This is just anecdotal, but when DS started his ADHD meds, he did drop a few pounds in the first few months. Maybe 5? I think he dropped from 65 to 60. And then he hovered at that lower weight for six months or so but didn't lose more. Then he started gaining again. Four years later, he has gained 40 pounds and I don't know how many inches in height. So for him, the weight loss was temporary. The appetite suppressant effect of his meds is still a factor, but he eats plenty during the hours of his day when the meds are not on board. I wish you well as you work to figure it out for your daughter! ?

So she is taking it twice a day, but she doesn't eat lunch before her second dose? The beauty of taking two doses is that you can eat lunch once the morning dose has worn off and before the afternoon dose is given. If she is not hungry at lunch, I would consider delaying her lunchtime until she can eat and only give her the second dose after eating. When DS14 takes the double dose, it can take 4-5 hours for that morning dose to wear off enough for him to eat. So think about how long that span of time is between breakfast and lunch. If you can extend it, she should be able to eat something. If you find there is five hours of effectiveness, until she feels hungry, that should be plenty of time to get through her schoolwork, etc., before one dose wears off. Can she just take one pill per day and skip the afternoon dose? If you are thinking of taking her off the meds completely, it's worth seeing if doing them for just the morning will make enough of a difference. I also agree with working on the pill swallowing, so that there are more options. I bet you can find another med that would be effective but let her feel better. We tried many kinds before landing on the one that works for DS. Once she can swallow something small, you may be able to cut an ADHD med into small enough pieces for her to swallow. For awhile, DS took 1.5 pills, so we split them routinely. Another thought -- when DS was first diagnosed, the psychiatrist prescribed a small dose of Vyvance (I believe) to be the first med to try. He said to open the capsule and dissolve the meds in water, because he wanted us to start with just half the dose and work up to a whole capsule. As it turns out, we did not do that -- our pediatrician wanted to try a different med first. But perhaps opening a capsule and dissolving it in water could be an option for you, so that you could try something different than whatever you are trying in liquid version. There is also something that comes in a patch. We have not tried it, but it exists. I wonder if you worked with a doctor who was not so against meds if you could find someone who could offer you some other options, just because they will have more experience. I'm sure there is a reason you are sticking with this doctor. I'm just presenting it as food for thought. Meds have made such a difference for DS, but it took us months to figure out the correct type and dosage.

I've been missing her as well. Perhaps she has decided to spend her time elsewhere. I hope she comes back!!

My post above is so weird. Not sure why it appears as a quote.

I'd vote for buying a cake for that many people. If you contact some local bakeries, you may find an option you like better than Costco. Where I used to live, there was a bakery that had cassata cake as a speciality -- it's a sponge cake with fruit. Something like that might be nice. I love strawberries with cake, but slicing strawberries for 90 people is going to take hours and hours and hours. Can you buy them pre-sliced from a store? And do you have a way to keep that much ice cream from melting through the rest of the dinner?And who is going to scoop 90 scoops of ice cream at the last minute? I'm not sure that's the best idea, logistically, unless you are hiring people to help.

If you are providing the entire meal, I think you should include a vegetable as well. A salad or veggie tray are always nice. Corn goes well with taco pie, but it is another carb, so something green might be better. Roasted broccoli is easy and delicious.

My mom had a friend who always threw herself a birthday party, because her husband would not. She would have a yearly luncheon at her home for her friends, and she gave each of them a small gift, such as a potted plant. I believe her friends brought gifts, but she may have told them not to (cannot remember). This was a social event my mom looked forward to every year. So I say go for it! I know some people think it is tacky to specify "no gifts" on an invitation, but I think it would be appropriate in this case.

I was just coming back to add another post to this thread, saying that I was sympathetic, because I am extremely sensitive to noise, though I'm not sure my initial post came off that way. And then I read that it may be an actual annoying noise making app, whose sole purpose is to be irritating. I didn't realize that from the OP. I thought it was just a game that made an annoying noise. In that case, I agree that the school should insist that the boys stop, and I as the parent would probably call the school office and not just expect my daughter to deal with it herself. It's going to be hard for the lunch monitor to make sure it stops, though, if he or she cannot hear it.

