:grouphug: I'm so sorry, I know so many of the parents here can relate. This really is the hardest part, I think. Once you have a diagnosis, whatever it is, you might spend a couple of days in shock and then you'll absorb and adjust. And in a week, or two, or ten, you grow and it's part of your life. And you're grateful to know so that you can move forward. The most useful advice I got at this stage (I think it was from OhE) was that no matter what you learn, he will still be exactly the same amazing boy you love, that doesn't change with a diagnosis. He IS the same person, the diagnosis doesn't take that away. And with a diagnosis, you'll be able to get the right supports to give all of you a good life. He'll have the support he needs to learn to deal with his anxiety and any other issues he may be facing so he can have the life you want for him. Drink, cry, scream, whatever you need to do is good, and understandable and even healing. You can get through this, and you're not alone...

I'll start. :) DD7 is doing well in PS 2nd grade! (Something I didn't think we'd be able to say when we started this journey.) Not perfectly, she does still sometimes pretend to be a cat or a dragon while she's supposed to be sitting at her desk :p , but academically she's doing great, her behavior isn't that out of line and, most importantly, she's made good friends. I love watching her with the other kids, she really has learned to modulate her behavior and impulsivity, usually thinks before she speaks/acts, and is kind and loving. They accept her and even seek her out to play (I think they get a kick out of her huge imagination) or talk. I attribute a big part of this to meds, but also all the work we've done on emotional regulation, role playing social situations, and also I see her becoming a bit more mature. We still have struggles at home sometimes (usually after meds wear off at night or in the morning, or weekends when we take med breaks), but there's been some improvement there as well. It's so nice not having to monitor her constantly while she's at the playground, or worry about how she'll act without us at play dates or parties. In all, it's been a good year. (Happy holidays to all you wonderful mamas!) SaveSave

:hurray: :hurray: :hurray: :hurray: Amazing!! Congratulations to you both!!!!

I'd say it's normal. My daughter did it too as a toddler/preschooler and has since outgrown it. (I did some research at the time, even posted in a message board and heard from moms who had done it themselves at a very young age, so it's very common.) They do get pleasure from it, but it's not sexual in the way we think of it.

The truth is, you won't know if your daughter will have negative effects until the time comes when you decide it's worth a try. We're lucky in that none of the meds we tried had horrible effects (one made her a little too emotional, the other more irritable when it wore off.) The med she's taking now has virtually no negative side effects at all, she hasn't lost weight, she falls asleep easily and isn't anxious, and it makes a world of difference. (As with sbgrace's son, it doesn't solve all issues. It makes her more willing to sit and start the work, but is less effective in helping her maintain attention, and to some extent she still has issues with emotional regulation. It makes a huge difference in her behavior and social skills though, and that was our main concern at this point.) Again it's worth asking, and searching to see what the potential issues might be, but they differ so much from child to child. As an FYI, there is a meta-study that suggests the benefits might "wear off" after 2 years, which makes me believe it's better to hold off for as long as you can, until it really becomes necessary. As OhE said earlier, when that time comes, you'll know. For us, home schooling was difficult, but do-able because my daughter is an only child. Much as I loved being with her and teaching her, her behavior was starting to affect our relationship, which is why I made the decision to move her to ps. And she's severe enough that she wouldn't have survived in ps unmedicated, couldn't care less what the rules or social norms are (in fact she'd probably go out of her way to break them. We tried a couple of unmedicated school days last year, just to see, and they were miserable for everyone.) It seems like your daughter is much less severe. But again you'll know and hear from the teacher if the workload gets to be too much. And if it does, it's worth trying to see if any effects are worth the benefit. As I said, many kids have few to no issues.

If she's able to self-regulate, learn and attend, I'd highly recommend getting a further evaluation, if possible. I'm sorry, I haven't followed your daughter's story, but what is it that has made you believe she has ADD? (ETA: I ask this only because the main symptom of ADHD is the inability to self-regulate attention and/or behavior.)

