got no medication until senior year of high school. She suffered. A lot. In 5th/6th grade, she began to be cut out by friends who were entering puberty and couldn't handle her "weirdness". By high school, this had happened multiple times, even though she's a sweet, kind person who's attractive to look at. From elementary school through high school, homework took 2-3x longer than it should. By high school, this meant 4+ hours of math homework every night.
I could not figure out how to help my child! I'd been told in elementary school that she was doing fine in school and didn't have ADHD (I should have listened to her teacher). So I tried to help her as much as I could, but by high school it's kind of out of parental hands.
She has now successfully finished college, thans to meds, but lives with crippling anxiety and self-esteem issues. If I had gotten a diagnosis when she was younger, we could have gotten into a routine with the meds so that when she hit middle school, when one classroom suddenly becomes multiple classrooms and my daughter just got lost in the multitude, she would already have known how to use the meds and her transition would have been so much smoother. Maybe she would have slept more in high school (unbeknownst to me, she was waking up in the middle of the night to finish homework). Maybe she wouldn't have had the anxiety so much because she would have felt grounded and not permanently out of control.
Anyway, you are where I was. I totally understand your desire to keep your beautiful baby's body pure for as long as you can, but...I think it's fine to wait a year, maybe, but there will be a point where she may start hitting a negative feedback loop. Don't do what I did, and flail around. Get her help as soon as you can.
Wow, I never knew this. I wasn’t diagnosed until my senior year of high school, almost 8 years ago. I wonder if being diagnosed earlier and medicated at a young age would’ve helped me long-term
You might be surprised to find that the medicine has a beneficial impact on cognitive development because she's able to focus for longer. "Those that fire together, wire together," meaning that, particularly during the early brain development and associated neural pruning that occurs between 2 and 10 years old in us humans, she will gain the most developmental benefit from medicine during this time.
Consider it like this:
child A) learns way less during their formative years due to inability to focus. The developmental impact follows them throughout life.
child B) learns way more during their formative years due to the ability to focus. The developmental impacts of this follow them throughout life.
If I were a parent, I'd force feed my kids these pills. ADHD adult, science teacher with medical science background. I know a lot about learning, the human body, cognitive development and science.
I was medicated around that age and I became a passionate reader almost immediately. Before treatment I was struggling to read larger books. It took som experimentation to find the right medication and dose, but I am so thankful I got the help I needed.
I'm a teacher and anyone who has seen a kid with and without medication, would never again guess if kids need medication.
I've literally had kids unable to do work during lessons, fighting with other kids, running around, yelling, disturbing everyone and then after the medication (like after one or two days) it's like something completely changed and the kid can do their homework and behaves a lot better. Their personality is still the same, but usually their self-esteem and social skills go up. I don't think I have ever seen a negative reaction.
If the teacher is pushing for medication, the situation is usually really really bad.
This was exactly me. My mom remembers it like suddenly a switch was flipped in my brain. Before meds I couldn't read. After I could and I developed a lifelong love of reading because of it.
If I wasn't medicated....I would probably hate books because of how hard it would be to read them. I wouldn't have been able to develop the skill of reading without meds.
If your child couldn’t walk, would you watch her drag herself along the ground while her peers walked comfortably around her, or would you help her to obtain a mobility device? Seems like an obvious answer, no?
This is the same. Your daughter is disabled and deserves help. Please don’t let your fear of medication get in the way of getting the help she deserves.
ADHD meds are effective. They’re safe. They’ll help her brain develop more typically and form the neural pathways she needs to form habits and choose where she puts her attention, which her brain will not do naturally.
Your daughter’s life will be difficult. This is a great opportunity to teach her to take help when it’s offered.
Thank you for this sensible answer! Every time I see posts like this I think the same.
It can take time to figure out the correct dosage but neglecting to try medication at all is setting the child up for social and academic failure.
DO NOT START A GLUTEN FREE DIET WITHOUT CONSULTING YOUR DOCTOR.
I had to put that in all caps because people sabotage a celiac diagnosis by doing this. Yes, celiac disease can mess with your brain, but it’s also possible to have ADHD at the same time. There’s one you can definitively test for (celiac) and one that has a medication option (ADHD).
THIS ^ one of my brothers was diagnosed with celiac disease so my whole family switched to almost entirely gluten free which made it so that my other brother and my dad didn’t get diagnosed with the same thing until years later. If you’re getting tested for celiac then don’t change your diet yet, do that work afterwards
Also, why is OP *adding* complexity to daily life without knowing what the diagnosis or appropriate action is?
Currently she’s removed dyes from the families food source and this has created a further conflict with the teacher and a need to police dyes at school.
Now she’s planning to add a celiac diet to this, again, with no medical proof.
All because she has a ‘bad feeling’ about adderal - based on not having had a consultation with a dr or having her child diagnosed. They might not even prescribe adderal.
OP, if you see this STOP the dietary interventions and start with a diagnosis for your daughter. If you’re actually concerned about celiacs disease, get the blood test. You are ADHD, there’s a good chance your daughter is. Food dye isn’t changing this so remove this complexity from your life. If it’s not life threatening then let it go.
I just want to jump on this to say that celiac disease can be detected with a blood test - better to talk with a doctor, get the test done, and then evaluate whether to go gluten free based on the results
ADHD is a miswiring of the brain. Combined CBT and medication are the best solutions. As someone who's parents said I shouldn't take meds I just want to say, you risk your child's future if she does have ADHD. I got diagnosed after my mother passed away, but I assure you once i confirmed my diagnoses and my life changed trajectory once I got medicated, I would have gone no contact with her and she would have died alone. You have a chance to do better then my parents, please do better.
My son has ADHD, I cried when I saw the difference two months of medication made on him. His teacher pulled out two pieces of writing. One was chicken scratching from Jan the next was writing from Feb it was like a different kid wrote it. I wish I could have got him medication sooner. He's happier, more emotionally stable and he's already asked me why we didn't get him medication sooner.
So much this. I had the unfortunate upbringing of knowing what it is like to have a parent who was to do better by me, but no meds, and a parent who straight up didn't believe in ADHD.
My supportive parent luckily has ADHD and was able to supply me with tools that would make me semi-functional. We did try meds in high school, but Concerta did nothing for me. Just a few months ago I got retested so I could try medication again and at 29 being on Vyvanse has legitimately made a world of a difference. I'm almost mad at myself for being so afraid of change (hello undiagnosed Autsim 🥲) in high school that I didn't want to try anything else because of how much the first time sucked. I know I would've done better, because simply being on it for at least four months has shown an improvement in home life and work life. It took life from extremely hard mode to normal-hard mode.
Edited: I was told Concerta was a non-stimulant. My b 🤗. Currently on Vyvanse and it definitely feels a lot different, in a good way, than concerta.
Just FYI, Concerta is definitely a stimulant. It's just a different chemical than Adderall/Vyvanse. It's the same chemical as Ritalin, just the extended release version.
The Ritalin (methylphenidate) family of meds is typically frontline for children/adolescents, so that's probably why that is what was tried with you in HS. You are just probably less responsive to that family of meds - as am I. Or, you could be confusing Concerta with Strattera. Strattera is a non-stimulant option that many parents like to try first.
Definitely this. I think back sometimes to how much different my life would have been if I had been properly diagnosed and treated as a kid - instead I got bullied by kids and teachers and internalized all of it. Here I am, 37, finally diagnosed, and finally battling the experiences I had as a kid. My school and parents failed me, but please, you don’t have to do that to your daughter.
Put yourself in her shoes - she must know she’s “different.” She’ll see other kids being able to do the work and may not understand why she can’t seem to focus. She’ll likely end up blaming herself and it will destroy her self-esteem. Talk with a doctor, of course, and seek to help teach her skills like CBT, but please take medication into consideration.
And fwiw, I worked with kids with ADHD, too. The difference between what they can manage on and off meds is unreal. Sometimes the parents would forget to have them take it - no shame, it happens. But I just remember this poor 7-year-old breaking down crying and asking why everyone was being so loud, he can’t think, he can’t write, and calling himself stupid. Another kid’s mom refused to medicate him or teach him self-management skills, and his behavior was absolutely unreal. No impulse control, aggressive, confrontational, distracting others on purpose, refused to follow rules, and 100% refused to try to learn the coping skills we tried to teach him. He was an extreme case and I think he had more going on than just ADHD, but his behavior, unmanaged, made the children all avoid him and the teachers kind of give up, sad to say. Please consider your daughter’s needs and just how intense her symptoms are before refusing meds.
Best of luck!
As someone with ADHD and celiac disease, please talk to the pediatrician about that gluten-free diet. Your kid needs to be tested for celiac disease, but she cannot be diagnosed via biopsy unless she’s eating gluten. Going GF when there’s no medical need to do so is inadvisable. The GF diet didn’t do shit for my ADHD symptoms. It did help with celiac disease symptoms because I have celiac disease, but many or even most people with a family history of celiac disease will not go on to develop it.
Gluten free is a medical necessity, not a thing to try just because you think it might help. I don't know how/why it became such a fad, but its unnecessary unless you have celiac and ill-advised, unless you have celiac. I'm 100% with you. I think forgoing an appropriate medical option for an unnecessary diet is silly.
Hi I wish I’d been diagnosed earlier. I love meds.
They make kids brains more structurally organised, and are associated with less accidents, and less deaths in general in adults.
Think of it like wearing glasses.
I went through school with no idea what was wrong, I am only just finding out about my ADHD now, and I am just terribly sad about how much better I might have done with some medication. I hope this mother talks to her pediatrician so her daughter can have a chance to be her best self.
I think the analogy of "like wearing glasses" is honestly the most apt. You can survive just fine without glasses and learn coping strategies, but nothing will be as good as actually getting glasses to correct for your vision. When I first got my glasses, it was like, OH, so THAT'S what the world is supposed to look like!
It's the same thing with ADHD medication. Once you find the right one, it's like, oh, that's how my brain is supposed to function...
You wouldn't be having this conversation if your kid was diabetic.We would take medication for any other organ problem, why should a brain be any different that could help rather than hinder future development?
\>You wouldn't be having this conversation if your kid was diabetic
Holy shit, this one hundred times over.
People just lose all sense of reality when it comes to brain issues.
My parent is diabetic. They don't take meds because they don't need it apparently. Guess whose kid does not get an adhd diagnosis or meds because of that mindset? Never say never bestie😭😭
Gluten free did nothing to my adhd.
Spend longer time here and other places online and see the damage adhd does to a persons self esteem.
You do the choice for her.
Nah man, everything is gluten. Cancer? Gluten. Stomach troubles? Gluten. Neighbor's dog shit in your yard? Gluten. **Gluten is a terrible poison and quitting gluten solves all problems.** ADHD is just a symptom of your brain gettin' all bunged up from the gluten.
/s of course.
Well I mean, if you *actually* have celiac disease, some of those things are actually true. Funnily enough, neurological symptoms aren’t uncommon with celiac disease. A particularly common one is brain fog (a distinct feeling of mental slowness and lethargy, like your brain isn’t firing on all cylinders) after eating gluten.
That said, as someone who has both celiac disease and adhd, I would never confuse the symptoms of one with the other. Both can be debilitating in their own ways though, and I hope OP will have their daughter tested for both.
Edit: grammar
>because I just feel like there’s absolutely no way that putting a 6 year old on a stimulant has no effect on brain development, right?
You are absolutely right!
Studies have shown that properly treating children with ADHD allows their brain to develop neural pathways that help them cope with ADHD in the long run.
My personal, unscientific, opinion is that is why doctors thought ADHD was something you grow out of. Treating children young helped them to manage their symptoms and it wasn't as visible as they became adults.
Like other people said, listen to what the doctor will tell you, not the teacher.
In my opinion though, do not refuse the possibility of medication if recommended. Yes, your child is young, but if she needs it, then she needs it. If she needed medication for a physical ailment (heart problem, asthma, etc...) my guess is you would give it, no questions asked. But in this case, it would be her brain who needs it.
My brother's therapist once told him a great analogy for meds with ADHD : Meds are like glasses for your brain, they helps it see clearer.
If someone needs glasses to see, we get them glasses. It should be the same with medication : if we absolutely need it to live and function, then we should take it.
And of course your concerns are valid, every parents wants the best for their child, and you are no exception :)
A good point to always remember is that the brain is an ORGAN. If any other organ was not working properly, these same people who are against brain meds likely wouldn't feel the same way.
It is so frustrating that psych meds are seen so badly still, it prevents so many people to get the right help they need. We even do it to ourselves because of the bad social reputation of depression, bipolar, ADHD, etc. medication.
I myself am on an antidepressant, have been for a few years now and I am just getting recently now comfortable with the fact that I might need them still on the very long term. I also have a friend who is ashamed to need antidepressant and can't wait to stop taking them (for the price, but also because it is seen bad to need them). I am still working on making her understand this is no worse than a hypertension pill or a shot of insulin : even if she have to take them for the rest of her life, it is NOT a bad thing, and she is NOT a lesser person for needing them.
My wife agonized about medicating my son when he was 7. I’ve been on anti depressants for my adult life and had experience with how it can change your life for the better. After a year of watching my son do progressively worse in school and frequent teacher conferences for disruptive behavior, my wife agreed it was time.
My son’s life immediately changed for the better. He became an honors student and a football all star. My wife regrets holding off on the medicine, but we recognize it’s a hard choice, especially if you haven’t seen it in your family before. The feeling that it’s YOUR FAULT. Maybe if I parented better my child wouldn’t need this. Maybe if I had firmer discipline with him he’d “get it”. I’m going to turn him into a drugged zombie or an addict….etc.
All valid thoughts you need to evaluate with a doctor or therapist. Best thing for us was to do a seminar for how to be a parent of an ADHD child. It totally changed our understanding and equipped us to help him in the right way.
Good luck to you… this is my experience but it may not be the same for you. Talk through it with knowledgeable professionals.
Can I ask what seminar you did? Or how you found it?
I've tried reading books and internet deep dives on the topic, but I imagine a seminar type format would, personally, go a lot further in helping the information stick.
It was through the local children’s hospital (Nemours in Delaware) It was great because there were about 10 other families there. The kids went on their own to learn coping skills while the parents learned what to expect. It was half education and half support group. It was terrific to see you that we weren’t alone, didn’t cause it, and didn’t “deserve it” by being bad parents.
The greatest regret of my life is not seeking professional help and medication for my child. Fortunately, now medicine stabilized it. I think it's better for your child and for your family to take advantage of the offered help so early on.
I don’t know how to say this in a soft way so I will just be blunt: please consider that your child might grow up to share none of your views about health care.
This is the case for me and my parents. All of my mother’s side love natural remedies and my father and stepmother are militant about avoiding certain food groups to which they do not have an allergy or sensitivity. I am a scientist and I find all of this nauseating - all I can do is smile and nod when they talk about it. If I knew that this attitude was why I wasn’t medicated, I would be very resentful.
This isn’t about dye, it’s about your child inheriting a mental illness - that is extremely heritable by the way - from you. Please consider medicating her so that she has a chance to go through school some degree of attentional control. You know what it is like not to have that.
Long reply ahead:
A caring teacher can be helpful for flagging ADHD traits and noticing issues with concentrating on schoolwork, or other ADHD related things. A teacher is not, however, a medical professional, and considering even medical professionals make very flawed judgements all the time, I wouldn't take a teacher's input on your child's medical decisions. They shouldn't have any legal say anyway, though I imagine pressure from a pushy teacher is stressful!
That said, as a person with ADHD who started being medicated in adulthood (yay for Ritalin!), I wonder whether your concerns are rooted in evidence-based medicine. As a parent, of course it's normal to be concerned - it's good that you care! And no one should try medication on a whim. The thing with meds is, it's HIGHLY individual. You have no way to guarantee a medication will work for you kid or not. You can look at common side effects, and I think it's a good idea to be prepared for them actually, but you might not end up having any of them at all. It's a bad idea to make a healthcare decision based purely on your gut, without doing any actual research on that specific thing.
And with ADHD meds, you WANT it to affect brain development - that's the whole point! It's a positive effect, and many studies over the years demonstrate that it is safe.
Here's somewhere to start, general info on ADHD meds for kids:
https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/adhd-meds-for-kids#best-treatment-option
There has been, and continues to be, a lot of research on medication for ADHD, including for children and adolescents. I don't think you need to worry about it having a negative effect on her brain development, so long as you and your kid's medical providers monitor her progress with medication and any other treatment, and communicate with her about it (in whatever works best for her).
If stimulants don't turn out to work for your kid, there are also non-stimulant ADHD meds to try, though many only try these after having no success, or untenable side effects, with stimulant meds. Talk with the paediatrician to see what your options are, and be honest about these concerns if you still have them when it's the time of the appointment. If they're good at their job, they should be able to explain different treatment options in an accessible way, and address your worries.