If it is not violating school policy, and if the adult lunch monitor does not view it as a problem, I think she just needs to move to a different part of the lunch room. I realize this may be a hassle, if it requires asking her friends to move along with her, but if she can sit where she cannot hear the noise, that is the best solution.

Your realtor should be able to help you determine a good price, based on comparative sales of similar properties in the area. It's part of what they are meant to do for you. You would need to pay if you sought an appraisal. You can consult with several realtors to get their opinion before deciding who to use, so you can get multiple price suggestions that way.

Yes to all of the cleaning you mention, though running the vacuum over the baseboards should be enough for a start. And you may not need to do all of the windows thoroughly, depending on how the light shining through them shows the dust and dirt. If obviously dirty, yes, clean them. If not, focus on what is in the house. My house just went on the market this week, and it took me a lot longer than 24 hours to get it ready, so I'm glad you have a lot of help. Clear out all personal clutter. Clear off all counters and dresser tops, except for possibly a carefully chosen display item, such as candlesticks on the kitchen table. Only soap dispensers on the bathroom counters and clear all shampoo, etc., out of the baths and showers. Make sure your bathroom towels are nice or buy new ones. This time we are camping out at our new house, so we were able to keep our old house in pristine showing condition. However, I have lived in homes for extended periods of time (nine months) while they were on the market and while having small children. I found it helpful to have a drawer empty in each room that I could sweep clutter into at the last minute before showings. I would also pile personal items into laundry baskets and stick them in my car or in the garage for showings. I would limit my family to using one bathroom, so that I didn't have to clean multiple baths each time we showed the house. I hope it goes well. I'm glad you have a lot of help!

Do you need to select "unread posts" if that format bothers you? I never do that. I just choose Chat or another board from the main menu and look at the threads that are listed. From there, I can go to page two or three or whatever.

Yes, I checked that specifically. I'm logged in right now and cannot see a Like button on posts that have not yet been liked. I discovered that after I like a post, a small black x appears in the spot where the invisible Like button must have been previously.

The pages are numbered for me. For example, I am posting on page 8 of this thread. And I can move back and forth between pages by clicking on the page number boxes, which appear at the bottom, after the last post on each page, and also at the top of the thread. It was the same for me in the old format.

For me, the white heart in the circle seems to only appear on posts that have already been liked by someone else. And when I click on the heart, I only see the message "see who reacted." That heart does not give me the option to add a like of my own. Sometimes I can hover in that general area -- it seems to be slightly above where the white heart is -- and make a box appear that has reaction smilies to choose from. But sometimes I cannot make that box appear at all. And I am hovering over nothing -- no icons or buttons are there. Jean and Targhee's posts right above this one, for example, show no heart icons for me (at this point, anyway -- I suppose it might appear if someone likes their posts).

I'm having trouble finding the LIKE button. I can't see it on my screen, so I have to hover my cursor over the general area, and a box of choices will pop up. Sometimes. Sometimes I can't make it appear. Is this true for everyone?

You might like it, but you should preview it before sharing it with your son. It might not be a good fit for him. It's a musical, so some of the story elements are related through the lyrics. And there are some tricky plot elements. Meaning some things happen that require inference. It was not my favorite movie, to be honest, though I love love love Hugh Jackman generally and was excited to see it. I know it is has been wildly popular with many other people, though, so you may like it. It does address how society treats people who are different. I wish it were deeper, though. It seems -- to me -- more like a show and a spectacle than an exploration of deep ideas.

DD12's school is led by the Head of School. Who is a man, but the title would work equally well for a woman.

We tried Guanfacine, and it made DS very sleepy during the day, which was weird for him. It didn't have enough positive impact, so we switched back to a stimulant for him. But he also takes Clonidine at night. If your pediatrician is willing to try one or both of these, it might be worth a try. I'm not sure how they relate to or affect methyl levels. But they are originally blood pressure medicines, so they have a calming effect on the body.

Nope, the current BK chicken sandwich is definitely not the same. Actually, they have two chicken sandwich styles now, and neither is the one I loved.

Burger King used to have a chicken sandwich that was very thin and flat. It must be almost twenty years since I've had one, and I'm still sad about it.