All of these do look like textbook combined-type ADHD. My DD7 (ADHD with no comorbidities) does show many of those symptoms, and those that she doesn't are also common for ADHD. (Anxiety would be a comorbidity.) Similar to Crimson, DD's hyperactivity is most disruptive. She also had the emotional regulation issues you're seeing, but those have gotten quite a bit better over the past couple of years, in part I think due to mindfulness work we've done, I think, as well as some social skills training to help her recognize her feelings and learn tools to control them. I also think part of the improvement is just age. Like with Crimson's daughter, meds have helped us quite a bit with attention/being able to finish work, and with her hyperactivity. (She also doesn't talk constantly while medicated, but does still talk quite a bit.) Her behavior has also improved dramatically...Meds help her to not act impulsively, doing things like hitting out or biting when frustrated. We've also used cognitive behavioral training, basically using a token system to reward good behavior (and less frequently threatening to remove tokens to dissuade her from bad behavior.) It works quite well. Your first step, like OhE said, is to get an evaluation to give you a better idea what you're dealing with, and make sure you're not missing anything. Once you have the evals, you can figure out the best ways to help her. You can see her pediatrician, but in the end you'll be better off getting a complete evaluation from a psychiatrist or a pediatric neurologist. Pediatricians usually don't have enough experience in diagnosing, and can miss other issues. Especially since you're seeing irrational fears, you'l probably want to get a psych involved.

Does she understand for smaller (4-digit) numbers? If she understands the concept for smaller numbers, the problem probably isn't conceptual, it may be visual (or I could even imagine dyslexia showing up this way.)

We've had 2A for about a week...My DD7 read the entire guide in two afternoons, and did several problems in the practice book, a couple of regular problems in each section, and then the star/challenge problems. She's reasonably mathy, and has known these concepts for a couple of years, but the challenge problems do use her brain...Some were actually challenging, but in a good way! She's been enjoying them, and I'm glad I got the books. I don't think the digit difference problems really test mastery of anything, they're just a fun puzzle. I wouldn't hesitate to move on without finishing them.

She's only had a week and a half of school so far, so we'll see how things go. As of the end of last week, her teacher said she's settling in well, and she hasn't had any real behavior issues. In the past, the academics she had issues with were math (although she was working a couple of years above grade level so this was math that really made her think, where the math they're doing now in 2nd grade covers topics she learned K), and creative writing, where she has always had trouble organizing her thoughts. I expect writing will be more of an issue this year, where they're supposed to write longer papers and be more independent. I have no idea how she'll do. FWIW, I chatted with a rep at Mighteor. They said that after 3 months, if you don't want to continue to subscribe you just won't continue to receive updates for the program. I asked whether they have any plans for a lower priced option if you purchase the app without the tablet, and they said: "We are in the process of developing an app, however we do not foresee a lower price. Currently, we are providing the tablet for free and the price is based off of the parent resources we provide, the coaching, and the Mighteor World." So it seems like you're right, that they're giving away the tablet in the hopes you'll want to keep up the subscription. Still on the fence...But I guess they do give you the 3 month trial, so that if it doesn't start to make an impact (or, my fear, if your child gets so frustrated they refuse to keep playing) you can always back out. It's one of those things, if someone asked me how much I'd pay a magician to wave a wand and help DD with emotional regulation, I'd get a second mortgage on the house without blinking an eye...This is probably worth a try.

Thank you so much for all the insight, OhE! You have me almost convinced...I'd want to make sure the apps didn't stop working after 3 months, though, because I can't imagine paying $19.99 a month indefinitely. If DD still had severe frustration issues, I'd be even more likely to jump on this, but I think the mindfulness we've been doing, along with meds and maturity, have already helped a great deal. Or it may just be that now we're in PS, where the work is much easier for her than the work we were doing at home, there's not much for her to be frustrated about. (I do know that when she has difficulty with a Lego project, or one of the structures she's building falls down, 75% of the time now she asks for help rather than getting upset. When she does get frustrated though, she throws things. And you can tell it's painful for her.) Maybe I'll give her the challenging K'Nex set I'd been planning to save for Christmas, to see how she does, and use her reaction to the frustration to make a decision. Hmmm... Sorry, just thinking out loud. :)

So it's $229 and then $19.99 a month after three months? (My DD could probably use something like this, but oh man, pricey!!) We also don't have any need for another tablet...I wonder if the price might come down when they make it available for iPad and let people use their own tablets. OhE, can you give a link to the forums? I tried Googling but wasn't able to find anything.