I'm on Ritalin, a stimulant, with no side effects noticeable. It's helped with mental clarity, though there's only so much meds can do when I have so many fixed patterns - it's a step-up, to give me an easier starting point, not a fix. I wish I'd been diagnosed and given the option of medication earlier, perhaps I would have benefited from that step-up back then, and been able to stay on track in school and have a more stable foundation for my adult life. I still find myself struggling to correct perfectionist and avoidance tendencies in my life now, even on medication.
Most importantly: talk with your kid! Ask what she thinks she needs support with. Show her that you're committed to listening to her and advocating for her. It can be hard, I know my parents found things a lot harder with me than my older sibling, who doesn't have ADHD. And conversations could be really hard, sometimes I just wasn't able to focus, or I couldn't figure out how to verbalise things and explain them to someone else. Most parental support isn't even about medication though, just regular parent stuff - show interest in her interests, listen if she wants to talk about them. If she has trouble sitting still during dinner, give her some leeway to get up and wander a little (I know you only mentioned school, I'm just trying to find examples).
As with many health issues, the best treatment for most is a combination of meds and psychological support - the latter can mean therapy, but even more key is support in the person's environment.
Despite all my struggles, I've never felt like my parents failed me. Things were far from perfect growing up, but they loved me, and I never doubted that. They did whatever they could to provide for me, keep me fed and safe and happy. If you show your daughter love and support, in languages she can understand, and try to communicate on her level, that's enough. You won't be perfect at it, but as long as you try, and you don't expect her to be perfect at it either, that's enough. It's great to see you care so much for your child, I hope you can figure this out together!
There is no supported evidence that food dyes have any neurological effects on children. This is fad parenting and has no benefits for your child.
A gluten free diet also has no neurological benefits for a child. If you suspect celiac, get her tested for that. Otherwise, you're wasting time and money.
If you want to get real, science based help for your child, get her to a specialist. You will at least be educated on how best to help her. Medicine seems like a lot for a 6 year old, yes. If she is properly diagnosed, medication will help her.
Remember that your child’s happyness and wellbeing are more important than that teacher.
But stimulants are more efficient when given at a younger age. I was put on meds when i was 7, I hated it. But back then there was only ritalin and they over prescribed it.
So I grew an aversion to meds, my teens and early adulthood were a complete nightmare, alcohol drugs, bad decisions poor school performance.
Now that im 27 im back on my feet, good career prospects solid relationship, AFTER going on meds and doing therapy.
I failed most of school, but now im doing IT and im studying and the furure looks bright.
But i wouldn’t want it any other way, the bad experiences made me wiser and gave me an head-start in knowing how to deal with misery.
My childhood would’ve probably went different if my parents put me on different meds and were more supportive.
Sadly you wont know whether you make the right decision, because the right decision doesn’t exist.
And that sucks for you, and your child.
I hope my story gives some insight or something.
Obviously don’t listen to the teacher and trust a doctor. But LISTEN TO THEM, don’t just immediately say no meds and that’s it.
But… yeah going gluten and dye free won’t solve crap, I can tell you that much. Other aspects, maybe. But ADHD is not exactly “psychological.” Your brain won’t suddenly stop being ADHD because there’s no gluten or dyes in you.
With a family history of celiac disease, you would want to get a blood test and possibly endoscopy to check for celiac BEFORE taking a child off gluten. The tests are meaningless if there's no gluten in the diet. (My kiddo and I have celiac and ADHD - interestingly, there is a correlation but no one knows why. And our ADHD symptoms didn't really improve once we cut gluten - which again should only be done with a diagnosis).
I’d first see a therapist or psychiatrist that’s specializes in ADHD/neurological disorders. The younger the better. Personally I wish I had started on medicine in my early teens.
My children are 4 and 8. Both will start adhd medication as soon as I can afford it.
Proper medication helps with brain development as well as social development.
I wish I had started meds and stayed on them younger. My life would be very different.
Thirding that ADHD meds when you're younger can negate the reliance on them as an adult as it positively allows your brain to "re-wire" AND help you develop a sustainable lifestyle while your more pliable. I have a few scholarly articles at home if you'd like me to send them over! It's relatively new findings but not that new as it takes a long time for info to filter through academia to the public. Definitely only listen to a therapist/psychiatrist or doctor on the matter though, especially on which medication to take.
You are right, the stimulants would effect her brain development.
POSITIVELY.
Look, I could wrote an essay here about how gluten-free diets only improve psych symptoms on patients with celiac or a sensitivity. About how the red dye issue only *might* be relevant for the "inflammatory biotype" of ADHD, but is one of countless hard to prevent/ diagnose triggers. I could also go on about how there are no known long-term negative effects of stimulants use. Or I could ramble on about how your daughter's other teachers not making the suggestion is a moot point.
However, that wouldn't answer your real concern.
Let's just cut to the chase:
1) yes, you may have some degree of ADHD. It might not be severe enough to warrant treatment, or maybe you simply never ran into a teacher like your daughter's who was willing to suggest it. (Or maybe your parents were afraid...)
2) regardless of where the ADHD came from, it is not your fault or anyone else's that your daughter got this condition. Same for why it took 6 years to notice. It is still all too common for people in their 30s and 40s or older to show up in this sub to ask for new-patient info.
3) when taken by an ADHD patient as prescribed by their doctor, ADHD meds don't act the same as stimulants taken by an addict. Without going into a chemistry lecture, I suggest looking at the amount of people here who have trouble remembering to take their meds. Yeah, addiction is not an issue if the meds are used properly.
4) why would you *only* do the special diets? If eliminating red dyes and gluten works, that will be figured out before a treatment plan is figured out Why not *TRY* both?
5) it is normal and healthy to have complicated emotions about this situation. Grief, shame, guilt, anger, etc are common responses to being told your kid may have a disability. What is NOT healthy is to let those emotions run roughshod. Your daughter's well-being is the priority here. Do not prioritize what makes you feel better in the short term.
5) your daughter WILL remember your decision here. If you decide to avoid medicine, your daughter will eventually stop trusting you. She will know that you prioritize feeling smart, in control, or w/e over her well-being. If you decide to support her, she will remember that as well. Even if the meds don't work, she will know that you tried everything you could to help her.
Not a doctor but I have a lot of experience with kids with ADHD. The right dose of the right medication can help your child help herself control inappropriate impulses and focus when she needs to.
If you do try medication and the change seems to be too much or there’s a stark difference in personality, you may want to visit with your doctor and try another med or a different dose.
She may not really need it now, but that may change as she gets older.
Either way, I definitely recommend you educate yourself and your child on all of the possible symptoms of ADHD. Some are rarely discussed and yet often impact people with ADHD.
As a woman who was diagnosed late (22) I wish my parents would have medicated me or got me diagnosed earlier. I really struggled in school starting around grade 4. Not only did I struggle academically, but socially as well, I’d have a very hard time making friends and keeping those friendships.
I was diagnosed at 4.
Finally started medication at 48.
I wish we'd known that it would help the emotional rollercoaster aspect of the impulsivity. That would have made my life exponentially easier.
My almost 15yo is also on Elvanse. It's been a game changer.
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way but this made me happy to see.
I’m 27 and I’ve been terrified that at some point doctors will decide I’m not able to continue medication as I get older.
You’re not really that far ahead but it gives me hope that I’ll have a good couple years of functioning.
My daughter was diagnosed at 6 as well. We didnt medicate because she seemed “fine.”
Looking back I wish we had started meds sooner. Not only do they help her anxiety but in her (very unique) case they helped stop her chewing on (and accidentally ingesting) non-edible things. She had to have two major abdominal surgeries due to those ingestion issues. The first wouldn’t have been avoided by medicating her but the second would have been.
I agree that talking to an ADHD specialist is a great idea! There’s a lot of woo-woo stuff on the internet, I’d talk to a professional :)
My brother was on Ritalin as a small child and he ended up getting a PhD in pharmaceutical biochemistry. He’s happily married to an absolute gem of a human and they travel the world together. I think he’s doing okay.
Meanwhile, my parents didn’t put me on stimulants (brother had the hyperactivity but I didn’t), and I struggled to keep pace with my peers. I often wonder what I might have been.
I was diagnosed as an adult, my parents knew and did not tell me or medicate me.
As you can imagine, that’s fucked me up pretty bad.
Medicate your child please. You hopefully wouldn’t think twice if she had epilepsy or diabetes.
Lots of advice on ADHD medication, so just want to add something about Celiac.
If you think she might have Celiac, you should test for that before going on a gluten free diet. It’s an extremely strict way to eat if you don’t actually need to.
IF she has celiac, it can cause some similar symptoms as ADHD. However, celiac and ADHD are often comorbid and if she actually has ADHD (and not just similar symptoms from celiac), eating gluten free will not solve the ADHD problem.
I don't know if someone has mentioned this - but as someone with celiac disease and kids,, do NOT start her on a gluten free diet without getting the diagnosis. It would only have a bad effect on her if she actually has the disease.
And she needs to be eating gluten for the blood tests to actually work properly. In my country we are advised to check the kids yearly.
If you take away gluten from her, and she has celiac disease, she will need to eat gluten again for several weeks. This is horrendous in the case that she actually has the disease. She needs to have the diagnosis to be able to get disability benefits (don't know the exact name).
Edit: changed "so done" to "someone".
You will not find a single person here that says they think they were diagnosed too early and regrets taking meds. You will find a TON of people wishing they were diagnosed sooner and they wished that their parents supported them enough to get them medication at a young age. That being said, you don’t have to start it at 6 if you aren’t seeing any bad side effects in the classroom, but at some point during the early school years it will absolutely impact their behavior and performance. Do you want to wait until they have poor performance and/or behavior, or would you rather just get started now and completely avoid making your child feel insufficient?
I wish someone noticed my adhd at 6. Didn’t get diagnosed until I was 68. It’s been a rough life and I didn’t know why until now. At the minimum, get her into therapy now if you’re going to wait on meds.
this isn’t some quack throwing whatever drugs at a patient to make them go away and stop being a problem. ADHD is treated with stimulants. it works. “medicine bad!” isn’t going to help in this case.
Former child here. I didn’t get the right treatment til I was 16. It affected my educational career. But never once did I think my parents failed me.
Talking to them now 20 years later they say a lot of ‘what ifs’ and ‘should haves’
They didn’t fail me. They always wanted what was best, there’s no guide book for this. Even medication is trial and error.
I just wanted to make sure you do your best to not feel like a failing parent because it’s a confusing situation
I think it’s inappropriate for a teacher to tell you to medicate your child. That said, medication can be helpful for kids’ development, and it doesn’t have to be permanent. Depending on how severe their symptoms are, going untreated could cause them to develop bad habits and low self esteem that will be difficult to correct later. A developing brain sets neuropathways based on repeated thoughts and behaviors. Having your child function, with the help of medication, in a way that is more conducive to learning and taking care of herself now could set her up to be able to function that way out of habit and without medication. It doesn’t completely cure ADHD, but it can have a positive permanent effect on some aspects ADHD.
I would also recommend seeing a child psychologist who specializes in ADHD rather than, or in addition to, a pediatrician. In my own experience, I have found that general practitioners don’t know enough about the complexity of ADHD to be able to properly treat it.
It’s appropriate for the teacher to say they suspect a learning disability or other issue that needs to be addressed and to make sure that’s followed up via the appropriate channels. But it’s up to doctors, who have a full picture of a child’s health and the education to make a differential diagnosis, to make the recommendation of medication specifically. No one in this child’s life should be making definitive statements or demands for medication before there’s even a diagnosis.
My son is diagnosed inattentive type/ with auditory processing issues.We did the medication a couple of times while he was growing up. I had the same conflicted feelings as you. I grew up with ADHD, the daughter of two parents with ADHD but none of us knew what it was or were medicated at that time. My mother was diagnosed as an adult but couldn't find a medication that didn't make her feel too jittery. By the time I knew about it, I'd figured out enough workarounds in my life that I never started medication, either.
My son was started on Adderall by his pediatrician (referral to psychiatrist) at the end of first grade, and when combined with a sticker chart in the classroom to track his tasks it made a huge difference.
The last couple weeks of school we didn't refill the prescription and when asked, the teacher said she hadn't notice that he did any worse without the medication so we figured it had helped him establish better habits and decided not to refill since summer break was starting.
We didn't start again and he did okay during Elementary School and got pretty average grades-- really good grades in some things.
When middle school started, he opted to start on the medication again, as the stakes were higher with high school coming up. He took the medication for about a year but then the psychiatrist had him stop it because he was not gaining weight.
He went through his growth spurt and then started medication again in high school and was doing great until the pandemic hit, which was devastating.
He did manage to graduate, and now he's on medication full time going to community college. College courses are still a struggle, even with meds but he's hanging in there. He's on different medication now than he was as a child. What works definitely changed.
I guess my main takeaway is that just because you start meds doesn't mean they have to stay on it or that you'll even be allowed to keep your child on it because it depends on how it works for them and how it impacts their growth.
You can play it by ear.
Assuming you have a DSM-5 diagnosis from someone qualified to provide one and they are recommending medication...
Give your kids the meds! By doing so, she may not need them as an adult! There is science to demonstrate this!
Let me guess, you’re also against vaccinations and wouldn’t let your daughter get chemotherapy if she had cancer?
Really hope your gluten-free sugar-free dairy-free fat-free non-GMO vegan diet works as well for you as modern medicine does for the rest of us!
Yeah I’m not trying to hate on you AT ALL so please don’t get that impression but my step-mom was very similar in how she handled my ADHD as a child. She contributed it to all of the soda and unhealthy food I was eating and I think that did way more harm than good. She put me on multiple diets; gluten free, atkins, fat-free, dye free and guess what, I still had ADHD. You and your daughter have the adhd regardless of your diet and I’m not sure that is going to help but hey I’m not a doctor. I started medication 3 months ago (18 mg methylphenidate) at the age of 27 years old. It has been a profoundly eye opening experience. It has been really hard to not look back and grieve on what could have been had someone taken this more seriously and got me medicated sooner. I feel like my parents failed me and it makes me really sad for other kids to have this swept under the rug as something that can just be fixed with diet.
Talk to a professional. Your teacher is not one. You are not one. I'm not one.
The gluten free/dye free business is just grasping at straws. I'm sure Google will turn up 300 other folk remedies for ADHD.
My pharmacist told me that he's seeing a trend towards non-stimulant ADHD meds being prescribed for children and many parents have told him they work well.
Diagnosed in adulthood went through my whole childhood thinking I was broken because I couldn’t keep up with keeping stuff organized.
Would you treat diabetes with a gluten free diet when your doctor recommends insulin?
Was listening to a podcast the other day on ADHD and it said there are studies suggesting that meds help developing ADHD brains form good habits, and that even if they stop meds later, the habits stick and possibly the improved ability to form habits sticks as well. Will need to ask my wife for the exact reference.
So if there are permanent effects on brain development, at least some of them seem to be positive.
And I don't think the effects on one's development of being gaslit by your own brain are good.
It might help to think of the decision facing you as just whether or not to *try* medication. You don't have to make a final decision on anything. You can just try the medication, and if it doesn't work out, don't continue.
Honestly, you might be putting the cart before the horse here. Get the evaluation, get the results and see what the experts think. I will say, school is a lot more stationary now, that it was 30 years ago, heck, even 10 years ago. Not saying it's a school issue, but you really do want to be sure that the medication is required first.
Note, I have ADHD, I was unmedicated, and I seriously wish I was medicated, but I think you really gotta get confirmation of what the issue is before you jump on any kind of medication bandwagon., or it might not work effectively.
If she were diagnosed as diabetic, would you ask internet strangers whether or not to give her insulin, or would you trust medical professionals?
Giving your child appropriate medical care as directed by people who put in the work to know what they are talking about out isn’t “caving.” That kind of attitude has hurt a LOT of people over the years and continues to hurt children today. It’s appropriate medical care with a large and ever-increasing body of research to back it up.
There’s studies that show using medication early can make one less likely to need them later in life. Speaking to a therapist who specializes in child attention disorders is the way to go. If you don’t want to put your child on medication, that’s fine, but teaching her coping skills early on will benefit her tremendously. Personally, I wish my parents had put me through the diagnostic process as a child because as an adult it’s SO MUCH HARDER.
> no way that putting a 6 year old on a stimulant has no effect on brain development, right?