I have been judgy about that, as well. I really dislike it. And then I discovered, after a conversation with our pediatrician about how DD12 scars so easily (forming lumpy scar tissue, not just skin marks), that many people of color pierce ears young, because infant earlobes don't scar from the trauma, though scars might form if you wait until older to pierce. It's riskier to pierce past young childhood. I wish now that we had pierced DD's ears when she was bitty, because we are too fearful to do it now. And she would oh, so much love to have pierced ears.

I agree with the responses you have received so far. I have two children who have IEPs that include testing accommodation, and I have a couple of additional thoughts. First, what is allowed and not allowed is specific to each individual, so my first thought is that it would not be appropriate for an entire class to automatically get the same accommodation. Last year we asked for a testing accommodation to be added to my son's IEP, and it required some extensive discussion in the IEP meeting. Before they could add it, they had to have data to show that the specific accommodation had been documented as helpful. In other words, we had to show that he had used in his classes, and that it was an effective support for him. It wasn't permitted to just add it, because we asked for it. It sounds like many or most of your students have used the math chart successfully as an accommodation, but that should be documented somehow. My daughter is in a private school for those with dyslexia and other LDs. She has an IEP, which is updated yearly by the public school, but the private school does not necessarily follow it. They have their own individualized learning plan for each student, with goals that line up with their mission and methods. But there is documentation and plenty of it. Does your school not have a learning plan for each student? I suspect for any accommodations on standardized testing, some kind of documentation of the need for it by the student would be required. Secondly, my children are allowed to use calculators on some portions of the math testing, but multiplication charts have never been brought up as an accommodation option during their IEPs, even though DD12's math program uses them in class. So I don't know if they are allowable, in general, but I know a calculator is. But the sections of testing that are measuring calculation do not allow a calculator (just as some of the reading sections do not allow the reading accommodations they are otherwise allowed). Finally, as a parent, I have mixed feelings about measuring achievement with standardized testing. Both of my kids with LDs have scored abysmally low on some parts of testing in the past. I have viewed it not as a failure but as an exposure of their weaknesses and need. And in that way, it is fine to me to have some low scores. It reflects reality and is not disheartening to me, other than perhaps a momentary pang of sadness that they struggle. The other thing that standardized testing is helpful for (for me) is measuring improvement (or lack of it) over time. DD12's school actually has an exemption for all of the students (except high schoolers) to not have to take state testing, for certain reasons. But they do administer certain standardized testing and use it measure student progress and set goals, and I have found those reports helpful. The teachers discuss them with us during conferences and are well versed at explaining the significance of the results to parents. All that to say that I think it is okay for the students to have lower scores on the math calculation portion of the testing, if they struggle with math calculation. No one wants them to feel disheartened, of course. But helping students and parents to understand that the test scores are just a snapshot and a tool to help measure progress can be helpful. I think the unfortunate part of your situation is not that the students cannot use the math charts, but that the school does not seem to have a good handle on what accommodations can be allowed and how that is decided for each student and is not communicating that well to the teachers, students, and parents. I see that as a concern, personally.

Also, I have another son who does not have NVLD or the other issues DS13 has. DS12 has trouble with rigid thinking, though he does not have autism. When faced with something in school that is hard for him, he freezes. His mind just can't work, and he will balk and say that it is impossible or just "I don't know" when we try to talk him through it. It has been a huge, huge problem, and it took us years and some private evaluations and the help of his teachers to figure out the root issues and how to handle them. He has a 504 now. In his case, the root causes are EF and inattention (though not enough to get an ADHD diagnosis, in his case) and anxiety. Anxiety is a big one. And I didn't realize it, and I would have done so many things differently with him when homeschooling, if I had. As long as he is is a state of anxiety and is stuck, he cannot make progress on whatever he is meant to be working on. As in, he just cannot, no matter how much the teacher or we at home try to work with him or explain it. The anxiety shuts him down, and we've learned we have to wait for the anxiety to pass before trying again. I used to try to make him push through it. And do you know how many times that was successful? Yup. Never. I wonder if anxiety is playing a role in your son's feelings of failure and impossibility.