Betsy DeVos. There, I got political. I know of someone in my school's Special Ed. PTO who wasn't able to get her daughter accommodations until the guidance came out, she actually had to bring the guidance to the superintendent before she was able to get her the help she needed. CHADD submitted the guidance because of these sorts of issues, it really does help parents advocate when they have something formal and specific in place. (Especially since many out there don't see ADHD as an actual disability, they're able to frame it as a behavior issue.) I'm sure it's made a difference, the only reason they're trying to rescind this guidance is because it's costing them money to help these kids, money they didn't have to spend before it.

Does 2A have challenge problems? That's what I was hoping for, at least some depth compared to Go Math DD7 just started at ps, which seems very surface-y, doesn't make her think at all. She finished MIF 2A and some of 2B the summer before she started ps in 1st, and is reasonably mathy, loves math puzzles, so I was really hoping there might be problems that would make her use her brain more.

It's here! It's here! (2A looks pretty simple for 2nd grade, though? At least the beginning pages...I was hoping for more challenges. But it does look fun!!)

Thank you, a lot of wisdom here, these are wonderful suggestions. We have spent a lot of time learning about insects, she has many books, all sorts of plastic bugs, and real bugs encased in plastic for study with microscopes, we raise butterflies every summer, etc., but it's the live collecting that she loves. She also likes to "experiment" with them, another thing that bothers me, seeing if they'll be able to swim in a container of water, turning them upside-down to see if they'll get back up, setting up obstacle courses for them to do "bug gymnastics..." I've tried to get her to put herself in the bugs' place, ask how they must feel, and she'll seem upset and stop, but then the next day she's at it again. I guess I haven't set firm enough limits, though, just was hoping she'd come to that understanding herself. You've given me great ideas on how to limit the aspects of it that I don't agree with. Let these bugs go and we'll go for a walk to find more...I'm going to try that today. And thank you for mentioning dmmetler's amazing daughter, I should try to think about it from that perspective, nurturing and honoring and helping her find healthy ways to channel this. We've said for awhile that she'll be an entomologist someday. :) I just want her to learn that if she truly loves bugs, she'll do what's best for them.

I know ASD kids have their passions, and I’ve read a lot about them in ADHD kids too. Well, my DD7’s passion is insects, of any kind. I was okay with it while she was younger, it was a good way of spending time outside, but it’s only getting more intense. Now she’d be out collecting bugs all day if I let her. I want to try to put a damper on this, partly because I feel bad for the bugs…I know that might sound ridiculous, but picking them up, sticking them in small cages, it just seems borderline cruel to me. And also because it distracts her from other things…We’ll be reading a book or at a library program, she’ll notice a fly and go scrambling around the room to catch it. This also happened many, many times in school last year. The tipping point was this morning, she’d kept two praying mantises in a habitat, apparently hadn’t fed them enough flies and one cannibalized the other. Of course she was extremely upset, as was I. But I still haven’t been able to convince her to release the remaining mantis. Have any of you tried to, or been successful at, taming your kids’ passions? Is it wrong of me to try to stop this?

Do you think he might enjoy narrative nonfiction? There are books on space exploration, dinosaurs, animal friendships, etc., with stories that read almost like fiction. It's a great way to understand different cultures, lives similar and different from his own...and it may be more interesting to him, knowing it's real. You could also try watching movies based on books, before reading the books themselves, to make him feel more of a connection to the story.

Yes, I guess that's true. People are scared of things they don't understand. Not because they directly associate autism with violence, though, it's more that it can be unsettling when you're not around those differences every day. I'm sure that's got to be so hard, I don't know that I've ever really thought about how outside perceptions affect ASD parents. But I've seen so much acceptance in the past few years...We have a non-verbal ASD man who lives down the street with his parents, who likes walking around the neighborhood, and routinely comes to people's homes. I've never heard anyone say anything even remotely negative, I think most let him in, maybe call his parents if he overstays, he's very much accepted as a neighbor. And I was at a playground a couple of weeks ago where a 9-10 year old boy was pacing back and forth across the sandbox and vocally stimming, and the kid-playing and adult conversation just continued around him. That's the perspective I was coming from. People are more aware and accepting of differences.