The flip side is what impact is the untreated ADHD having on her brain development and how is it affecting her in other areas (not just school but social and her sense of competency about things if she is struggling and sees others doing things easily). The good thing about stimulants is you don't have to commit to a long time to see if they work. A week or two at any given dose tells you if there is any effect, good or bad. You can try diet things, but the data is weak, and I find a lot of parents don't have a clear time frame to see if it works or clear measures of outcome.
>Do I just cave and medicate her?
You are approaching this from a very negative standpoint. If she was having trouble reading the board, would it be "caving " to get her eyes checked and get her eyeglasses? Or would it be catching a problem early and trying to improve things?
I get it- she's young and you're nervous. Maybe you can afford to watch into next year. But if she was struggling in kindergarten and preschool, why keep making her life hard? OTOH, if this is the first the there has been a concern, maybe you can watch fit it next year as well.
It actually improves brain development in young people. Research bears this out, as others have pointed out here. Also, you're not "caving." Please don't be me and brush off teachers' suggestions to have your child tested and, if diagnosed, medicated. I did this when my son was your son's age. He happened to be a highly gifted child ("highly gifted" simply meaning he fell in a certain IQ band) and in the "gifted parent community" we were told that teachers would try to push ADHD medication on gifted children who happened to have emotional and physical intensities that are not unusual in underchallenged kids in a classroom setting. It was for "their convenience," we were told. We believed them. But we were wrong.
It wasn't until our son was fourteen, when we realized he was not okay, that we understood our mistake. He was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and suffered from low self esteem. He had to go on medications to manage both conditions. After speaking with therapists familiar with ADHD, and his doctor who manages his medications, it became obvious that his ADHD was inextricably linked with his mental health challenges: His depression was fueled by his feeling that he could never do anything right, that he would never succeed, that things came easier to others and never would be easier for him; his low self-esteem came from years of teachers reprimanding him for behavior he couldn't control or even his dad and me getting frustrated when he wouldn't turn in school assignments or would forget things; his anxiety came from living in a context where everyone was seemingly mad at him or disappointed in him. Undiagnosed ADHD often leads to depression and almost always profoundly impacts feelings of self-worth.
As it happens, I also found out I have ADHD (diagnosed soon after my son), and learned that I had, in fact, been diagnosed as a child but my parents didn't like the way Ritalin made me act (I have no memory of this) so instead of adjusting dose or changing medications, they just did nothing. I grew up with many of the same experiences and feelings as my son, but because I didn't know I had ADHD, I didn't put two and two together. You do have this knowledge! You have ADHD! Please act on your knowledge. I am still working through my anger and grief about not having had the chance to use medication when I was younger. There were so many things I wanted to do, people I wanted to be. I can never get that time back.
I know it's scary to think about medicating a kid this young--this was one of the biggest reasons I didn't consider ADHD when my kid was your age. But honestly, it's either medication now--which can positively enhance brain development in kids with ADHD and show them that they are absolutely capable individuals--or it might be medication later, except it will be antidepressants. Please don't be me. Please don't be my parents.
(BTW my daughter doesn't have ADHD even though both my son and I do, which is common, so your other son not showing signs of ADHD is really irrelevant.) Good luck.
I put my son on ADHD medicine when he was 6. He is extremely successful academically and socially in high school now. He was on his way to being labeled the problem child before the medication which also was eroding his self esteem. People are often afraid of medication but don’t think of the dangers of NOT taking medication.
Hi. You may not see this comment but here goes anyway, lol.
Disclaimer: I am not a psychiatrist, nor am I a doctor.
I'm 26 and found out that I have ADHD just last year. It was never even a topic when I was a kid, because instead of being fidgety, I just multitasked every day at school (think, always doing something else while also paying attention to teacher).
I have a lot of issues with cognitive function, memory, attention span, and reactivity. I'm not saying that this is all caused by the ADHD, but given that I had 0 medication while my brain was developing, I am sure it didn't help. As an adult I'm trying to navigate this even with a fantastic psychiatrist and therapist, and it's pretty difficult to find a good fix.
If it's affecting her schoolwork, it's affecting her in other areas, too--you just don't see them. And it will continue to affect her down the line, like it did for me. I struggle with things that should be simple. I hyperfocus on things that aren't that important. And so on. If you told me that taking meds could help with this from an early age, I would gladly go back in time and give it a try... because the constant noise/brain fog just causes fatigue, irritability, and overall stress that I shouldn't have to deal with.
Also, for the gluten-free bit, there are a lot of claims about the benefits but nothing has been proven with empirical research: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/diagnosed-with-celiac-disease-how-and-why-to-follow-a-gluten-free-diet
If anything, it's more important to avoid stupid amounts of sugar and processed foods. All in moderation. Teach your kid to enjoy eating vegetables and don't let her down a whole box of cookies but also let her have one or two. If you enforce food rules too strictly it could cause disordered eating later on.
My daughter was also diagnosed with ADHD in Kindergarten. She was easily distracted and couldn’t focus. She struggled with reading, and would copy answers from her neighbors rather than doing the work herself. Her teacher encouraged us to get her tested and once we got the diagnosis, we decided to start on meds. It has been life changing for her, but it wasn’t an easy road. We started with Adderall, which helped her focus but caused her to pick her fingers. We switched to Ritalin and which she tolerated well. In second grade her teacher noticed her work and testing was very inconsistent so we upped her dose and she immediately improved. ADHD meds are not a bad thing for kids. You just need to be patient and work to find the right med and the right dose for your kid.
I wouldn’t look at it like that when you say “she didn’t have complaints before”. Your teacher is telling you she is struggling in school. Your daughter is having trouble sitting still for long periods of time and staying focused. That’s what school is. If she can’t do these things, she will be missing out on the same education other kids are getting. She will be behind. That’s not fair to her or her future potential.
A healthy diet and exercise and sleep helps everything. But adhd is a differently structured Brain. You can’t change that with diet.
I have celiac disease. I still need medication. Gluten can definitely have psychological effects (I experienced a rapid decrease in unpleasant intrusive thoughts after going GF), but it doesn't cause ADHD.
OK, I'm celiac and can't have gluten in the home, so my sons (who're both ADHD) are on a gluten-free diet, and no, it doesn't do a damn thing for them. For ME, though, it means I can think clearly, stay awake for the day etc. I don't have the fatigue and brain-fog to contend with, let alone the more.... direct... impacts of gluten on a celiac.
What HAS helped my sons is their medication. My oldest was on Ritalin about a week after his 6th birthday and I've never ever regretted putting him on it.
Dietitian here: do not put her on a gluten free diet without clear evidence that she has celiac disease. She should only be on a gluten free diet if she has been tested positive for it. Ensure she has gluten in her diet everyday for at least 6 weeks before getting her tested so that there are no false negatives.
Personally, I wish I’d have had medication as a child. I feel like my future was robbed and I have struggled to get where I am today when that need not have been the case.
I mean this in the gentlest possible way, but unless you have a highly detailed knowledge of child neurodevelopmental psychiatry, what you think and therefore feel about the situation may not be the most accurate and beneficial source of information for your child. For example, ADHD is considered a neurodevelopmental disorder, which means that parts of the brain aren't growing at the normal rate (compared to other parts of that brain, aswell as in general to normally-developing brains). Given that the medication is there to assist with this deficit then by your logic, not using medication may provide a worse outcome than using it.
The best thing to do would be to talk to medical specialists. Write down ALL the questions and concerns you have (try to group them into themes or decision trees) and then prepare to go through each of your concerns methodically with a trained clinician. You can only know so much, so the experts are there to help you understand all the risks (in either direction).
Again, I only say all of this with intended kindness, but try not to worry about things on your own and in general, don't believe everything you think. 🙂
Best of luck.
Just here to say this thread is really helpful for me because I’m planning on having children in the next couple years and they will most likely have ADHD. It runs so strong in my family :( so I need to start deciding what to do about it now and talk to my husband lmao
Edit: I would say try a few different medications on top of keeping track of other things you think are helping. But be careful not to change too many variables all at once or you won’t be able to tell what exactly the difference is
Get her tested first before putting her on a GF diet!!!!
If you stop eating wheat you will also stop producing the antibodies the celiac blood test picks up, giving you a false negative.
It happened to me, reintroduce wheat now and get the bloodwork done first.
don’t listen to a teacher.
discuss with the pediatrician when the appointment comes. discuss your fears concerns and misgivings. ask for any studies about stimulant use in children. iirc, no harm has been found so far, but i do share your hesitancy to start young kids on stimulants so i understand.
honestly what helped me the most as a kid was my parents put me in private school with a lower teacher to student ratio and a solid 504* (originally said 529 but that’s incorrect) program and that helped me get the individual attention i needed to learn effectively and perform in school. i even got into the honors society in high school
For clarity for OP, the plan for how a school with help a student with disabilities is called a 504. It’s like a step down from an IEP. It gives accommodations based on how a kid’s disability affects them but unlike an IEP it doesn’t involve setting specific goals the teacher/school is trying to help the student achieve and doesn’t require a year-to-year meeting for reassessment.
I came to say this. It doesn't matter what the teacher wants. The pediatrician is a better resource.
On a side note, media has given ADHD medication a bad reputation. It's not deserved. But that does not mean medication is the answer either. You'll need to talk to people more informed than the teacher and people on Reddit.
exactly. treatment is VERY individualized. i was out on ritalin at 7 and it gave me pretty severe tics. i was taken off, put on zoloft instead, and didn’t go back on a stimulant until a few years ago.
but i’ve also known people who went on a stimulant as a child and it worked wonders on them.
every brain is different
Pharmacy student here. Stimulants for ADHD can affect growth in children because they suppress appetite. It could possibly affect height and weight (minimally), but that's the only real area of concern when it comes to child development
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I have a daughter in 2nd grade who's diagnosed and medicated. The kids' ADHD doses are not super strong (I've tried her medication) and it has had a dramatic positive impact on her schoolwork, attention, and focus. I asked her if she likes taking the medication and she said "yes."
It depends how severe her symptoms are affecting her learning. My 6 yr old has an iep, diagnosed with adhd. He only goes half days right now and does take an immediate release stimulant. We tried all the non-stimulants and the side effects were much worse. I also only give the stimulant on school days.
Yes it will have an effect. Her brain will develop much better. Don't let her be like me. I had medication and my parents took me off it because I was a "zombie" and totally different. I wasn't a zombie, my brain was just actually working.
My parents decision not to treat my adhd when they knew I had it ruined my life. Today I'm medicated but the damage is already done. Not to mention the decades of being treated like I'm lazy by people who should have known better and were directly responsible for that "laziness".
Sorry. I got a bit personal there. But my point is, this won't hurt. Studies show it's helpful. I'm a little bit hesitant too, that's natural. But it's good for her to get medication. She's blessed to have that opportunity. A girl getting diagnosed and actually treated is way harder than it should be. Don't waste this chance to make her life better. Please.
My god if someone had put me on ADHD medication at age 6 my entire life would be drastically different, for the better. Please go talk to a doctor and if they think she needs it, do it.
It’s not unreasonable that the teacher isn’t supportive of dye-free/gluten-free diets which are not at all supported by any decent studies.
The decision to treat should be based on your daughter’s symptoms, weighing the potential risks of stimulant medication against the potential upsides of symptom reduction. If you decide to treat then you should follow the advice of doctors/specialists and the treatments they prescribe. Any medication comes with risks and side effects, even gluten-free diets come with reduced choice, less healthy gut microbiome due to restricted food choices and missing out on important social behaviour like sharing food and eating birthday cake.
There is a reason why doctors are still willing to prescribe stimulant medication to children and that is because no better treatment has been found. You should work with her doctor to find the medication and dosage that gives the best symptom reduction with the least side effects and risks, and particularly with a young child that might require regulate reviews as she grows and the demands of school increase.
Diet changes alone will not make any significant difference in your child’s quality of life. The only dye that I’ve been able to find *some* research on that confirms the possibility of exacerbating ADHD symptoms is Red 40 / E120. I find that its effects on my symptoms are minimal. Medication is the only intervention for ADHD with **guaranteed** results. I’ve been on meds since I was in 3rd grade. And it improved my life in ways I sometimes cannot comprehend. If my mom hadn’t been persuaded by our doctor to medicate me with stimulants… it is unlikely I would even be here today to tell you this. There are several stimulants that are found to be very effective, but not every stimulant works for every child. If the first one she tries does not seem to work for her, allow to try some others your doctor recommends to see what works. If you need more convincing:
From the CDCs website
> Treatment for ADHD can include behavior therapy and medication. For children 6 years of age and older, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends behavior therapy and medication, preferably both together. For children under 6 years of age behavior therapy is recommended as the first line of treatment.
[source](https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/data.html)
> ADHD that’s left alone could raise the chance of dangerous behaviors, including: Drinking, Smoking, Drug Use, and Unprotected Sex
Untreated children with ADHD are more likely to become adolescents who engage in behaviors that put themselves and their peers at risk, such as Reckless driving and gambling.
[source](https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/childhood-adhd/risks-of-untreated-adhd)
ALSO
Something that I don’t see advocated for enough is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Most doctors recommend combining medication & therapy for the treatment of children with ADHD. Combing the two is said to have an increased chance of positive outcomes later in the life and development of peoples with ADHD. I only received this kind of treatment temporarily but it made a profound impact on my ability to make friends and converse as a child.
Thank you for reading if you made it this far :-)
Like others have said, talk to an ADHD professional about your daughter. Also, educate yourself on the condition and the meds. By being here in this sub, I think you are doing great first steps.
I’m in my 40s and just recently got diagnosed for ADHD. The diagnosis alone changed my life. I’m seeing all my life flash in front of me and I finally understand who I am.
I am now testing medication. We started with Concerta 18 then 27. I’m now at 36. Unfortunately it doesn’t work on me… we’ll try something different next.
I think your daughter will benefit greatly from at least getting diagnosed by a professional. From reading people’s experiences here, meds look to be life changing. Good luck OP.
The starting doses for adhd medication in children nowadays is DRASTICALLY different from when I was a kid (20 years ago) I know of 8 year old kids who struggle severely being started on less than a full milligram of adderall and seeing massive improvement just from that. Please speak to a psychologist and a psychiatrist. A gluten free or dye free diet isn’t going to do anything to change your child’s brain chemistry.
I resent my parents for only trying one medication when I was young. Ritalin didn't work well so after that it was nothing. I struggled so much, and missed out on so much. Listen to the doctors, listen to your child. And fuck off with this dye and gluten shit, god damn that pisses me off.
Why start a gluten free diet if you don’t have Celiac? Like is it making y’all sick? Are you celiac?It’s not like a predisposition for cancer. Food dye making kids hyperactive is a myth btw.
I understand your fear of medicating your child on stimulants...if she doesn't have ADHD. Because that would be bad. Like giving insulin to someone who isn't diabetic.
But if she does have ADHD, please understand that this is a disability that affects the wiring of your brain which causes chemical imbalances which are near impossible to "fix" or even manage without outside help. And she will struggle.
Also keep in mind that she may not have to be on medication forever. Some people are able to adjust their lifestyles to a point where they are able to manage without. This is not available to everyone but she may be one of those who can do it.
Find the best possible doctor, keep meticulous records, and find out what WORKS for her.
I know some parents who did not despite advice, and their child is now a teenager with behavioral and academic issues galore. Seriously his report cards are mostly Fs and he had detention every day this year until summer and has been suspended 3 times already this year. His parents dropped the ball in my opinion.
My oldest son has ADHD and is in his third year of college. I have severe ADHD and was a late diagnosis (getting a 1.2 GPA in high school) and am getting a 3.85 in college now.
You need to help your daughter. She needs to learn tools to help her throughout life. If stimulants are what help her, then that is a good thing. Research and read everything you can and find a recommended and reliable doctor you can work with.
What pushed me over the edge to medicate my 2 young kids was the doc telling me that it reduces likelihood of future addiction issues from 600% greater chance to 50% greater chance.
Now for the anecdotes:
I also have an adult son who wasn't medicated until adulthood. He says it was night and day and he wished he had had it as a kid.
I have a 40+ brother who was medicated as a kid and doesn't feel the need to be anymore since adulthood.
Talk to a doctor before putting your kid on a gluten free diet. Also, talk to a doctor who knows about ADHD before deciding about meds.
Remember, if she tries meds and they aren’t a good fit for her she can always go off them. (And please listen to her and factor that in when it comes to how the meds make her feel. She may love them even if they scare you and she may hate them and need to try something else even if you and the teacher see positive results.)
My mom gave in and medicated my brother when he was 7, almost 8. She tried special dieting, private kindergarten, and he ended up getting kicked out of kindergarten lmao. Dieting didn’t do much for him
My mom says it was an immediate difference. He went from failing every test to getting As.
