Medicating children for just for school

[carol]

I love the information provided about the school cannot force parents to medicate their children. I just wanted to gain insight on what parents responses are to when the school badgers about it and when they seem to take a "laissez-faire" attitude when parents opt not to medicate. I definitely saw a decline in any attempts to help with a behavior mod or anything when I decided not to medicate. They became annoyed with me and took it out on the kid. What do parents do then? He, at one point, was ostracized from the class. I still don't medicate, but seem to get flak over not doing it. I was even told by a psychiatrist that nothing works for treatment of ADHD then ritalin or like drug. Nothing, he said, not behavior mod, not anything. So all the things I try and spend money on are useless, because nothing else works. That's just depressing, because if you think about it, no on is really deficit of their own attention. These children lack attention and control. I don't know, I guess I just have to be more assertive. My question is, what do you say as a parent when you opt not to medicate? What is an intelligent response that will keep school personnel from insisting that this would be best and so many children do better and ?

[katiekat]

I told the people at Sean's school that I will not medicate him to make their jobs easier.

I truly believe that he does need to be medicated because he just can't function in school(or anywhere) with his behavior the way it is. We did try Adderall and it did nothing so I stopped giving to him. When I find a medication that works and I am comfortable giving it to him, and he has no bad side-effects then ok, he'll take meds. But until then I guess they'll just have to earn their pay the old fashioned way-work for it.

[charliegirl]

Actually, attention deficit should be called attention excess. When you have ADHD or ADD you actually have so many things going on in your mind that you can't focus on just one of them. Every little thing bids for your attention, not to mention the thoughts that just seem to pop out of nowhere. If its something you are fascinated with you often seem to hyperfocus on it and then its hard to get your attention turned to anything else.

I have never medicated my son and had that same problem with the school. I ended up telling him that if he isn't so bad he needs an IEP he certainly isn't bad enough to need meds. They of course offered anything they could think of to help him short of an IEP and the actual help he needs but they did finally give up on the meds issue.

I have known of parents who inform the school their child is on meds that he takes at home and then given the kid a vitamin so he didn't have to lie if they asked if he took his meds. Very often the school is more willing to help and will provide more positive feedback once they assume the kid is taking meds. They actually claim to see improvement.

You could always try telling them that the law states you don't have to medicate him in order to get services. You may be better off trying to keep your discussions in writing so you have proof they are trying to force medicating, then mentioning to them that the law says you don't have to. Once they know you can prove it you may see more positive action.

Do you have an advocate? If possible, you should get one. They really can make the school understand that you are taking things seriously and they need to do their part.

Not knowing what specific problems your son is having makes it hard to know what we can suggest you try. There are definite things you can do which help many kids. A lot depends on the child and the circumstances. Have you checked out our alternatives board? You may find something in there you could try.

[misty]

I tried my daughter on meds when she was first dx'ed. It didn't work out & I took her off of them. At that point we had her in a private school. When we moved her to the public school they insisted we have her re-evaluated. At that point they asked about meds & I told them point blank that she's unmedicated & that I intend to keep her that way unless I see something that warrants trying meds again. I told them that would be solely my decision & that I would not be pressured into anything I do not feel is right for my child. I told them that is between me & Shannon's doctors.

By law the school cannot pressure you to medicate your child.

[carol]

Your insight into this topic are helpful. I will remember them all. I give my son coromega and am researching some other alternatives, because he is such a poor eater. I ordered a multivitamin. I now get reports he is unmotivated and is distracted. That was two weeks ago. I started him on the coromega again as I had ran out 2 weeks ago. Whether it is the coromega or just coincidence, Gage made his day(all his behavior points) and has been doing his work in class for the past 2 weeks. I am so proud of him. He is also going for art therapy in the hopes of having him express his feelings and feel good about himself. The school mentioned medication 2weeks ago and said their psychiatrist on staff would observe Gage in the classroom. Supposedly, this psychiatrist will only suggest meds if he thinks it is absolutely necessary. Although, I feel Gage may benefit from it, I think as long as he is not causing a problem, getting out of his seat, and doing his work, and learning, I will continue to advocate that he maintain med-free. I mean, we are not even sure if the motivation comes from an ADD. He gets overwhelmed quickly and has a stong fear of failure which can cloud his focus or make him feel melancholy. His actual dx is dyslexia R/O ADD. He only started the school in Sept. and, believe it or not, I feel he could still be transitioning. I heard about a child who described how his ADHD felt, like a monster inside of him that he couldn't control. When he took the ritalin, it controlled that monster and he was much happier. When I observe Gage, and I observe him a lot, as an educator and as a mother, I don't see this caged monster as this other boy had described. Gage has difficulty expressing his feelings so I can't really get a good insight from him. Maybe the art therapy will help with this.

[charliegirl]

Which type of ADHD does he have?

If he is inattentive and thats what it sounds like, there is only around a 20% chance that meds will help. They do much more for behavior than they do the attention although they do help some.