I think there's been so much effort to help people understand ASD that it no longer has the connotation some of you think. I mean, there's a Sesame Street character! A number of likable characters on various TV series, schools (our school, at least) have an autism awareness week where they discuss what it means, and the idea of embracing differences...Maybe in a more isolated population they might associate autism with a handful of notable cases, but I think the majority don't think of it in a negative way. (I think they view ADHD much more negatively, though--to the outside world ADHD kids are just loud, hyperactive, undisciplined spoiled brats who should be able to control themselves, whereas no one would blame an ASD individual, or the parents of an ASD kid, for his differences.)

Oh I understand, I wasn't trying to question the legitimacy of your original post, I was more questioning whether there was a real purpose in the following posts trying to come up with a precise determination of what is and is not a mental illness. I'd feel the same cognitive dissonance, because I've never thought of my DD as mentally ill, in the typical connotation. But I guess when it comes down to it her behavioral/emotional issues, even though they're comparatively mild, could pretty easily be perceived as a mental illness.

I guess I'm having a hard time understanding why any of the terminology matters. Since each child is an individual, and will have a certain mix of traits and needs, does it matter if they're classified as having a mental illness, a disorder, a disability, or a potato? We use meds, supports, and mental health services, all have been valuable in their own way, and I never separated in my mind whether one was covering a "mental illness" and another was covering a neuro-difference, they're each just helping with various issues we've seen. Even the label is really most helpful in the first months/years after diagnosis to help people get their head around the general issues a child may face, and as a starting point for determining treatment that can be beneficial. I give my DD the help/services she needs based on the specific behaviors she has, some of which are purely ADHD, some of which may seem more spectrum-like. And besides the fact that some services are only available to those with certain diagnoses, I don't think it matters much either way. I spent much more time than I should have trying to parse the issues, and learning nothing. I just work through the symptoms she has, don't treat issues she doesn't have, and adjust helps as she develops and needs and responsibilities change. Going back to the neurodiversity issue, for us I think the most beneficial use of this mindset is in explaining to our daughter that even though her mind works differently, there's nothing "wrong" with her, she's no less valuable to the world than someone neurotypical. Difference rather than brokenness. Many aspects of life will be more challenging for her, but not because she's broken. It's an incredibly valuable concept for children, I think--Really for everyone non-neurotypical--and for those who are NT, it's also a perfect starting place in understanding those who are not.

Our district has a special services coordinator, who I talked to the summer before my DD started PS. There should be someone with a similar title, but if not you can look for the school psych or a guidance counselor, or even the head of the PTA who should be able to give you the correct contact. I would call, I think talking it through is most effective. If you don't have an evaluation, you can ask for one and (I think) they're required to give it, although it won't be as thorough as one you can get privately. Before you can get the IEP, the evaluation will need to be completed (and even after that, it can take 90 days more.) But you can ask for the services you think will be necessary, like pull-outs for LD's, and they should be able to provide them even before the official eval. (My DD has ADHD, and we got the ball rolling a couple of months before she started school. They had a para in place, she had weekly OT sessions, and a behaviorist observed her in the first 2 weeks and set up a behavioral plan shortly after...All this was around 3 months before we had an official IEP.)

Many states offer respite care, for families with behaviorally challenged kids. It might be worth looking into, even if it's just to give you and your other children a break for a few hours a week. Which meds have they put her on? Have you noticed any difference since starting? Some meds (stimulants or antidepressants or antipsychotics) can actually make behavioral issues worse if she doesn't have the issues those meds are meant to treat.

Some great advice here. I don't have specific advice or experience, but we adopted my DD (at birth), and her birth mother likely used drugs and alcohol. In researching before we brought her home, we learned that depending on the extent of the abuse, there may or may not be issues. So it may be that your daughter is suffering effects that don't affect her twin. Have you seen an RAD specialist? That is also something that affects many, but not all adopted kids, and (like FAS) often looks like ODD. Big hugs to you. I hope you and your daughter can find the help you need.