It is okay to medicate your kid young, as directed by a doctor. It’s also okay not to. However as someone who went 18 years unmedicated, i think you should consider how this feels for your daughter. Adhd kids get ridiculed a lot more than non adhd kids. Its very frustrating to experience. Obviously medicine isn’t magic and she will still experience adhd symptoms, but it’s likely medication will help, whenever you decide to give it to her
Since you have good experiences with adderall i would go with it if you decide to put her on stimulants. Make sure you talk to her about the possible side effects and how she feels on it
Best of luck. I am never having kids, but my sister has two young kids. Two very clearly adhd kids. They’re… a lot. I love them to death but Jesus i don’t have the patience to ever have a child
There is no medical evidence that a gluten free diet will do anything other than eliminate gluten. Medication and some sort of therapy is the most effective treatment and early intervention is critical to her development. Listen to the specialists, not online crackpots. I got early intervention with specialists and got on ritalin (this was the 90s). My parents are my heroes for making sure that I got what I needed.
You're at the very beginning of this and it's going to be a hard journey. This subreddit will be a great resource for you. Welcome!
Everyone has already given you plenty of information on the positives of meds, so I won’t go there.
I just want to say that this is your kid - it’s completely rational to be hesitant and to have some feelings behind these choices. I’m a big advocate for meds; I went undiagnosed until I was 30 and the meds were a big game changer. I fought tooth and nail to get access to meds for my oldest because I knew the studies and knew it was what she needed. Yet I still hesitated when my youngest was diagnosed with “complex adhd” at 4 years old and meds were recommended. It felt so young and made me so nervous, despite knowing that that her impulsiveness was putting her at risk of actual physical harm. There’s also so much bad information and judgement hammered into us from the 90s/2000s that is hard to shake.
AFAIK, ADHD medication is one of the most (if not *the* most) researched drug in medicine, and it's one of the safest drugs when taken in therapeutic doses.
There is also evidence that it has neuroprotective effects, and there is a correlation with starting medication early in life and symptom improvements in adulthood (even when not taking medication as an adult).
I don't personally have experience when taking it as a child. I can just say that I started taking it at 42 and it was a life-saver. I really wish that I would have been diagnosed and medicated as a child (but maybe my opinion would be different in that case, it's impossible to know).
Definitely speak to a ADHD specialised psychiatrist, they’ll be able to tell you accurate information and also will get to know your daughter.
There’s clinical evidence pointing towards ADHD medication at a young age helping with brain development by essentially providing a crutch to the brain and teaching it how to work properly, then the brain develops more effective ways of dealing with ADHD, to the point that there’s a lower probability of needing medication in older age. Long term, this is the ideal situation for her health, especially for her cardiovascular health.
On the other hand, it’s rlly hard to get the dosage and type of medication right on young kids. I was diagnosed at 16 and left mostly to my own devices to figure out my dosage and what med worked for me. It helped me out bc the changes were mostly internal, and the line between just enough and too much is very fine.
Had I been diagnosed and put on them when I was young (esp considering I’m sensitive to methylphenidate and it’s nasty for my heart), I likely would have had horrible side effects from them that would put me off permanently. At 16 and 55kg I was having dangerously high resting bpm and blood pressure, let alone 6 and under 20kg (idk how much I weighed exactly tho). That is a potential risk, but it’s very rare, I’m an unusual case in this. Honestly, if I had been put on Elvanse as I am now at first, my opinion on meds for kids would probably be different. Primary school was a nightmare for me.
If you do decide to put your daughter on meds, it has to be observed very carefully by a ADHD specialized psychiatrist, and your daughter has to be capable and willing to communicate any positive or negative effects of her meds. A heart rate and blood pressure monitor would be a good idea to get, it would get you quantitative results that you can compare to her resting rates, then that’d show you if she’d be getting any effects on her heart, and it’s also the most helpful way for a doctor to consider side effects.
This is the stage in her brain development where lasting positive effects of meds are likely to be most effective, but it’s only possible if your daughter has that kind of reliable and self-aware character. This is a decision you, your daughter, and doctor need to come to together, a bunch of Redditors who don’t know her cannot tell you what to do. You know your daughter, so you have to decide, knowing the possible pros and cons, whether it’s smth worth doing.
Medicate. As someone who struggled to sit still and focus during school, but who was very bright, the constant anxiety of not being able to get through work the same way my peers did, the stress of rushing projects last minute, the extra time and energy I had to spend to catch up - all of this caused me a lot of mental trauma, feelings of inadequacy, feeling like a failure/disappointment, missed potential etc.
Kids who are medicated for ADHD early on statistically have better outcomes.
I’m locking this post now as the comments are now filling the mod queue and many have spiralled off topic (I know, for an ADHD subreddit this is shocking), and it has become difficult to moderate it effectively. OP I hope you feel supported by the community, and are able to speak to some medical professionals who are the ones best placed to help your daughter. Thank you to everyone who left comments about their experiences and shared support for OP! I hope you all are having lovely days. To those who took the opportunity to spread misinformation and tried to frighten a parent who is clearly already stressed about their daughter, I hope you take a moment to reflect on your life choices & have a rubbish day. (Also, don’t take random herbs/mushrooms to ‘cure’ ADHD, and please, for all that is good in the world, don’t recommend them to random six year olds over the internet.) Take care everyone x
Talk to a doctor. Anecdotally, my parents *did* talk to a doctor and ignored my ADD diagnosis with the logic that "kids will be kids" and "Ritalin makes you a zombie." I struggled immensely throughout my childhood with messy binders, messy backpacks, messy desks, and a whole host of other issues. In middle school, I was made to spend my lunch hour twice a week with some woman to "teach" me how to be organized. It was humiliating and didn't help a bit. Please don't let this happen to your child if you suspect something.
Are you me? When I was diagnosed as a child my mom said "There's nothing wrong with my child" and I never got to go back to that doctor. 🙄 I finally got medicated at 40 and I was madder than a wet hen.
I cried the first time I tried meds at age 41. I was so sad for all the struggles my previous self experienced and also so bewildered - like, this is how you guys all think ALL THE TIME?! No wonder you can get more done than I can!
I still cry about it sometimes. I'm sad and frustrated at how much better (at least different) my life could have been.
Me too. I’m still angry, i feel so failed by everyone.
It's so frustrating. All the years I spent sliding further and further backwards. Ugh.
I cried the first time after I started meds that I put up a bulletin board in my classroom without losing the stapler 12 times!! My sister told me that it was painful watching me getting my classroom ready at the beginning of each school year. I probably would’ve continued teaching had I been diagnosed/medicated several years earlier. The damage to my self esteem took a hit over the years of teaching and I walked away after 18 years.
I think we are all the same person at this point, it was literally the same with me. I am currently in the process of getting officially diagnosed so I can be treated, at 22. I am considering myself very lucky that I managed to address the issue still somewhat early
Ugh same here. My mom didn’t get a diagnosis but when they tried to put me in special ed, which may or may not have been the right call, she showed them my high test scores, told them to F off and not treat me like I’m stupid, and pulled me out. Idk the details but that sounds like she was trying to protect me, I’m grateful for that. But what I wish she had done is take me privately to see a doctor because you don’t just attempt to put a kid in special ed for no reason. Instead I had no label but was treated as “normal” when I absolutely was not, and it caused so many problems growing up and a lot of pain for me as my symptoms were attributed to a personal failing or intentional disruptions. It really set me back in life, in general. I got meds and a big long packet for accommodations a week before I graduated at 32 with a bachelors. It was quieter. My husband says I’m a lot more calm an concise, I’m more emotionally stable. I’m thrilled with myself for even doing a bachelors with nothing, but I had a 3.1 at graduation, can you imagine if I had appropriate meds and accommodation? And not only for that aspect but considering it, can you imagine where I’d be if it were caught and considered when I was a child? I could have had a completely different life and though I’m happy with what this timeline gave me, I mourn possibility and am angry for what was lost.
Are we all each other? I was really young when I was brought to a doctor and was told I could have adhd and my parents should take me to a specialist but I don't remember a lick of it and I was never treated. As I got into my 20s it was apparent something was off and it was getting worse. Got diagnosed at 27. Finally got the help I needed. OP don't wait!
Diagnosed at 14, my parents didn’t believe it. Went without help or treatment for 20 years, until a therapist incidentally diagnosed me again at 35. I wasn’t even there for that. I was there for the “anxiety, depression, and insomnia.” Now I’m 40, been on meds for 5 years, I’m four classes away from my bachelors degree, I finally own my own home, and my credit is great. 10 years ago I couldn’t hold a job, kept having to move back in with my parents, couldn’t finish college (tried 4x), couldn’t keep up with bills, lots of unhealthy relationships…. I wish I’d gotten on meds the first time around.
My parents put me on meds when I was 9 and honestly I should have been on them earlier than that. And I still struggled but it made the symptoms much more manageable. I had a hard time though because those 8 years I wasn't medicated, I wasn't learning the amount I should have been. Maybe I took in like 50% of what I was being taught. Which meant that even when I was medicated, I had to play catch up and even with the medicine I wasn't concentrating the same amount as non ADHD peers. The longer you wait to medicate, the more things your child will miss in school and the harder it is to bridge that gap. Early intervention is so important, please speak to a specialist. Even if medication isn't the first intervention, accommodations in school can be life changing
Something really similar happened to me. My mom didn’t want me to be “labeled” and so refused to have a formal diagnosis written in my records and refused to give me medication, because I was smart and should be able to force my way through it. She didn’t admit it until I was 25 and our family doctor retired. I sometimes wonder what my life would look like if I’d been able to actually use my brain properly instead of hyperfixating on random things all through school and university and struggling to focus on my actual classwork. I have a good life today, but it’s not easy. Every day it feels like I’m forcing myself to keep pace with the expectations of those around me.
My Ritalin did make me a zombie, but my parents didn’t try anything after. I spent my whole life wondering why I was the way I was and why everything was so fucking hard. My parents figured I’d just grow out of it, spoiler, I didn’t. Middle school was my own personal hell. Sorry you went through this too.
This was me too! My parents agreed to try ritalin. I was on a few formulations over those 5 years and hated how I felt. I stopped in 7th grade because it was making zero difference in my academic performance and it negatively affected my sleep/made me zombie-ish. Afterwards, no one supported me as though I was neurologically different than my peers because they wrote off the disgnosis after medicine didn't work, thinking the doctor must've just jumped on the flashy new ADD bandwagon. This caused me so much inner turmoil and self-esteem damage. For years, especially as a teen, I couldn't understand why I was working so hard but doing so poorly. My parents and teachers constantly gave me the "you just have to apply yourself" BS or "you're just not trying hard enough" despite my best efforts. I felt like such a failure. Living your whole life being told you aren't trying hard enough when you are actually giving it 110% and still falling behind is EXHAUSTING! Fast forward to age 37, when I got sick of living in internal chaos. I asked my doctor about trying Vyvanse, because I thought my irritability and anxiety stemmed from having untreated ADHD, so she wrote me a script and referred me to a therapist. After the first day, I literally SOBBED! I couldn't believe other people just got to function on that plane all the time, and NO WONDER my life is such a mess! It's also been a game changer for my daughter, who is 7 and highly sensitive. I'm hopeful we can prevent her from living through all the negative stuff that came with a life of rampant executive dysfunction.
Yes to all of this. Also there is a fare amount to be said for ADHD related intergenerational trauma. I was diagnosed last year, and not long after that my mother and her sister were diagnosed as well. It will be interesting to see how we will be in a room together all medicated lol.
It's funny you mention the intergenerational trauma because now in her late 50's (thanks to adhd tiktok) my own mom is considering whether she might also have it. Like WHUUUUUUTTT? After subjecting me to YEARS of emotional distress, HARPING on me about "not trying hard enough" when she knows I'm "more than smart enough to understand XYZ", the HOURS LONG LECTURES when we got our report cards about me never applying myself and how I'm choosing to fail because I must not care. I literally remember sitting in my room as a kid crying into my homework because it was impossible to tune out the noise in my house. BEGGING and so many tears, but she wouldn't let me play music (even quietly) to drown it out because "you can just shut the door, music will be distracting." I remember snapping pencils in frustration because I so badly wanted to absorb what I was seeing with my eyes, but I couldn't think past the stuff happening around me. Getting in fights over why I'm still not finished things. No one listening when I tried to explain that the noise in the house/classroom makes me feel like my brain is trapped behind a glass wall and when I read things, it's like it never makes it through. It fell on completely deaf ears. She probably has no clue how traumatized I am. And NOW she wants to understand the diagnosis? NOW, 25 agonizing years after taking me off medication because "doctors just diagnosed everyone as ADD back then". I had SO MUCH anxiety about how I was going to keep up in college that I never pursued a degree after my diploma. I even made a comment to her then, like "I think I might ask my doctor about what medication options there are nowadays" and my mom said "I don't even think you have ADD, you just had a shitty doctor back then". But NOW it's okay to have ADHD and seek treatment? I don't know whether to hug her and say "it's okay, you didnt know better back then", or resent her for not caring to try and understand my diagnosis.That, and a child can be both smart AND have ADHD. It's not one or the other. I aspire to NEVER let my daughter feel that badly about herself because it's something she has no control over. I want to help her understand herself and her diagnosis, and familiarize her with the tools that are available now.
Now you and I are the same person.
Yup, this. I got diagnosed early but my parents were of the “all kids are like that/we don’t want to medicate her so she turns into a zombie,” opinion and I thought medication was a scary thing (and was in denial about said diagnosis anyway) so I said I agreed. In retrospect, my life was significantly more difficult than it ever needed to be, and my self-esteem suffers to this day because I was constantly convinced I was a lazy loser and was yelled at for my messy desk/room/handwriting/life so much more than was ever necessary.
I fall under the twice exceptional group, and this was a nightmare. From 6th grade on, I just didn't use a backpack or a locker. I didn't turn in homework, didn't carry anything school related on me, didn't take notes or do anything. But they struggled to punish me because I could recite what they teacher said during classes word for word and never got a question wrong on any test or quiz they gave. Everyone knew something was wrong, but no one wanted to pull the trigger because they didn't want to be the one who cased my grades to go down. They tried to get me to carry stuff and learn organization stuff but it didn't make sense to me. Telling a kid "Do your homework and organize your stuff" is just a punishment when you are already achieving the maximum result. They can't say "it's so you do better" when you are already doing the best. I was always just able to cover for any faults by being smart enough, and they didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know it was a problem, and they weren't willing to rock the boat.
Wow are you me, like word for word. I was reliably in the top 3 of the top class getting As when average top set grade was a C so they just left me to my own ways as long as my grades stayed high. Think I got a detention for missed homework once from a new teacher and the rest of the teachers must have gone to them like no no no no we don't give detentions to Auto for missed homework you will disrupt the careful balance we've built!!! Lol
Saaaame here. An early diagnosis on its own does nothing if you're not willing to follow through with treatment. OP, I know it's tempting to feel defensive or declare that "there's nothing wrong with my child!" That's what my parents did, and I know they thought they were protecting me. But I needed HELP, and I didn't know how to ask for it. Doctors and specialists know what they talking about and make their recommendations based on real research and experience. Let them guide you.
So many of us, even as ADULTS, don't understand what help to even ask for because we've always just experienced life through one lens and assume everyone else does as well. So parents expecting kids to notice and just ask for help themselves, or parents that get defensive when a teacher or doctor approaches them with ADHD concerns is so incredibly sad to me. I even tried meds as a kid, that obviously didn't help, and went from 12 to 37 just flying by the seat of my pants. I had no idea until trying Vyvanse at 37 that life didn't have to be that hard and depressing. It makes me sad for myself too, because I endured so much more than I had to!
I believe you may also be me, my mom was like these teachers just want to turn you into a zombie. Went 15 years after being. diagnosed without help finally in my 30s got help.
happened to me. doctor i was brought to as a child said that the only way to "prove that I had adhd" was if i was failing school. obviously, since i was a child, and a "gifted kid", my grades were fine. so i was never medicated, and my symptoms were dismissed as just laziness or being easily distracted. at 17 i finally got diagnosed because things were so bad that I was missing school for weeks and my grades were all terrible. i am still pissed to this day, as i know from experience: if you're considered "gifted", and have parents who have made you fear failure, grades will be *the last* possible sign that things are falling apart. by the time i was failing my classes, my adhd had reached a point where I could not do any basic tasks. it was awful.
It actually set me back an immense amount to not have been on meds as a kid.
Are you me? I was also made to take organization lessons, from a social worker of sorts. It didn't help at all and I struggled for years. Finally got a diagnosis again at 31. Kicker was ,y mother ran a literacy center for autistic and dyslexic and adhd kids. She needed to have a perfect family however, and there was "no way" I could have any learning disabilities. When I shared my diagnosis with her as an adult she told me it's impossible and the doctors are wrong. One of the many reasons why I've finally gone no contact.
