Thanks, Lecka, that makes a LOT of sense. She doesn't have typical anxiety, not scared of things or events, but I do think anxiety is behind the times she just flips. I'm not sure the best way to help her through that...But I'll definitely look into the book, thanks for the recommendation. (I'm considering trying a super-low dose of lithium, to see if it helps at all with the emotionality. It's also supposed to help with anxiety.)

Hmmm...I know you've mentioned this before. But she seems like she knows when she's feeling off. She definitely knows when she's feeling regular physical sensations (hot/cold/tired/itchy), she knows when she's been able to tell me when she's feeling nervous or angry, and we've talked about how it feels inside when she's frustrated. It's just she doesn't seem to want to change those feelings, she'd rather throw something across the room (or hit) than do deep breathing or take a walk, because she gets that release of tension from throwing or hitting. And she sometimes will purposely provoke because she gets that dopamine burst...We've learned not to react at all, because it's giving her what she feels her body needs, but she sometimes escalates her actions just in an attempt to get that excitement. So I'm worried there won't be any benefit in her mind to calming herself.

I think at least a couple of you here have used Mightier for emotional regulation. I'm strongly considering it, since emotionality is probably my ADHD daughter's biggest issue at this point. But I feel like even if she does learn how to calm herself within the games, that might not carry through to real life. She isn't willing to use the tools I've taught her when I see her escalating into frustration, I can suggest it, or say, "I see you're getting frustrated," and that brings her into a full-force explosion. She's extremely averse to discussing feelings, she says it hurts in her belly to talk about them (maybe because she's realized on her own that it's a weakness.) (This made Zones a total failure.) It's like she almost likes those huge feelings in a way, maybe because of the increase in dopamine. So is a program showing her how to come down from the edge going to do any good if she's not motivated to use what she's learned in real life?

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences, Exercise Guru! We eat very cleanly, few processed foods, but I have DD on a pretty high protein diet, since it's recommended for ADHD, so I'm not sure how much meat I'd be able to cut out. (We don't eat any red meat, only chicken/turkey and fish, as well as eggs and cheese.) Do you get protein primarily from grains/nuts? I kept DD dairy (and gluten) free for 2 years, and didn't see any changes, but she was eating meat and eggs at that time. And I'd love a cookbook recommendation, thank you!

Yes, she's compound heterozygous. But her B's were all fine, so I assumed she's methylating properly. The tinteroception does fascinate me, although she seems to be feeling things inside her accurately, registers hunger and fullness and thirst...but maybe can't register the anger or hurt feelings or whatever. She HATES talking about feelings, so obviously they're making her uncomfortable, I haven't been able to figure out what's behind that but it's been going on ever since she was little, she gets so agitated and upset. Maybe she realizes she feels things more strongly than others and feels somehow ashamed, even though I've assured her multiple times that we all have big emotions inside. I don't know, but it's made therapy a disaster for her...So I'm not sure how she'd handle the interoception work, I'll have to get more of a sense what it involves when it comes out.

I bought the book "What To Do When Your Temper Flares" trying to address the aggression, and this morning she was all in my face, grabbing off my glasses, I got away from her and firmly told her to give my glasses back and she quoted, "The only person making you angry is YOU." Yeah, this book is going to come back to haunt me for awhile.

Thanks, all, this is so interesting. So the interoception work is basically mindfulness, but broken down to be less nebulous. I'm buying the book...We did mindfulness for awhile, but she got very resistant to it so I stopped. Maybe I can find a way to make this more fun, I don't know. Our big issue now is we've been seeing aggression, which is new. Her emotions are completely out of control, I don't know if it's hormonal (I think I may be starting to see body changes already, ugh...) or if we've just gotten into a bad cycle, but there are times that it's BAD. Like she'll pull me back onto her foot and then beat me up because I hurt her. (She beats up furniture too when she bumps into it...) So I actually was looking into SSP (so interesting that you've tried it Mamashark!) talked to a provider about it, and she said it's not really helpful for ADHD, unless they have mysophonia or some sort of trauma background, but recommended Focus instead. And that's how I got here...

Thanks, this is probably what I needed to hear... We're not doing any other therapies right now, but she's in school so time is reasonably limited. What is the interception program? It doesn't sound familiar to me. (Let me know if it's been discussed here before, if so I can do a search.)