My son is ADD-in and he did much better when I put him on omegas.

I do strongly suggest that every time someone from the school mentions that you should medicate, you document it. Send them a written letter of understanding that they recommended medication rather than accomodations and keep a copy for yourself. You will then be able to prove they were repeatedly practicing medicine without a license if you need to. Some states don't even allow anyone in the school system to mention you should consider meds. If you are in one of those states, you have a stronger case.

Meds should be the last resort, not the first.

[rakuflames]

Feb 1, 2008 18:06:07 GMT -5 carol said:

I love the information provided about the school cannot force parents to medicate their children. I just wanted to gain insight on what parents responses are to when the school badgers about it and when they seem to take a "laissez-faire" attitude when parents opt not to medicate. I definitely saw a decline in any attempts to help with a behavior mod or anything when I decided not to medicate. They became annoyed with me and took it out on the kid. What do parents do then? He, at one point, was ostracized from the class. I still don't medicate, but seem to get flak over not doing it. I was even told by a psychiatrist that nothing works for treatment of ADHD then ritalin or like drug. Nothing, he said, not behavior mod, not anything. So all the things I try and spend money on are useless, because nothing else works. That's just depressing, because if you think about it, no on is really deficit of their own attention. These children lack attention and control. I don't know, I guess I just have to be more assertive. My question is, what do you say as a parent when you opt not to medicate? What is an intelligent response that will keep school personnel from insisting that this would be best and so many children do better and ?

Unfortunately what the psychiatrist said is true, proven in really good and unbiased research (and it's not what they expected to find). It's not that the other things are useless -- but they are very hard to use effectively, and in my experience behavior modification rarely works at school. It's just very, very hard to use WELL.

While I personally disagree with the choice to not medicate (unless there's strong medical reasons not to) -- it is your right. It is outside the school's area of expertise, and I would just IGNORE that issue and direct the conversation back to what can be done in the classroom. Thing is, the teacher needs to do those things whether he's on meds or not because meds don't fix everything.

In other words, I don't agree with your choice, but I agree that it's *your choice.* I will tell you that it is frustrating to teachers because we have seen so many children make treamendous -- and immediate -- gains -- on meds ... but we should zip our lips about it. It's not our choice to make and we have no medical background that would qualify us to decide which children should be on meds.

[rakuflames]

Feb 2, 2008 19:52:37 GMT -5 charliegirl said:

Which type of ADHD does he have?

If he is inattentive and thats what it sounds like, there is only around a 20% chance that meds will help. They do much more for behavior than they do the attention although they do help some.

My son is ADD-in and he did much better when I put him on omegas.

I do strongly suggest that every time someone from the school mentions that you should medicate, you document it. Send them a written letter of understanding that they recommended medication rather than accomodations and keep a copy for yourself. You will then be able to prove they were repeatedly practicing medicine without a license if you need to. Some states don't even allow anyone in the school system to mention you should consider meds. If you are in one of those states, you have a stronger case.

Meds should be the last resort, not the first.

I'm sorry but it's just not true that the meds only work 20% of the time for the inattentive type of AD/HD. They work equally well for both types. In my opinion I think the inattentive is more serious for a child than the hyperactive.

Also it is not typical for childen with AD/HD of either type to benefit significantly from omegas. I don't think schools should be repeatedly telling parents to put their children on meds, and they should be providing any needed accommodations no matter whether the child takes meds or not.

[lcdc1]

hey rakuflames (interesting id!), the innattentive ADD thing kind of confuses me, I am taking my daughter to see a physc today to further look into if she might be that or if there is more LD stuff happeing with her or anxiety or whatever. But, back on my question to U - why do you think the innattentive is more serious? My observations are that my daughter struggles in some ways like I do, but then she does this total shut down thing when she is feeling challenged by school or overwhelmed! Somtimes she really like falls asleep at the table doing homework when she is not totally tired like that, she glazes over a lot and I also have to make sure I have her attention on me for her to listen to half of what is said.

I read a long article recently on this site by a doc that talked about some challenges with innattentive and it is very different for me since I am the way hyper ADHD!

Oh welcome to the board too!

[bugsmom]

Carol, I missed your post the first time around, so I want to reply now. First of all, I don't think you owe the school any explanation in why you choose not to medicate. That is your choice, and I applaud you for it. I wish when we started this journey with ADHD five years ago that I would have been more informed to the alternatives. I know for a fact that that would have been the road we would have taken. With that being said, Josh has made some wonderful stride with the meds, but all isn't perfect. We deal with side effects, the ups and downs of rebounding, and the struggle of "Are we doing the right thing?"

It's funny, because no matter what you do, your going to be questioned by the school. My son is EXTREMELY HYPER, can't sit still in class, blurts out whatever comes into his head, sings in class, I could go on and on. Even though we DO medicate, they will ask me on some days if he even is. It never ends.