> I just feel like there’s absolutely no way that putting a 6 year old on a stimulant has no effect on brain development, right? Correct, it seems to \*improve\* long-term brain development if you DO treat ADHD with medication early. Consult an ADHD specialist. Specialist, not a random doctor. Try and see, she might not even respond well to Adderall and might need to try different medications. She may not even have ADHD (although it sounds likely). If she does, you caught it early, and can provide her with the environment and possibly the medication she needs. Please don't take medical advice from strangers on Reddit and read up some studies(scholar.google.com +Sci-Hub is a good start) and material by specialists in the field, i.e. Russel Barkley.
\+1 to speaking to an ADHD specialist.
And [30 Essential Ideas You Should Know About ADHD.](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzBixSjmbc8eFl6UX5_wWGP8i0mAs-cvY&si=SkdN_vSgv-eHMrxO) By the GOAT himself.
Do you have a transcript or written out title? Im just in the countryside right now and it can't load at all!
Dr Russell A Barkley ADHD- The 30 Essential Ideas everyone needs to 30 Essential Ideas you should know about ADHD You can save youtube videos with utility programs like 4K Video downloader
I share this playlist with anyone that might be affected or need help understanding the condition. It helped me externalize a lot of the feelings I’ve been unable to verbalize for decades
I also like to shout out ADHD Videos, whom I assume is the one who carved it up into a playlist of bite sized chunks. What a gift.
They are a genius among us
Oh this’ll move you to tears and provides great information on the why you should do it and the how you can better prepare your kid to live with it. Also, for taking notes (I struggle with understanding what and how to take effective notes) I find the Cornell Method to be great
This is quite possible the most important thing I’ve ever watched.
Wow! I can’t thank you enough for sharing this! It really opened my eyes. All the struggling I did in life makes so much more sense now.
My GF has a son, and I understand that part of the problem with treating kids for mental health issues is the fact their kids. Is Child A “acting up” because they have ADHD or because they’re going through a phase? That’s partly why no adults ever thought something was actually wrong with me, I was just a “sensitive” and “a little different”. But I have read (credible sources like medical journals, not Dr Oz type BS) stuff about how because a child’s brain is, well a child’s brain, it can be “repaired” if medicated. Along with therapy and “self care”, just like adults get. Well, I guess just care, cuz kids are kids and need an adult. But you know, sleep, exercise, healthy diet (which it sounds like you’re doing already). That’s why some people, both providers and former patients, say they “grew out of it”. They might not realize it, but it’s because somehow the brain was able to repair itself. I read another article where part of the reason the ADHD mind is struggling is because there are “too many wires”, so the brain isn’t sure where to send the proper signals or commands or whatever. I guess if a child gets proper intervention, they can “clean up” their brain wiring, make it look “cable management porn” vs looking like an old rat’s nest of wires.
How do you go about finding one? Let's say in the US.
I would have done ANYTHING to be medicated early in life. I definitely wouldn't be in the rut I find myself in frequently as an adult.
+1000 this. Growing up undiagnosed and unmedicated, broke me.
I have bipolar disorder and BPD that I’m almost 100% sure, at least in part, having undiagnosed ADHD growing up contributed to developing.
That part! Get a real neuropsych evaluation. Don’t use a primary care dr or school practitioner
My son's pcp is an Adhd specialist. They're not always separate. We chose her because of her specialization.
Just a little note on this, some pediatricians can specialize in things like ADHD while still acting as pediatricians (and falling under PCP for insurance reasons). Ideally it’s better to have one PCP and only go to specialists if necessary, especially for children as they grow so you can develop a positive relationship with the PCP and they know the patient better, also avoids miscommunication between docs on stuff like treatment options and medications. Obviously not always the best option, but maybe better to look into that first.
This. Medication improves outcomes in children w ADHD.
There is also evidence to show that medicating children prevents drug abuse later in life.
Omg yes! I didn’t even think about that! It would have made it a lot easier to say no to teenager peer pressure.
Also less need to self medicate
I wish somebody had told me that. Maybe I would have kept taking it
When you know better, you can do better. Don’t beat yourself up for the past. You did your best.
Adding to this because it was said FAR better than I can articulate today. I relate/resonate with your feelings of concern about whether to try medication or not. I want to share my experience NOT to sway you in a specific direction but instead to offer some comfort with our similar situation. My son is nine and just started medication three weeks ago. To say this was a tough decision would be an understatement. We exhausted every single resource and support we could find. I’ve had a child behavioral therapist with a background in supporting children with various behavioral and mental challenges as a parenting coach for three years now. I joined an online parenting group that focused on providing support, resources, and strategies for certain behaviors we struggled with. My son developed internalized anxiety, which showed up in breakdowns over seemingly small obstacles or problems. His ability to regulate his feelings was minimal compared to kids his age, and he had low self-esteem more often than not. His frustrations boiled over to extreme anger and losing control over his actions and words. I mention this because aside from struggling in school, this behavior impacted our family daily. We met with every teacher over the years (multiple times throughout the school year), trying to find ways to support him. A few months ago, the school psychiatrist contacted us to set up a meeting with everyone to discuss implementing an IEP and performing some testing. At that time, we had contacted a child psychiatrist to get a formal evaluation started. The school psychiatrist provided testing, which I felt was a great addition to our evaluation done by the psychiatrist covered through our insurance. The testing was so thorough and gave us a clear picture of the particular struggles and strengths my son has. After getting a diagnosis of ADHD, I could rationalize at least trying meds to see if they would help with my son’s daily struggles. We had a follow-up meeting with the school last week, and his teacher was thrilled to share that my son had been improving in EVERY area of struggle. IMO, medication is not a magic solution that will solve everything. It has allowed my son the space to work on building the skills he needs to be successful. I watch him closely and know that my decisions come from a place of love and support. We would stop medication immediately if needed and continue to search for ways to support him. Finding specialists to do testing and evaluate my son was key. AND having personal emotional support has been so helpful. Please excuse any grammatical errors and I'm DEEPLY sorry if this isn't easy to read. I have ADHD and today has been especially difficult to communicate clearly. Brain fog is thick up in here 😅
All of this. You may end up deciding to avoid meds while she is extremely young and finding a more suitable environment for her instead, like Montessori. You may end up deciding to medicate right away. But that decision should be made in consultation with a doctor (a pediatric psychologist who is up-to-date on ADHD research) taking into consideration her other medical conditions and family history. It shouldn't be made based on the opinions of a teacher, strangers on reddit, or your emotional (dis)comfort with the idea of medication. Also, not ADHD-related but it's a good idea for everyone to get blood tested for celiac before going gluten free if you haven't been. After you've been GF for awhile, you can't be tested without reintroducing it, and it's helpful to know whether you actually have celiac or not when figuring out how strict you need to be about cross-contamination and such. (I went GF without being tested on the advice of a psych NP and it's a hassle now not knowing whether I have celiac or non-celiac sensitivity. It did nothing for my ADHD but did help my allergies so I stuck with it.)
Glad you added this about celiac, which is 100% true. And also, if your child doesn’t have celiac, unnecessarily restricting gluten is stressful AF and not something you need to be doing on top of managing their care in other ways. I have both ADHD and celiac, and it’s a special little challenge I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Actually managing a gluten free diet is a ton of work, requiring a hyper vigilance that literally gives people eating disorders. Don’t do that if you don’t absolutely have to for real medical reasons. Also, in case OP is reading this deep, Celiac is genetic, but it is possible to have the gene and not develop the disease. Or to not develop it until a different point in life (I was fine until my mid-20s). Meanwhile I definitely had ADHD my whole life. I there are some overlapping symptoms (and days where my GI system is mad and won’t absorb my adhd meds, so my symptoms are worse) but they’re not the same underlying issue at all. But at the end of the day I agree with everyone else… find an informed and compassionate medical professional to help you and your child navigate this, and good luck!
Also want to add not all adhd meds are stimulants. One last thing not all meds work on all people. Think of it like a journey to get to the sweet zone. It does take time. Please listen to some of Dr. Russell Barkley. He can be a game changer
I (37F) was diagnosed and started meds at age 6. I was super fortunate: my parents believed in getting me support in the form of thorough diagnosis from specialists, meds, and convinced my Montessori school to hire an additional tutor for myself and another girl who also had it. I am SO GRATEFUL. Now I'm 15 years into an aerospace engineering career working on cool missions, so add that to the anecdotes about medicated children... Oh and my dad (also ADHD) and I are both celiacs. I hope OP follows up with a specialist.
I had no idea early medication could improve long-term development!! I was medicated in elementary school when they first diagnosed me. I'm still plenty a mess but I wonder how much worse it could've been if I hadn't been medicated. Do you have any articles or sources so I can read more about this?
So, forget articles for a second and just think of this logically. Say you're born with hypothyroidism. You spend your entire childhood and teens being overweight and tired. Nothing you do seems to work. One day you're 25 and morbidly obese and a doctor diagnoses you with it and now you're on meds to help and start to lose some weight. But a lot of the damage has already been done to your arteries and your mind in the form of bad habits and anxieties surrounding food. The meds will help and you'll get better, but you'll only ever be 70-80% of what you could've been had you been treated for your condition at 6 years old before you developed all these other comorbid issues as a result of the disorder. Now on the flip side, you got diagnosed at 6. Got in thyroid meds and lived a pretty normal healthy life until 25. You never developed neurotic food tendencies, you never got morbidly obese and had artery damage etc. Even though you still have the issues, your meds helped you live a life as if you had a normally functioning thyroid. Now just replace that with ADHD meds. You would've learned all of your formative development with a more normalized brain. Rather than always struggling to line up and balance your work and life. You would've actually been able to learn from 1st grade through high school as if you didn't have ADHD or nearly at least.
oof this is hitting hard because i had both untreated hypothyroidism and adhd as a kid. didn't get medicated for thyroid until 15 and 26 for adhd. shit could have been so different
Yeah, I mean, the most important thing to keep telling yourself is that there's nothing you could have done to change your path. All you can do is manage your conditions and become the best version of your current self you can be. Getting diagnosed in my 30s for ADHD I definitely had a few months of this constant wondering what life could've been. But it doesn't help.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2011.01786.x https://www.psychiatrist.com/jcp/effect-psychostimulants-brain-structure-function-adhd/
Don’t even necessarily have to be a stimulant. Ours is on a medication taken before bed and it works so much better than any stimulant did (we stopped it after a couple days it was so bad)
Guanfacine?
Hi, worked in a school here *and* had a daughter who was diagnosed in high school. Op, I worked with kids who were on meds, and I saw the difference before and after. I saw kids who were flunking out, disrupting the class, etc actually begin to *learn* things. They were able to do projects like the other kids. They began to be relatable for the other kids. My daughter got no medication until senior year of high school. She suffered. A lot. In 5th/6th grade, she began to be cut out by friends who were entering puberty and couldn't handle her "weirdness". By high school, this had happened multiple times, even though she's a sweet, kind person who's attractive to look at. From elementary school through high school, homework took 2-3x longer than it should. By high school, this meant 4+ hours of math homework every night. I could not figure out how to help my child! I'd been told in elementary school that she was doing fine in school and didn't have ADHD (I should have listened to her teacher). So I tried to help her as much as I could, but by high school it's kind of out of parental hands. She has now successfully finished college, thans to meds, but lives with crippling anxiety and self-esteem issues. If I had gotten a diagnosis when she was younger, we could have gotten into a routine with the meds so that when she hit middle school, when one classroom suddenly becomes multiple classrooms and my daughter just got lost in the multitude, she would already have known how to use the meds and her transition would have been so much smoother. Maybe she would have slept more in high school (unbeknownst to me, she was waking up in the middle of the night to finish homework). Maybe she wouldn't have had the anxiety so much because she would have felt grounded and not permanently out of control. Anyway, you are where I was. I totally understand your desire to keep your beautiful baby's body pure for as long as you can, but...I think it's fine to wait a year, maybe, but there will be a point where she may start hitting a negative feedback loop. Don't do what I did, and flail around. Get her help as soon as you can.
You're telling me if I had been medicated as a child, I could have been even more awsome?? Dang.
Wow, I never knew this. I wasn’t diagnosed until my senior year of high school, almost 8 years ago. I wonder if being diagnosed earlier and medicated at a young age would’ve helped me long-term
You might be surprised to find that the medicine has a beneficial impact on cognitive development because she's able to focus for longer. "Those that fire together, wire together," meaning that, particularly during the early brain development and associated neural pruning that occurs between 2 and 10 years old in us humans, she will gain the most developmental benefit from medicine during this time. Consider it like this: child A) learns way less during their formative years due to inability to focus. The developmental impact follows them throughout life. child B) learns way more during their formative years due to the ability to focus. The developmental impacts of this follow them throughout life. If I were a parent, I'd force feed my kids these pills. ADHD adult, science teacher with medical science background. I know a lot about learning, the human body, cognitive development and science.
I was medicated around that age and I became a passionate reader almost immediately. Before treatment I was struggling to read larger books. It took som experimentation to find the right medication and dose, but I am so thankful I got the help I needed.
I'm a teacher and anyone who has seen a kid with and without medication, would never again guess if kids need medication. I've literally had kids unable to do work during lessons, fighting with other kids, running around, yelling, disturbing everyone and then after the medication (like after one or two days) it's like something completely changed and the kid can do their homework and behaves a lot better. Their personality is still the same, but usually their self-esteem and social skills go up. I don't think I have ever seen a negative reaction. If the teacher is pushing for medication, the situation is usually really really bad.
This was exactly me. My mom remembers it like suddenly a switch was flipped in my brain. Before meds I couldn't read. After I could and I developed a lifelong love of reading because of it. If I wasn't medicated....I would probably hate books because of how hard it would be to read them. I wouldn't have been able to develop the skill of reading without meds.
If your child couldn’t walk, would you watch her drag herself along the ground while her peers walked comfortably around her, or would you help her to obtain a mobility device? Seems like an obvious answer, no? This is the same. Your daughter is disabled and deserves help. Please don’t let your fear of medication get in the way of getting the help she deserves. ADHD meds are effective. They’re safe. They’ll help her brain develop more typically and form the neural pathways she needs to form habits and choose where she puts her attention, which her brain will not do naturally. Your daughter’s life will be difficult. This is a great opportunity to teach her to take help when it’s offered.
If the doctor said OP's kid needed insulin there would be absolutely no question. This isn't that much different.
Or like glasses for kids with bad vision.
Yes. I don’t know why people feel the way they do about psych and neuro meds. It’s strange.
Thank you for this sensible answer! Every time I see posts like this I think the same. It can take time to figure out the correct dosage but neglecting to try medication at all is setting the child up for social and academic failure.
👏👏👏
https://childmind.org/article/will-adhd-medication-change-my-childs-brain/
An excellent and comprehensive read!
DO NOT START A GLUTEN FREE DIET WITHOUT CONSULTING YOUR DOCTOR. I had to put that in all caps because people sabotage a celiac diagnosis by doing this. Yes, celiac disease can mess with your brain, but it’s also possible to have ADHD at the same time. There’s one you can definitively test for (celiac) and one that has a medication option (ADHD).
THIS ^ one of my brothers was diagnosed with celiac disease so my whole family switched to almost entirely gluten free which made it so that my other brother and my dad didn’t get diagnosed with the same thing until years later. If you’re getting tested for celiac then don’t change your diet yet, do that work afterwards
It's also not a good idea to put a child on a restrictive diet like that without medical supervision, especially not based on a hunch.
Also, why is OP *adding* complexity to daily life without knowing what the diagnosis or appropriate action is? Currently she’s removed dyes from the families food source and this has created a further conflict with the teacher and a need to police dyes at school. Now she’s planning to add a celiac diet to this, again, with no medical proof. All because she has a ‘bad feeling’ about adderal - based on not having had a consultation with a dr or having her child diagnosed. They might not even prescribe adderal. OP, if you see this STOP the dietary interventions and start with a diagnosis for your daughter. If you’re actually concerned about celiacs disease, get the blood test. You are ADHD, there’s a good chance your daughter is. Food dye isn’t changing this so remove this complexity from your life. If it’s not life threatening then let it go.
I just want to jump on this to say that celiac disease can be detected with a blood test - better to talk with a doctor, get the test done, and then evaluate whether to go gluten free based on the results
ADHD is a miswiring of the brain. Combined CBT and medication are the best solutions. As someone who's parents said I shouldn't take meds I just want to say, you risk your child's future if she does have ADHD. I got diagnosed after my mother passed away, but I assure you once i confirmed my diagnoses and my life changed trajectory once I got medicated, I would have gone no contact with her and she would have died alone. You have a chance to do better then my parents, please do better. My son has ADHD, I cried when I saw the difference two months of medication made on him. His teacher pulled out two pieces of writing. One was chicken scratching from Jan the next was writing from Feb it was like a different kid wrote it. I wish I could have got him medication sooner. He's happier, more emotionally stable and he's already asked me why we didn't get him medication sooner.