Ugh, thanks. Yeah, she has tactile SPD, just a little and only with clothes, but she doesn't have any issue with noises, so I don't see how ILs could help with this. They make so many claims, and the practitioner I spoke with was so enthusiastic about the program, but of course she was also trying to sell it...

I know there's been a little talk about ILs and other listening therapies here, but not much...I'm trying to figure out whether there's actually a sound basis behind these types of systems, or if it's just a lot of hype and good marketing. There's so little information out there, and most of what I've seen looks like it's sponsored by ILs. We have a little money to spend at the moment, and I've been wondering about this for awhile, but I do wonder whether it's worth the (not insubstantial) cost and (also not insubstantial) effort. My daughter has ADHD, her biggest issue at this point is emotional regulation (and social skills.) ILs claims they can help with both, but I'm finding that a bit hard to believe. Thanks for any insight any of you may have!

I don't have any good tips (although we made this same transition), except that I'd recommend giving it some time for them to settle in before starting afterschooling. It's a huge transition, and you wouldn't want to overload them. They'll also have homework (the amount depending on their ages and the school system), and will be exhausted at the end of a long day. If you do afterschool, I'd focus on just one or two subjects, and at least in the beginning limit it to weekends. We do BA, but only rarely, and that's really all we do. I want to give DD8 time to play and read books and create...all of which I think are far more important than academic learning. (We only do BA because they're doing Go Math, which I'm not thrilled with, and she's pretty mathematically minded so finds it fun.)

Thanks! (Good luck on your labs!) And sorry I wasn't clear. Yes, they tested all her B's, D and ferritin, and all were normal. She is COMT++, but my understanding (I may very well be wrong!) was that this only means we'd have to be careful which version of folate we supplemented with, not that it would counteract the MTHFR mutations. She actually doesn't take a multi, or any other supplements. But she eats a healthy diet, with lots of veggies including dark leafy greens. She doesn't eat red meat, though, and rarely has eggs, so I was surprised her B12 was as good as it was. And she has a VDR Taq mutation, but her D was completely normal as well even without supplementation (and despite the fact she's always wearing sunscreen outside.) She also doesn't drink cow's milk, so doesn't get D from there. So...I don't know, it seems like the genes aren't expressing? I've read some of Dirty Genes, and heard Ben Lynch speak, and his view is that as long as you keep a healthy diet and reduce stress, sleep well, don't drink too much alcohol, etc., you don't need to worry about supplementation. I'm relieved we don't need to worry about supplementing, but on the other hand I was almost hoping for an answer to why we're seeing the problems we see. It may be related to her COMT mutation (although that's SO common), or some other SNPs that I haven't been focusing on. But yeah, it looks like we're not going to be able to fix anything by supplementing. (I should say, I've started her on the Nemechek Protocol, just because all the components are harmless/healthy so it seems like it won't hurt to try it. We only started recently, so the jury's still out. But who knows, supposedly that's supposed to affect epigenetics as well.)

So going back to this, hoping for guidance from you well-informed mamas...I got my daughter's blood tests back recently, and everything was completely in range, all B's and D, and her homocysteine is normal. Does this mean her mutations aren't expressing? Can I just breathe a sigh of relief and move on? Or do the mutations mean there's a chance her body may not be able to utilize the folate, etc. that is in her blood at normal levels?

One thing I believe he says (I watched a video recently, I think it was his) is just because you have the mutation doesn't mean it's necessarily turned "on." Many are not actually expressing that gene, and there's a lot you can do (including diet, sufficient sleep, exercise and lowering stress) to turn that gene off and process folates appropriately. In the vid I saw, he recommended people with the mutation address lifestyle factors (and eat leafy greens) before supplementing.

Honestly? The best thing you can do for her at this age is to just nurture creativity and pretend play, read as many books as she'll sit for, take her outdoors to explore (even in winter!) do puzzles, and provide materials for coloring/painting and other crafts. Take outings to zoos, playgrounds, any museums for young kids. Have fun and enjoy each other!! (I wish I could go back, it is such a fun age!) There's plenty of time for literacy and math skills as she gets older, but now, after a day of preschool, I think it would be detrimental to worry about literacy or math. There really is no benefit to starting early...(It's been proven that kids who learn to read early actually are further behind, and much less likely to read for pleasure, a few years down the line.)

