Non Hyperactive ADD

[lisacap]

I am looking for a few answers, heres the deal. Mikayla, my middle child, 9 year old, non ADD, in 3rd grade has Always excelled in everything that she does. Always winning awards, always straight A+'s. Over the past few months since school has been back in session, I have noticed that she is basically for lack of words...LOST IN SPACE...her grades are all going down, she seems to be one of the most disorganized kids I have ever seen, when I ask her how her day was or what she learned and I get HUH or I dunno know...homework has been horrendous, every night she is crying that she doesn't know what to do or how to do it. When I ask her if she did it in school she doesn't remember. The progress report from her teacher stated that Mikayla needs to show more confindencce in herself, that she needs to be more organized, and lastly, Mikayla seems to be daydreaming in class and needs to pay more attention....so basically my question is, how can a straight A student become so laxed in everything, is this a pre-puberty deal, or could she possibly be displaying signs of ADD, with out the hyperness like her brother...or could it just be that she doesn't want to be number 1 anymore because of her brother and she doesn't always get the glory for it. I am starting to get concerned, where we studied for 2 hours the religion test on Tuesday and she knew every single answer in the chapter of what she needed to know and got a 70 on the test. Any one go through this, or have suggestions, I am really dumbfounded by this one. One more thing, those of you with a non hyperactive ADD child, especially a girl, do you know when you started to realize that they did have ADD...I can't compare her to her brother, because Christian is so on the hyper end of it, I kind of knew when he was 3 months old, that he had something wrong, from the stuff he did back then.
Any input would be great.
Thanks

[lisacap]

Oh Ya I forgot to add that this is the child who in Kindergarten, First and Second grade they wanted to push ahead...so I am really lost here.

[charliegirl]

Have her evaluated.

Many very intelligent kids, especially girls, do very well in the early years because they tend to just absorb knowledge. Now that she is 9, (I'm assuming she is in 3rd or 4th grade) thats about when most kids are diagnosed.

Some kids cruise right on through until middle school or jr high, so if it is ADHD inattentive, its good that its showing up now. Schools are so much more willing to work with you in elementary school.

There is also the possibility of anxiety or depression but from what you said, she sounds like she is just "hitting the wall" now, so her ADHD is becoming apparent.

She sounds like she is doing exactly what I did in school and I'm an adult ADHDer. I started out really strong, even taught myself how to spell before kindergarten, but the farther I got in school, the more impossible it became. I hated school by the time I graduated even though I did well. It was a constant struggle the entire way. I wasn't diagnosed in school and received no help. I'm glad you aren't letting that happen to her.

[puzzled]

My oldest daughter read before she went to kindergarten, taught herself to add and subtract, and was top of her class in k-2nd grade. In 3rd grade she started to slip. Her grades went south in a hurry and by 6th grade she was barely making Cs most of the time.....unfortunately, inattentive ADHD was not dx much then and she fell through the cracks and struggled til she barely graduated high school. She took herself in and was dx as an adult.

Chase did pretty good academically until 3rd grade as well....

[misty]

Shannon is ADD inattentive & we started noticing problems toward the end of 2nd grade. Even then I never once thought of ADD. Her teacher was thinking a learning disability & thats the reason we had the testing done. 3rd grade was when we really started noticing the inattentiveness & disorganization.

The good news is that once we finally got the ADD & the LD's addressed, she started the slow climb back the hill.

[lisacap]

So what I am getting from all of this, is that you all noticed around 3rd grade. Mikayla as well was reading and writing one month into kindergarten. By first grade was bored out of her mind, where she was getting extra work to do, while the other kids were still practing writing their ABC's....I guess I will wait till next Wednesday for her report card to come in, and make a copy to bring with me to the doctor's. good thing is she has her physical next week and my peditrician, specializes in ADD...though Christian was to extreme of a case for her, Mikayla may do well by her. I was hoping it was maybe just an age thing. But it may not be.
Thanks for the input.

[katiekat]

I had a similar situation with my son last year in 4th grade. He was, much like your daughter, an excellent student before then. He read early and always got high grades and the work always seemed too simple for him. He was such a perfectionist with his school work I worried he would grow up to be one of those kids who killed himself in high school because he got a "B" on his report card.
Fast forward to 4th grade-he came home with a D in math and could not have cared less. Not only was he not a pefectionist with his work he just wanted to get it done and go play. He was never a behavior problem but his school performance just went downhill.
I realized that because he always did everything so well and never had any problems that I was very laid back about him doing homework and when he was little he liked to do it but once he got older his social life was starting to become more important.
I tightened up the rules this year and watch him with his homework and studying like a hawk.
So it could be ADD but it could just be an age thing too-just wanted to share the other side of coin with you.

[lisacap]

I kind of feel the same way as you do Katie, she has always been a perfectionist, always excelled, never had a messy paper, or a bad grade, and now it is the same thing, it is like she doesn't care. I know some may have to do with the teacher leaving in the middle of the year last year, it may have screwed her more than I thought, but come on we are 5 months into school, she should be over that by now...I have been on her butt constantly, I told her dance would be done, if the grades don't go up...but then I flip the coin again, and what if she is just legitimatly having a hard time, and because for so long it was so easy, and now it is getting harder, we didn't see or for that matter her first 4 years of teachers didn't see it...I will wait till report cards and conferences to see what the teacher thinks, then I will talk to the pedi...