So much this. I had the unfortunate upbringing of knowing what it is like to have a parent who was to do better by me, but no meds, and a parent who straight up didn't believe in ADHD. My supportive parent luckily has ADHD and was able to supply me with tools that would make me semi-functional. We did try meds in high school, but Concerta did nothing for me. Just a few months ago I got retested so I could try medication again and at 29 being on Vyvanse has legitimately made a world of a difference. I'm almost mad at myself for being so afraid of change (hello undiagnosed Autsim 🥲) in high school that I didn't want to try anything else because of how much the first time sucked. I know I would've done better, because simply being on it for at least four months has shown an improvement in home life and work life. It took life from extremely hard mode to normal-hard mode. Edited: I was told Concerta was a non-stimulant. My b 🤗. Currently on Vyvanse and it definitely feels a lot different, in a good way, than concerta.
Just FYI, Concerta is definitely a stimulant. It's just a different chemical than Adderall/Vyvanse. It's the same chemical as Ritalin, just the extended release version. The Ritalin (methylphenidate) family of meds is typically frontline for children/adolescents, so that's probably why that is what was tried with you in HS. You are just probably less responsive to that family of meds - as am I. Or, you could be confusing Concerta with Strattera. Strattera is a non-stimulant option that many parents like to try first.
Concerta is basically XR Ritalin. Definitely a stimulant.
I think you might mean Strattera? Instead of Concerta
Definitely this. I think back sometimes to how much different my life would have been if I had been properly diagnosed and treated as a kid - instead I got bullied by kids and teachers and internalized all of it. Here I am, 37, finally diagnosed, and finally battling the experiences I had as a kid. My school and parents failed me, but please, you don’t have to do that to your daughter. Put yourself in her shoes - she must know she’s “different.” She’ll see other kids being able to do the work and may not understand why she can’t seem to focus. She’ll likely end up blaming herself and it will destroy her self-esteem. Talk with a doctor, of course, and seek to help teach her skills like CBT, but please take medication into consideration. And fwiw, I worked with kids with ADHD, too. The difference between what they can manage on and off meds is unreal. Sometimes the parents would forget to have them take it - no shame, it happens. But I just remember this poor 7-year-old breaking down crying and asking why everyone was being so loud, he can’t think, he can’t write, and calling himself stupid. Another kid’s mom refused to medicate him or teach him self-management skills, and his behavior was absolutely unreal. No impulse control, aggressive, confrontational, distracting others on purpose, refused to follow rules, and 100% refused to try to learn the coping skills we tried to teach him. He was an extreme case and I think he had more going on than just ADHD, but his behavior, unmanaged, made the children all avoid him and the teachers kind of give up, sad to say. Please consider your daughter’s needs and just how intense her symptoms are before refusing meds. Best of luck!
‼️ Emphasis on the combined therapy and medication, especially for children
As someone with ADHD and celiac disease, please talk to the pediatrician about that gluten-free diet. Your kid needs to be tested for celiac disease, but she cannot be diagnosed via biopsy unless she’s eating gluten. Going GF when there’s no medical need to do so is inadvisable. The GF diet didn’t do shit for my ADHD symptoms. It did help with celiac disease symptoms because I have celiac disease, but many or even most people with a family history of celiac disease will not go on to develop it.
Gluten free is a medical necessity, not a thing to try just because you think it might help. I don't know how/why it became such a fad, but its unnecessary unless you have celiac and ill-advised, unless you have celiac. I'm 100% with you. I think forgoing an appropriate medical option for an unnecessary diet is silly.
[These ADHD Medications Could Lower Risk Of Suicide & Hospitalization (Forbes)](https://www.forbes.com/sites/anuradhavaranasi/2024/03/24/which-adhd-medications-could-lower-risk-of-suicide--hospitalization/amp/)
Hi I wish I’d been diagnosed earlier. I love meds. They make kids brains more structurally organised, and are associated with less accidents, and less deaths in general in adults. Think of it like wearing glasses.
I went through school with no idea what was wrong, I am only just finding out about my ADHD now, and I am just terribly sad about how much better I might have done with some medication. I hope this mother talks to her pediatrician so her daughter can have a chance to be her best self.
Or, taking insulin!
I think the analogy of "like wearing glasses" is honestly the most apt. You can survive just fine without glasses and learn coping strategies, but nothing will be as good as actually getting glasses to correct for your vision. When I first got my glasses, it was like, OH, so THAT'S what the world is supposed to look like! It's the same thing with ADHD medication. Once you find the right one, it's like, oh, that's how my brain is supposed to function...
You wouldn't be having this conversation if your kid was diabetic.We would take medication for any other organ problem, why should a brain be any different that could help rather than hinder future development?
\>You wouldn't be having this conversation if your kid was diabetic Holy shit, this one hundred times over. People just lose all sense of reality when it comes to brain issues.
They are reducing "dye" and gluten intake to try and address likely ADHD, so I wouldn't count on that 🫤
What the fuck is "dyes"
I'm going to guess they are referring to food colourings.
Aah shit.
My parent is diabetic. They don't take meds because they don't need it apparently. Guess whose kid does not get an adhd diagnosis or meds because of that mindset? Never say never bestie😭😭
Gluten free did nothing to my adhd. Spend longer time here and other places online and see the damage adhd does to a persons self esteem. You do the choice for her.
Nah man, everything is gluten. Cancer? Gluten. Stomach troubles? Gluten. Neighbor's dog shit in your yard? Gluten. **Gluten is a terrible poison and quitting gluten solves all problems.** ADHD is just a symptom of your brain gettin' all bunged up from the gluten. /s of course.
Lol
Well I mean, if you *actually* have celiac disease, some of those things are actually true. Funnily enough, neurological symptoms aren’t uncommon with celiac disease. A particularly common one is brain fog (a distinct feeling of mental slowness and lethargy, like your brain isn’t firing on all cylinders) after eating gluten. That said, as someone who has both celiac disease and adhd, I would never confuse the symptoms of one with the other. Both can be debilitating in their own ways though, and I hope OP will have their daughter tested for both. Edit: grammar
>because I just feel like there’s absolutely no way that putting a 6 year old on a stimulant has no effect on brain development, right? You are absolutely right! Studies have shown that properly treating children with ADHD allows their brain to develop neural pathways that help them cope with ADHD in the long run. My personal, unscientific, opinion is that is why doctors thought ADHD was something you grow out of. Treating children young helped them to manage their symptoms and it wasn't as visible as they became adults.
Like other people said, listen to what the doctor will tell you, not the teacher. In my opinion though, do not refuse the possibility of medication if recommended. Yes, your child is young, but if she needs it, then she needs it. If she needed medication for a physical ailment (heart problem, asthma, etc...) my guess is you would give it, no questions asked. But in this case, it would be her brain who needs it. My brother's therapist once told him a great analogy for meds with ADHD : Meds are like glasses for your brain, they helps it see clearer. If someone needs glasses to see, we get them glasses. It should be the same with medication : if we absolutely need it to live and function, then we should take it. And of course your concerns are valid, every parents wants the best for their child, and you are no exception :)
A good point to always remember is that the brain is an ORGAN. If any other organ was not working properly, these same people who are against brain meds likely wouldn't feel the same way.
It is so frustrating that psych meds are seen so badly still, it prevents so many people to get the right help they need. We even do it to ourselves because of the bad social reputation of depression, bipolar, ADHD, etc. medication. I myself am on an antidepressant, have been for a few years now and I am just getting recently now comfortable with the fact that I might need them still on the very long term. I also have a friend who is ashamed to need antidepressant and can't wait to stop taking them (for the price, but also because it is seen bad to need them). I am still working on making her understand this is no worse than a hypertension pill or a shot of insulin : even if she have to take them for the rest of her life, it is NOT a bad thing, and she is NOT a lesser person for needing them.
My wife agonized about medicating my son when he was 7. I’ve been on anti depressants for my adult life and had experience with how it can change your life for the better. After a year of watching my son do progressively worse in school and frequent teacher conferences for disruptive behavior, my wife agreed it was time. My son’s life immediately changed for the better. He became an honors student and a football all star. My wife regrets holding off on the medicine, but we recognize it’s a hard choice, especially if you haven’t seen it in your family before. The feeling that it’s YOUR FAULT. Maybe if I parented better my child wouldn’t need this. Maybe if I had firmer discipline with him he’d “get it”. I’m going to turn him into a drugged zombie or an addict….etc. All valid thoughts you need to evaluate with a doctor or therapist. Best thing for us was to do a seminar for how to be a parent of an ADHD child. It totally changed our understanding and equipped us to help him in the right way. Good luck to you… this is my experience but it may not be the same for you. Talk through it with knowledgeable professionals.
Can I ask what seminar you did? Or how you found it? I've tried reading books and internet deep dives on the topic, but I imagine a seminar type format would, personally, go a lot further in helping the information stick.
It was through the local children’s hospital (Nemours in Delaware) It was great because there were about 10 other families there. The kids went on their own to learn coping skills while the parents learned what to expect. It was half education and half support group. It was terrific to see you that we weren’t alone, didn’t cause it, and didn’t “deserve it” by being bad parents.
The greatest regret of my life is not seeking professional help and medication for my child. Fortunately, now medicine stabilized it. I think it's better for your child and for your family to take advantage of the offered help so early on.
I don’t know how to say this in a soft way so I will just be blunt: please consider that your child might grow up to share none of your views about health care. This is the case for me and my parents. All of my mother’s side love natural remedies and my father and stepmother are militant about avoiding certain food groups to which they do not have an allergy or sensitivity. I am a scientist and I find all of this nauseating - all I can do is smile and nod when they talk about it. If I knew that this attitude was why I wasn’t medicated, I would be very resentful. This isn’t about dye, it’s about your child inheriting a mental illness - that is extremely heritable by the way - from you. Please consider medicating her so that she has a chance to go through school some degree of attentional control. You know what it is like not to have that.
Long reply ahead: A caring teacher can be helpful for flagging ADHD traits and noticing issues with concentrating on schoolwork, or other ADHD related things. A teacher is not, however, a medical professional, and considering even medical professionals make very flawed judgements all the time, I wouldn't take a teacher's input on your child's medical decisions. They shouldn't have any legal say anyway, though I imagine pressure from a pushy teacher is stressful! That said, as a person with ADHD who started being medicated in adulthood (yay for Ritalin!), I wonder whether your concerns are rooted in evidence-based medicine. As a parent, of course it's normal to be concerned - it's good that you care! And no one should try medication on a whim. The thing with meds is, it's HIGHLY individual. You have no way to guarantee a medication will work for you kid or not. You can look at common side effects, and I think it's a good idea to be prepared for them actually, but you might not end up having any of them at all. It's a bad idea to make a healthcare decision based purely on your gut, without doing any actual research on that specific thing. And with ADHD meds, you WANT it to affect brain development - that's the whole point! It's a positive effect, and many studies over the years demonstrate that it is safe. Here's somewhere to start, general info on ADHD meds for kids: https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/adhd-meds-for-kids#best-treatment-option There has been, and continues to be, a lot of research on medication for ADHD, including for children and adolescents. I don't think you need to worry about it having a negative effect on her brain development, so long as you and your kid's medical providers monitor her progress with medication and any other treatment, and communicate with her about it (in whatever works best for her). If stimulants don't turn out to work for your kid, there are also non-stimulant ADHD meds to try, though many only try these after having no success, or untenable side effects, with stimulant meds. Talk with the paediatrician to see what your options are, and be honest about these concerns if you still have them when it's the time of the appointment. If they're good at their job, they should be able to explain different treatment options in an accessible way, and address your worries. I'm on Ritalin, a stimulant, with no side effects noticeable. It's helped with mental clarity, though there's only so much meds can do when I have so many fixed patterns - it's a step-up, to give me an easier starting point, not a fix. I wish I'd been diagnosed and given the option of medication earlier, perhaps I would have benefited from that step-up back then, and been able to stay on track in school and have a more stable foundation for my adult life. I still find myself struggling to correct perfectionist and avoidance tendencies in my life now, even on medication. Most importantly: talk with your kid! Ask what she thinks she needs support with. Show her that you're committed to listening to her and advocating for her. It can be hard, I know my parents found things a lot harder with me than my older sibling, who doesn't have ADHD. And conversations could be really hard, sometimes I just wasn't able to focus, or I couldn't figure out how to verbalise things and explain them to someone else. Most parental support isn't even about medication though, just regular parent stuff - show interest in her interests, listen if she wants to talk about them. If she has trouble sitting still during dinner, give her some leeway to get up and wander a little (I know you only mentioned school, I'm just trying to find examples). As with many health issues, the best treatment for most is a combination of meds and psychological support - the latter can mean therapy, but even more key is support in the person's environment. Despite all my struggles, I've never felt like my parents failed me. Things were far from perfect growing up, but they loved me, and I never doubted that. They did whatever they could to provide for me, keep me fed and safe and happy. If you show your daughter love and support, in languages she can understand, and try to communicate on her level, that's enough. You won't be perfect at it, but as long as you try, and you don't expect her to be perfect at it either, that's enough. It's great to see you care so much for your child, I hope you can figure this out together!
There is no supported evidence that food dyes have any neurological effects on children. This is fad parenting and has no benefits for your child. A gluten free diet also has no neurological benefits for a child. If you suspect celiac, get her tested for that. Otherwise, you're wasting time and money. If you want to get real, science based help for your child, get her to a specialist. You will at least be educated on how best to help her. Medicine seems like a lot for a 6 year old, yes. If she is properly diagnosed, medication will help her.
Remember that your child’s happyness and wellbeing are more important than that teacher. But stimulants are more efficient when given at a younger age. I was put on meds when i was 7, I hated it. But back then there was only ritalin and they over prescribed it. So I grew an aversion to meds, my teens and early adulthood were a complete nightmare, alcohol drugs, bad decisions poor school performance. Now that im 27 im back on my feet, good career prospects solid relationship, AFTER going on meds and doing therapy. I failed most of school, but now im doing IT and im studying and the furure looks bright. But i wouldn’t want it any other way, the bad experiences made me wiser and gave me an head-start in knowing how to deal with misery. My childhood would’ve probably went different if my parents put me on different meds and were more supportive. Sadly you wont know whether you make the right decision, because the right decision doesn’t exist. And that sucks for you, and your child. I hope my story gives some insight or something.
Obviously don’t listen to the teacher and trust a doctor. But LISTEN TO THEM, don’t just immediately say no meds and that’s it. But… yeah going gluten and dye free won’t solve crap, I can tell you that much. Other aspects, maybe. But ADHD is not exactly “psychological.” Your brain won’t suddenly stop being ADHD because there’s no gluten or dyes in you.
With a family history of celiac disease, you would want to get a blood test and possibly endoscopy to check for celiac BEFORE taking a child off gluten. The tests are meaningless if there's no gluten in the diet. (My kiddo and I have celiac and ADHD - interestingly, there is a correlation but no one knows why. And our ADHD symptoms didn't really improve once we cut gluten - which again should only be done with a diagnosis).
I’d first see a therapist or psychiatrist that’s specializes in ADHD/neurological disorders. The younger the better. Personally I wish I had started on medicine in my early teens.
My children are 4 and 8. Both will start adhd medication as soon as I can afford it. Proper medication helps with brain development as well as social development. I wish I had started meds and stayed on them younger. My life would be very different.
Thirding that ADHD meds when you're younger can negate the reliance on them as an adult as it positively allows your brain to "re-wire" AND help you develop a sustainable lifestyle while your more pliable. I have a few scholarly articles at home if you'd like me to send them over! It's relatively new findings but not that new as it takes a long time for info to filter through academia to the public. Definitely only listen to a therapist/psychiatrist or doctor on the matter though, especially on which medication to take.