If you liked The Hero's Guide, you might love the series of fractured fairy tales by Liesl Shurtliff. It starts with Rump (Rumpelstiltskin), Jack (in the Beanstalk), then Red (Riding Hood) and most recently "Grump," told by one of Snow White's seven dwarves. So imaginative and fun.

We tried for a couple of months, but I didn't see any improvement in my daughter. She's never really shown any sensitivity to foods, though, so I don't think her issues are gut/intolerance-related. With that said, I know there are some children who have seen great improvement...I've never comfortable with the idea of removing sals, so many healthy foods! But it might be worth a try to see how far you can go. I know ASD can be directly related to gut issues, which is why removing gluten and casein so often helps. It might also make sense to look into ways to heal the gut to reduce/remove the sensitivity. It seems like getting to the root of the problem makes the most sense for the long-term. (You can look into the Nemechek protocol to eliminate inflammation, there are hundreds of kids who have improved through Nemechek, or at foods like bone broth and natural probiotics.)

Writing was my daughter's weakness as well...She had no problem coming up with her own stories, but getting them down on paper was a struggle. What eventually helped us was to have her re-tell short stories we'd read, or write summaries of non-fiction, focusing on introductory paragraphs, then the meat (which in the beginning was just a listing of facts) and then a concluding paragraph. So for animals I'd write headers, asking Where do they live/make their homes? What do they eat? What's the most interesting/unusual thing about them? etc. If he likes history, you could break out similar topics for him to jot down, that'll help him to organize all he's learned. We eventually moved from short stories to retelling the plots of longer books...It frustrated her at first (she's also ADHD, and has a harder time organizing her thoughts), but writing outlines of plot points first really helped her figure out how to expand them. And then she'd do the same with her own stories, outlining them (the way a real author does!) and then fleshing them out.

I think place prepositions (oner, under, behind) are best taught in person, since it's harder to absorb place in 2-D. For fine motor, we loved the simple Kumon workbooks for cutting, folding, tracing and coloring, and we did a lot of preschool-level mazes. Leapfrog videos for numbers and letters are fantastic, and fun for kids, and once the basics are mastered dot-to-dots using capital and lowercase letters and numbers are great for fine motor and to reinforce the skills.

This fits in with our conversation on methylation... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180619122434.htm

(And I'm sorry to hijack this conversation! Hopefully some of this will be helpful to lilmiso as well.)

Yes, on FB...It's called MTHFR--Understanding Gene Mutations, or something similar. There are a few knowledgable people there (although you're probably more knowledgeable than most.) This is all interesting...I like the idea of starting a scale for her to judge how she's feeling, I think it would help so much with self-awareness. We already do Size of the Problem, so the concept should be familiar to her. She's always been SO averse to talking about her feelings, I've always wondered whether she knows emotional reactivity is a weak point, it just seems to make her so uncomfortable. It's the main reason Zones just never worked for her. I never thought of the irritability being a sensory issue, but maybe? That might explain the hyperactivity too, if her whole body just doesn't feel right. She doesn't have any intolerances, and we don't drink cows milk. I do give her nut milks which have added D (although not as much as cow's milk.) She gets dairy from cheese and yogurt, though, and I think those have some D, and we eat fatty fish at least once a week. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what her labs say! Would you recommend checking D, B12 and homocysteine? Any of the other B's?

I got that from an MTHFR group I'm in...It wasn't the chart I was looking for, but similar. (I'm not sure where they got it. Maybe from Know Your Genes? I gave her a 1,000mg gel cap. Within an hour or two, she just seemed really irritable and snappy, maybe a little more hyper too. It's not her typical personality, it was like she was purposely trying to do whatever she could to annoy me. Not pleasant! So...I'm not doing that again. I'm curious about her D levels, though...She's spending a lot of time outdoors these days, so may be getting enough from the sun and this was just too much.

I had a similar discussion last month, where Peter Pan gave me a lot of information. You might want to take a look...I'm also going to look for a table I found, which gives recommendations for supplements depending on various SNPs...I'll attach it when I find it. But basically, my daughter's genetics are quite complex, she's complex heterozygous for MTHFR, and has mutations for COMT and for VDR (vitamin D.) I tried giving her a D supplement, and her mood changed, so I think she'll be even more complex than I'd feared. I'm now going to have her B's and D tested, and won't try to supplement until I get the results. My main strategy now though, is to heal her gut and feed her lots of leafy greens, so that she can get most of her floats from food, then test her to see what else might be needed.