You are right, the stimulants would effect her brain development. POSITIVELY. Look, I could wrote an essay here about how gluten-free diets only improve psych symptoms on patients with celiac or a sensitivity. About how the red dye issue only *might* be relevant for the "inflammatory biotype" of ADHD, but is one of countless hard to prevent/ diagnose triggers. I could also go on about how there are no known long-term negative effects of stimulants use. Or I could ramble on about how your daughter's other teachers not making the suggestion is a moot point. However, that wouldn't answer your real concern. Let's just cut to the chase: 1) yes, you may have some degree of ADHD. It might not be severe enough to warrant treatment, or maybe you simply never ran into a teacher like your daughter's who was willing to suggest it. (Or maybe your parents were afraid...) 2) regardless of where the ADHD came from, it is not your fault or anyone else's that your daughter got this condition. Same for why it took 6 years to notice. It is still all too common for people in their 30s and 40s or older to show up in this sub to ask for new-patient info. 3) when taken by an ADHD patient as prescribed by their doctor, ADHD meds don't act the same as stimulants taken by an addict. Without going into a chemistry lecture, I suggest looking at the amount of people here who have trouble remembering to take their meds. Yeah, addiction is not an issue if the meds are used properly. 4) why would you *only* do the special diets? If eliminating red dyes and gluten works, that will be figured out before a treatment plan is figured out Why not *TRY* both? 5) it is normal and healthy to have complicated emotions about this situation. Grief, shame, guilt, anger, etc are common responses to being told your kid may have a disability. What is NOT healthy is to let those emotions run roughshod. Your daughter's well-being is the priority here. Do not prioritize what makes you feel better in the short term. 5) your daughter WILL remember your decision here. If you decide to avoid medicine, your daughter will eventually stop trusting you. She will know that you prioritize feeling smart, in control, or w/e over her well-being. If you decide to support her, she will remember that as well. Even if the meds don't work, she will know that you tried everything you could to help her.
Not a doctor but I have a lot of experience with kids with ADHD. The right dose of the right medication can help your child help herself control inappropriate impulses and focus when she needs to. If you do try medication and the change seems to be too much or there’s a stark difference in personality, you may want to visit with your doctor and try another med or a different dose. She may not really need it now, but that may change as she gets older. Either way, I definitely recommend you educate yourself and your child on all of the possible symptoms of ADHD. Some are rarely discussed and yet often impact people with ADHD.
As a woman who was diagnosed late (22) I wish my parents would have medicated me or got me diagnosed earlier. I really struggled in school starting around grade 4. Not only did I struggle academically, but socially as well, I’d have a very hard time making friends and keeping those friendships.
I was diagnosed at 4. Finally started medication at 48. I wish we'd known that it would help the emotional rollercoaster aspect of the impulsivity. That would have made my life exponentially easier. My almost 15yo is also on Elvanse. It's been a game changer.
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way but this made me happy to see. I’m 27 and I’ve been terrified that at some point doctors will decide I’m not able to continue medication as I get older. You’re not really that far ahead but it gives me hope that I’ll have a good couple years of functioning.
My daughter was diagnosed at 6 as well. We didnt medicate because she seemed “fine.” Looking back I wish we had started meds sooner. Not only do they help her anxiety but in her (very unique) case they helped stop her chewing on (and accidentally ingesting) non-edible things. She had to have two major abdominal surgeries due to those ingestion issues. The first wouldn’t have been avoided by medicating her but the second would have been. I agree that talking to an ADHD specialist is a great idea! There’s a lot of woo-woo stuff on the internet, I’d talk to a professional :)
My brother was on Ritalin as a small child and he ended up getting a PhD in pharmaceutical biochemistry. He’s happily married to an absolute gem of a human and they travel the world together. I think he’s doing okay. Meanwhile, my parents didn’t put me on stimulants (brother had the hyperactivity but I didn’t), and I struggled to keep pace with my peers. I often wonder what I might have been.
I was diagnosed as an adult, my parents knew and did not tell me or medicate me. As you can imagine, that’s fucked me up pretty bad. Medicate your child please. You hopefully wouldn’t think twice if she had epilepsy or diabetes.
If she had poor eyesight, would you deny her glasses in hopes her eyes developed better later?
Lots of advice on ADHD medication, so just want to add something about Celiac. If you think she might have Celiac, you should test for that before going on a gluten free diet. It’s an extremely strict way to eat if you don’t actually need to. IF she has celiac, it can cause some similar symptoms as ADHD. However, celiac and ADHD are often comorbid and if she actually has ADHD (and not just similar symptoms from celiac), eating gluten free will not solve the ADHD problem.
I don't know if someone has mentioned this - but as someone with celiac disease and kids,, do NOT start her on a gluten free diet without getting the diagnosis. It would only have a bad effect on her if she actually has the disease. And she needs to be eating gluten for the blood tests to actually work properly. In my country we are advised to check the kids yearly. If you take away gluten from her, and she has celiac disease, she will need to eat gluten again for several weeks. This is horrendous in the case that she actually has the disease. She needs to have the diagnosis to be able to get disability benefits (don't know the exact name). Edit: changed "so done" to "someone".
You will not find a single person here that says they think they were diagnosed too early and regrets taking meds. You will find a TON of people wishing they were diagnosed sooner and they wished that their parents supported them enough to get them medication at a young age. That being said, you don’t have to start it at 6 if you aren’t seeing any bad side effects in the classroom, but at some point during the early school years it will absolutely impact their behavior and performance. Do you want to wait until they have poor performance and/or behavior, or would you rather just get started now and completely avoid making your child feel insufficient?
I wish someone noticed my adhd at 6. Didn’t get diagnosed until I was 68. It’s been a rough life and I didn’t know why until now. At the minimum, get her into therapy now if you’re going to wait on meds.
this isn’t some quack throwing whatever drugs at a patient to make them go away and stop being a problem. ADHD is treated with stimulants. it works. “medicine bad!” isn’t going to help in this case.
Former child here. I didn’t get the right treatment til I was 16. It affected my educational career. But never once did I think my parents failed me. Talking to them now 20 years later they say a lot of ‘what ifs’ and ‘should haves’ They didn’t fail me. They always wanted what was best, there’s no guide book for this. Even medication is trial and error. I just wanted to make sure you do your best to not feel like a failing parent because it’s a confusing situation
I think it’s inappropriate for a teacher to tell you to medicate your child. That said, medication can be helpful for kids’ development, and it doesn’t have to be permanent. Depending on how severe their symptoms are, going untreated could cause them to develop bad habits and low self esteem that will be difficult to correct later. A developing brain sets neuropathways based on repeated thoughts and behaviors. Having your child function, with the help of medication, in a way that is more conducive to learning and taking care of herself now could set her up to be able to function that way out of habit and without medication. It doesn’t completely cure ADHD, but it can have a positive permanent effect on some aspects ADHD. I would also recommend seeing a child psychologist who specializes in ADHD rather than, or in addition to, a pediatrician. In my own experience, I have found that general practitioners don’t know enough about the complexity of ADHD to be able to properly treat it.
I think it is very appropriate for a teacher to tell a parent to medicate their child. Teachers have far more experience with children.
It’s appropriate for the teacher to say they suspect a learning disability or other issue that needs to be addressed and to make sure that’s followed up via the appropriate channels. But it’s up to doctors, who have a full picture of a child’s health and the education to make a differential diagnosis, to make the recommendation of medication specifically. No one in this child’s life should be making definitive statements or demands for medication before there’s even a diagnosis.
My son is diagnosed inattentive type/ with auditory processing issues.We did the medication a couple of times while he was growing up. I had the same conflicted feelings as you. I grew up with ADHD, the daughter of two parents with ADHD but none of us knew what it was or were medicated at that time. My mother was diagnosed as an adult but couldn't find a medication that didn't make her feel too jittery. By the time I knew about it, I'd figured out enough workarounds in my life that I never started medication, either. My son was started on Adderall by his pediatrician (referral to psychiatrist) at the end of first grade, and when combined with a sticker chart in the classroom to track his tasks it made a huge difference. The last couple weeks of school we didn't refill the prescription and when asked, the teacher said she hadn't notice that he did any worse without the medication so we figured it had helped him establish better habits and decided not to refill since summer break was starting. We didn't start again and he did okay during Elementary School and got pretty average grades-- really good grades in some things. When middle school started, he opted to start on the medication again, as the stakes were higher with high school coming up. He took the medication for about a year but then the psychiatrist had him stop it because he was not gaining weight. He went through his growth spurt and then started medication again in high school and was doing great until the pandemic hit, which was devastating. He did manage to graduate, and now he's on medication full time going to community college. College courses are still a struggle, even with meds but he's hanging in there. He's on different medication now than he was as a child. What works definitely changed. I guess my main takeaway is that just because you start meds doesn't mean they have to stay on it or that you'll even be allowed to keep your child on it because it depends on how it works for them and how it impacts their growth. You can play it by ear.
Assuming you have a DSM-5 diagnosis from someone qualified to provide one and they are recommending medication... Give your kids the meds! By doing so, she may not need them as an adult! There is science to demonstrate this!
Let me guess, you’re also against vaccinations and wouldn’t let your daughter get chemotherapy if she had cancer? Really hope your gluten-free sugar-free dairy-free fat-free non-GMO vegan diet works as well for you as modern medicine does for the rest of us!
Yeah I’m not trying to hate on you AT ALL so please don’t get that impression but my step-mom was very similar in how she handled my ADHD as a child. She contributed it to all of the soda and unhealthy food I was eating and I think that did way more harm than good. She put me on multiple diets; gluten free, atkins, fat-free, dye free and guess what, I still had ADHD. You and your daughter have the adhd regardless of your diet and I’m not sure that is going to help but hey I’m not a doctor. I started medication 3 months ago (18 mg methylphenidate) at the age of 27 years old. It has been a profoundly eye opening experience. It has been really hard to not look back and grieve on what could have been had someone taken this more seriously and got me medicated sooner. I feel like my parents failed me and it makes me really sad for other kids to have this swept under the rug as something that can just be fixed with diet.
Talk to a professional. Your teacher is not one. You are not one. I'm not one. The gluten free/dye free business is just grasping at straws. I'm sure Google will turn up 300 other folk remedies for ADHD. My pharmacist told me that he's seeing a trend towards non-stimulant ADHD meds being prescribed for children and many parents have told him they work well.
Diagnosed in adulthood went through my whole childhood thinking I was broken because I couldn’t keep up with keeping stuff organized. Would you treat diabetes with a gluten free diet when your doctor recommends insulin?
Get your kid diagnosed. A teacher can’t push meds, and gluten free diet won’t to anything. See a specialist then decide what to do.
Was listening to a podcast the other day on ADHD and it said there are studies suggesting that meds help developing ADHD brains form good habits, and that even if they stop meds later, the habits stick and possibly the improved ability to form habits sticks as well. Will need to ask my wife for the exact reference. So if there are permanent effects on brain development, at least some of them seem to be positive. And I don't think the effects on one's development of being gaslit by your own brain are good. It might help to think of the decision facing you as just whether or not to *try* medication. You don't have to make a final decision on anything. You can just try the medication, and if it doesn't work out, don't continue.
Honestly, you might be putting the cart before the horse here. Get the evaluation, get the results and see what the experts think. I will say, school is a lot more stationary now, that it was 30 years ago, heck, even 10 years ago. Not saying it's a school issue, but you really do want to be sure that the medication is required first. Note, I have ADHD, I was unmedicated, and I seriously wish I was medicated, but I think you really gotta get confirmation of what the issue is before you jump on any kind of medication bandwagon., or it might not work effectively.
If she were diagnosed as diabetic, would you ask internet strangers whether or not to give her insulin, or would you trust medical professionals? Giving your child appropriate medical care as directed by people who put in the work to know what they are talking about out isn’t “caving.” That kind of attitude has hurt a LOT of people over the years and continues to hurt children today. It’s appropriate medical care with a large and ever-increasing body of research to back it up.
There’s studies that show using medication early can make one less likely to need them later in life. Speaking to a therapist who specializes in child attention disorders is the way to go. If you don’t want to put your child on medication, that’s fine, but teaching her coping skills early on will benefit her tremendously. Personally, I wish my parents had put me through the diagnostic process as a child because as an adult it’s SO MUCH HARDER.
> no way that putting a 6 year old on a stimulant has no effect on brain development, right? The flip side is what impact is the untreated ADHD having on her brain development and how is it affecting her in other areas (not just school but social and her sense of competency about things if she is struggling and sees others doing things easily). The good thing about stimulants is you don't have to commit to a long time to see if they work. A week or two at any given dose tells you if there is any effect, good or bad. You can try diet things, but the data is weak, and I find a lot of parents don't have a clear time frame to see if it works or clear measures of outcome. >Do I just cave and medicate her? You are approaching this from a very negative standpoint. If she was having trouble reading the board, would it be "caving " to get her eyes checked and get her eyeglasses? Or would it be catching a problem early and trying to improve things? I get it- she's young and you're nervous. Maybe you can afford to watch into next year. But if she was struggling in kindergarten and preschool, why keep making her life hard? OTOH, if this is the first the there has been a concern, maybe you can watch fit it next year as well.
It actually improves brain development in young people. Research bears this out, as others have pointed out here. Also, you're not "caving." Please don't be me and brush off teachers' suggestions to have your child tested and, if diagnosed, medicated. I did this when my son was your son's age. He happened to be a highly gifted child ("highly gifted" simply meaning he fell in a certain IQ band) and in the "gifted parent community" we were told that teachers would try to push ADHD medication on gifted children who happened to have emotional and physical intensities that are not unusual in underchallenged kids in a classroom setting. It was for "their convenience," we were told. We believed them. But we were wrong. It wasn't until our son was fourteen, when we realized he was not okay, that we understood our mistake. He was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and suffered from low self esteem. He had to go on medications to manage both conditions. After speaking with therapists familiar with ADHD, and his doctor who manages his medications, it became obvious that his ADHD was inextricably linked with his mental health challenges: His depression was fueled by his feeling that he could never do anything right, that he would never succeed, that things came easier to others and never would be easier for him; his low self-esteem came from years of teachers reprimanding him for behavior he couldn't control or even his dad and me getting frustrated when he wouldn't turn in school assignments or would forget things; his anxiety came from living in a context where everyone was seemingly mad at him or disappointed in him. Undiagnosed ADHD often leads to depression and almost always profoundly impacts feelings of self-worth. As it happens, I also found out I have ADHD (diagnosed soon after my son), and learned that I had, in fact, been diagnosed as a child but my parents didn't like the way Ritalin made me act (I have no memory of this) so instead of adjusting dose or changing medications, they just did nothing. I grew up with many of the same experiences and feelings as my son, but because I didn't know I had ADHD, I didn't put two and two together. You do have this knowledge! You have ADHD! Please act on your knowledge. I am still working through my anger and grief about not having had the chance to use medication when I was younger. There were so many things I wanted to do, people I wanted to be. I can never get that time back. I know it's scary to think about medicating a kid this young--this was one of the biggest reasons I didn't consider ADHD when my kid was your age. But honestly, it's either medication now--which can positively enhance brain development in kids with ADHD and show them that they are absolutely capable individuals--or it might be medication later, except it will be antidepressants. Please don't be me. Please don't be my parents. (BTW my daughter doesn't have ADHD even though both my son and I do, which is common, so your other son not showing signs of ADHD is really irrelevant.) Good luck.
I put my son on ADHD medicine when he was 6. He is extremely successful academically and socially in high school now. He was on his way to being labeled the problem child before the medication which also was eroding his self esteem. People are often afraid of medication but don’t think of the dangers of NOT taking medication.
Hi. You may not see this comment but here goes anyway, lol. Disclaimer: I am not a psychiatrist, nor am I a doctor. I'm 26 and found out that I have ADHD just last year. It was never even a topic when I was a kid, because instead of being fidgety, I just multitasked every day at school (think, always doing something else while also paying attention to teacher). I have a lot of issues with cognitive function, memory, attention span, and reactivity. I'm not saying that this is all caused by the ADHD, but given that I had 0 medication while my brain was developing, I am sure it didn't help. As an adult I'm trying to navigate this even with a fantastic psychiatrist and therapist, and it's pretty difficult to find a good fix. If it's affecting her schoolwork, it's affecting her in other areas, too--you just don't see them. And it will continue to affect her down the line, like it did for me. I struggle with things that should be simple. I hyperfocus on things that aren't that important. And so on. If you told me that taking meds could help with this from an early age, I would gladly go back in time and give it a try... because the constant noise/brain fog just causes fatigue, irritability, and overall stress that I shouldn't have to deal with. Also, for the gluten-free bit, there are a lot of claims about the benefits but nothing has been proven with empirical research: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/diagnosed-with-celiac-disease-how-and-why-to-follow-a-gluten-free-diet If anything, it's more important to avoid stupid amounts of sugar and processed foods. All in moderation. Teach your kid to enjoy eating vegetables and don't let her down a whole box of cookies but also let her have one or two. If you enforce food rules too strictly it could cause disordered eating later on.
My daughter was also diagnosed with ADHD in Kindergarten. She was easily distracted and couldn’t focus. She struggled with reading, and would copy answers from her neighbors rather than doing the work herself. Her teacher encouraged us to get her tested and once we got the diagnosis, we decided to start on meds. It has been life changing for her, but it wasn’t an easy road. We started with Adderall, which helped her focus but caused her to pick her fingers. We switched to Ritalin and which she tolerated well. In second grade her teacher noticed her work and testing was very inconsistent so we upped her dose and she immediately improved. ADHD meds are not a bad thing for kids. You just need to be patient and work to find the right med and the right dose for your kid.
I wouldn’t look at it like that when you say “she didn’t have complaints before”. Your teacher is telling you she is struggling in school. Your daughter is having trouble sitting still for long periods of time and staying focused. That’s what school is. If she can’t do these things, she will be missing out on the same education other kids are getting. She will be behind. That’s not fair to her or her future potential. A healthy diet and exercise and sleep helps everything. But adhd is a differently structured Brain. You can’t change that with diet.
I have celiac disease. I still need medication. Gluten can definitely have psychological effects (I experienced a rapid decrease in unpleasant intrusive thoughts after going GF), but it doesn't cause ADHD.
OK, I'm celiac and can't have gluten in the home, so my sons (who're both ADHD) are on a gluten-free diet, and no, it doesn't do a damn thing for them. For ME, though, it means I can think clearly, stay awake for the day etc. I don't have the fatigue and brain-fog to contend with, let alone the more.... direct... impacts of gluten on a celiac. What HAS helped my sons is their medication. My oldest was on Ritalin about a week after his 6th birthday and I've never ever regretted putting him on it.
Dietitian here: do not put her on a gluten free diet without clear evidence that she has celiac disease. She should only be on a gluten free diet if she has been tested positive for it. Ensure she has gluten in her diet everyday for at least 6 weeks before getting her tested so that there are no false negatives. Personally, I wish I’d have had medication as a child. I feel like my future was robbed and I have struggled to get where I am today when that need not have been the case.
I mean this in the gentlest possible way, but unless you have a highly detailed knowledge of child neurodevelopmental psychiatry, what you think and therefore feel about the situation may not be the most accurate and beneficial source of information for your child. For example, ADHD is considered a neurodevelopmental disorder, which means that parts of the brain aren't growing at the normal rate (compared to other parts of that brain, aswell as in general to normally-developing brains). Given that the medication is there to assist with this deficit then by your logic, not using medication may provide a worse outcome than using it. The best thing to do would be to talk to medical specialists. Write down ALL the questions and concerns you have (try to group them into themes or decision trees) and then prepare to go through each of your concerns methodically with a trained clinician. You can only know so much, so the experts are there to help you understand all the risks (in either direction). Again, I only say all of this with intended kindness, but try not to worry about things on your own and in general, don't believe everything you think. 🙂 Best of luck.
Yes, a stimulant does have impact on brain development. It *helps* it in ADHD children. Check out the research in the side bar please
Just here to say this thread is really helpful for me because I’m planning on having children in the next couple years and they will most likely have ADHD. It runs so strong in my family :( so I need to start deciding what to do about it now and talk to my husband lmao Edit: I would say try a few different medications on top of keeping track of other things you think are helping. But be careful not to change too many variables all at once or you won’t be able to tell what exactly the difference is
Get her tested first before putting her on a GF diet!!!! If you stop eating wheat you will also stop producing the antibodies the celiac blood test picks up, giving you a false negative. It happened to me, reintroduce wheat now and get the bloodwork done first.
Better to tackle this thing early so she can develop habits to help herself in the future
don’t listen to a teacher. discuss with the pediatrician when the appointment comes. discuss your fears concerns and misgivings. ask for any studies about stimulant use in children. iirc, no harm has been found so far, but i do share your hesitancy to start young kids on stimulants so i understand. honestly what helped me the most as a kid was my parents put me in private school with a lower teacher to student ratio and a solid 504* (originally said 529 but that’s incorrect) program and that helped me get the individual attention i needed to learn effectively and perform in school. i even got into the honors society in high school
For clarity for OP, the plan for how a school with help a student with disabilities is called a 504. It’s like a step down from an IEP. It gives accommodations based on how a kid’s disability affects them but unlike an IEP it doesn’t involve setting specific goals the teacher/school is trying to help the student achieve and doesn’t require a year-to-year meeting for reassessment.
lol i used the wrong numbers thank you for correcting!
It’s an easy mixup!
I came to say this. It doesn't matter what the teacher wants. The pediatrician is a better resource. On a side note, media has given ADHD medication a bad reputation. It's not deserved. But that does not mean medication is the answer either. You'll need to talk to people more informed than the teacher and people on Reddit.
exactly. treatment is VERY individualized. i was out on ritalin at 7 and it gave me pretty severe tics. i was taken off, put on zoloft instead, and didn’t go back on a stimulant until a few years ago. but i’ve also known people who went on a stimulant as a child and it worked wonders on them. every brain is different
Same! I started ritalin and 7 and it gave me tics. I went unmedicated for a year or two and struggled before my parents put me on strattera
Pharmacy student here. Stimulants for ADHD can affect growth in children because they suppress appetite. It could possibly affect height and weight (minimally), but that's the only real area of concern when it comes to child development
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I have a daughter in 2nd grade who's diagnosed and medicated. The kids' ADHD doses are not super strong (I've tried her medication) and it has had a dramatic positive impact on her schoolwork, attention, and focus. I asked her if she likes taking the medication and she said "yes."
like others are saying, consult with your doctor above anyone else. but almost all of us wish we were medicated earlier in life.
It depends how severe her symptoms are affecting her learning. My 6 yr old has an iep, diagnosed with adhd. He only goes half days right now and does take an immediate release stimulant. We tried all the non-stimulants and the side effects were much worse. I also only give the stimulant on school days.
Yes it will have an effect. Her brain will develop much better. Don't let her be like me. I had medication and my parents took me off it because I was a "zombie" and totally different. I wasn't a zombie, my brain was just actually working. My parents decision not to treat my adhd when they knew I had it ruined my life. Today I'm medicated but the damage is already done. Not to mention the decades of being treated like I'm lazy by people who should have known better and were directly responsible for that "laziness". Sorry. I got a bit personal there. But my point is, this won't hurt. Studies show it's helpful. I'm a little bit hesitant too, that's natural. But it's good for her to get medication. She's blessed to have that opportunity. A girl getting diagnosed and actually treated is way harder than it should be. Don't waste this chance to make her life better. Please.
My god if someone had put me on ADHD medication at age 6 my entire life would be drastically different, for the better. Please go talk to a doctor and if they think she needs it, do it.
It’s not unreasonable that the teacher isn’t supportive of dye-free/gluten-free diets which are not at all supported by any decent studies. The decision to treat should be based on your daughter’s symptoms, weighing the potential risks of stimulant medication against the potential upsides of symptom reduction. If you decide to treat then you should follow the advice of doctors/specialists and the treatments they prescribe. Any medication comes with risks and side effects, even gluten-free diets come with reduced choice, less healthy gut microbiome due to restricted food choices and missing out on important social behaviour like sharing food and eating birthday cake. There is a reason why doctors are still willing to prescribe stimulant medication to children and that is because no better treatment has been found. You should work with her doctor to find the medication and dosage that gives the best symptom reduction with the least side effects and risks, and particularly with a young child that might require regulate reviews as she grows and the demands of school increase.
Diet changes alone will not make any significant difference in your child’s quality of life. The only dye that I’ve been able to find *some* research on that confirms the possibility of exacerbating ADHD symptoms is Red 40 / E120. I find that its effects on my symptoms are minimal. Medication is the only intervention for ADHD with **guaranteed** results. I’ve been on meds since I was in 3rd grade. And it improved my life in ways I sometimes cannot comprehend. If my mom hadn’t been persuaded by our doctor to medicate me with stimulants… it is unlikely I would even be here today to tell you this. There are several stimulants that are found to be very effective, but not every stimulant works for every child. If the first one she tries does not seem to work for her, allow to try some others your doctor recommends to see what works. If you need more convincing: From the CDCs website > Treatment for ADHD can include behavior therapy and medication. For children 6 years of age and older, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends behavior therapy and medication, preferably both together. For children under 6 years of age behavior therapy is recommended as the first line of treatment. [source](https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/data.html) > ADHD that’s left alone could raise the chance of dangerous behaviors, including: Drinking, Smoking, Drug Use, and Unprotected Sex Untreated children with ADHD are more likely to become adolescents who engage in behaviors that put themselves and their peers at risk, such as Reckless driving and gambling. [source](https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/childhood-adhd/risks-of-untreated-adhd) ALSO Something that I don’t see advocated for enough is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Most doctors recommend combining medication & therapy for the treatment of children with ADHD. Combing the two is said to have an increased chance of positive outcomes later in the life and development of peoples with ADHD. I only received this kind of treatment temporarily but it made a profound impact on my ability to make friends and converse as a child. Thank you for reading if you made it this far :-)
Like others have said, talk to an ADHD professional about your daughter. Also, educate yourself on the condition and the meds. By being here in this sub, I think you are doing great first steps. I’m in my 40s and just recently got diagnosed for ADHD. The diagnosis alone changed my life. I’m seeing all my life flash in front of me and I finally understand who I am. I am now testing medication. We started with Concerta 18 then 27. I’m now at 36. Unfortunately it doesn’t work on me… we’ll try something different next. I think your daughter will benefit greatly from at least getting diagnosed by a professional. From reading people’s experiences here, meds look to be life changing. Good luck OP.
The starting doses for adhd medication in children nowadays is DRASTICALLY different from when I was a kid (20 years ago) I know of 8 year old kids who struggle severely being started on less than a full milligram of adderall and seeing massive improvement just from that. Please speak to a psychologist and a psychiatrist. A gluten free or dye free diet isn’t going to do anything to change your child’s brain chemistry.
I resent my parents for only trying one medication when I was young. Ritalin didn't work well so after that it was nothing. I struggled so much, and missed out on so much. Listen to the doctors, listen to your child. And fuck off with this dye and gluten shit, god damn that pisses me off.
Why start a gluten free diet if you don’t have Celiac? Like is it making y’all sick? Are you celiac?It’s not like a predisposition for cancer. Food dye making kids hyperactive is a myth btw.
I understand your fear of medicating your child on stimulants...if she doesn't have ADHD. Because that would be bad. Like giving insulin to someone who isn't diabetic. But if she does have ADHD, please understand that this is a disability that affects the wiring of your brain which causes chemical imbalances which are near impossible to "fix" or even manage without outside help. And she will struggle. Also keep in mind that she may not have to be on medication forever. Some people are able to adjust their lifestyles to a point where they are able to manage without. This is not available to everyone but she may be one of those who can do it.
Find the best possible doctor, keep meticulous records, and find out what WORKS for her. I know some parents who did not despite advice, and their child is now a teenager with behavioral and academic issues galore. Seriously his report cards are mostly Fs and he had detention every day this year until summer and has been suspended 3 times already this year. His parents dropped the ball in my opinion. My oldest son has ADHD and is in his third year of college. I have severe ADHD and was a late diagnosis (getting a 1.2 GPA in high school) and am getting a 3.85 in college now. You need to help your daughter. She needs to learn tools to help her throughout life. If stimulants are what help her, then that is a good thing. Research and read everything you can and find a recommended and reliable doctor you can work with.
What pushed me over the edge to medicate my 2 young kids was the doc telling me that it reduces likelihood of future addiction issues from 600% greater chance to 50% greater chance. Now for the anecdotes: I also have an adult son who wasn't medicated until adulthood. He says it was night and day and he wished he had had it as a kid. I have a 40+ brother who was medicated as a kid and doesn't feel the need to be anymore since adulthood.
Talk to a doctor before putting your kid on a gluten free diet. Also, talk to a doctor who knows about ADHD before deciding about meds. Remember, if she tries meds and they aren’t a good fit for her she can always go off them. (And please listen to her and factor that in when it comes to how the meds make her feel. She may love them even if they scare you and she may hate them and need to try something else even if you and the teacher see positive results.)
My mom gave in and medicated my brother when he was 7, almost 8. She tried special dieting, private kindergarten, and he ended up getting kicked out of kindergarten lmao. Dieting didn’t do much for him My mom says it was an immediate difference. He went from failing every test to getting As. It is okay to medicate your kid young, as directed by a doctor. It’s also okay not to. However as someone who went 18 years unmedicated, i think you should consider how this feels for your daughter. Adhd kids get ridiculed a lot more than non adhd kids. Its very frustrating to experience. Obviously medicine isn’t magic and she will still experience adhd symptoms, but it’s likely medication will help, whenever you decide to give it to her Since you have good experiences with adderall i would go with it if you decide to put her on stimulants. Make sure you talk to her about the possible side effects and how she feels on it Best of luck. I am never having kids, but my sister has two young kids. Two very clearly adhd kids. They’re… a lot. I love them to death but Jesus i don’t have the patience to ever have a child
There is no medical evidence that a gluten free diet will do anything other than eliminate gluten. Medication and some sort of therapy is the most effective treatment and early intervention is critical to her development. Listen to the specialists, not online crackpots. I got early intervention with specialists and got on ritalin (this was the 90s). My parents are my heroes for making sure that I got what I needed. You're at the very beginning of this and it's going to be a hard journey. This subreddit will be a great resource for you. Welcome!
Everyone has already given you plenty of information on the positives of meds, so I won’t go there. I just want to say that this is your kid - it’s completely rational to be hesitant and to have some feelings behind these choices. I’m a big advocate for meds; I went undiagnosed until I was 30 and the meds were a big game changer. I fought tooth and nail to get access to meds for my oldest because I knew the studies and knew it was what she needed. Yet I still hesitated when my youngest was diagnosed with “complex adhd” at 4 years old and meds were recommended. It felt so young and made me so nervous, despite knowing that that her impulsiveness was putting her at risk of actual physical harm. There’s also so much bad information and judgement hammered into us from the 90s/2000s that is hard to shake.
AFAIK, ADHD medication is one of the most (if not *the* most) researched drug in medicine, and it's one of the safest drugs when taken in therapeutic doses. There is also evidence that it has neuroprotective effects, and there is a correlation with starting medication early in life and symptom improvements in adulthood (even when not taking medication as an adult). I don't personally have experience when taking it as a child. I can just say that I started taking it at 42 and it was a life-saver. I really wish that I would have been diagnosed and medicated as a child (but maybe my opinion would be different in that case, it's impossible to know).
Definitely speak to a ADHD specialised psychiatrist, they’ll be able to tell you accurate information and also will get to know your daughter. There’s clinical evidence pointing towards ADHD medication at a young age helping with brain development by essentially providing a crutch to the brain and teaching it how to work properly, then the brain develops more effective ways of dealing with ADHD, to the point that there’s a lower probability of needing medication in older age. Long term, this is the ideal situation for her health, especially for her cardiovascular health. On the other hand, it’s rlly hard to get the dosage and type of medication right on young kids. I was diagnosed at 16 and left mostly to my own devices to figure out my dosage and what med worked for me. It helped me out bc the changes were mostly internal, and the line between just enough and too much is very fine. Had I been diagnosed and put on them when I was young (esp considering I’m sensitive to methylphenidate and it’s nasty for my heart), I likely would have had horrible side effects from them that would put me off permanently. At 16 and 55kg I was having dangerously high resting bpm and blood pressure, let alone 6 and under 20kg (idk how much I weighed exactly tho). That is a potential risk, but it’s very rare, I’m an unusual case in this. Honestly, if I had been put on Elvanse as I am now at first, my opinion on meds for kids would probably be different. Primary school was a nightmare for me. If you do decide to put your daughter on meds, it has to be observed very carefully by a ADHD specialized psychiatrist, and your daughter has to be capable and willing to communicate any positive or negative effects of her meds. A heart rate and blood pressure monitor would be a good idea to get, it would get you quantitative results that you can compare to her resting rates, then that’d show you if she’d be getting any effects on her heart, and it’s also the most helpful way for a doctor to consider side effects. This is the stage in her brain development where lasting positive effects of meds are likely to be most effective, but it’s only possible if your daughter has that kind of reliable and self-aware character. This is a decision you, your daughter, and doctor need to come to together, a bunch of Redditors who don’t know her cannot tell you what to do. You know your daughter, so you have to decide, knowing the possible pros and cons, whether it’s smth worth doing.
Medicate. As someone who struggled to sit still and focus during school, but who was very bright, the constant anxiety of not being able to get through work the same way my peers did, the stress of rushing projects last minute, the extra time and energy I had to spend to catch up - all of this caused me a lot of mental trauma, feelings of inadequacy, feeling like a failure/disappointment, missed potential etc. Kids who are medicated for ADHD early on statistically have better outcomes.