My Ebenezer

So, with the whole ADHD thing or whatever it is that keeps Speedy “speedy”, I’m trying to take a proactive approach rather than a reactive one. The school system offers a program in pre-k for kids with special needs and while ADHD falls under that category, it is only offered when there are developmental delays. The good news is that Speedy does not have any developmental or educational delays at this point. The bad news is that until he does, they offer no assistence in preparing him for Kindergarden.

I actually looked and the lady during our meeting yesterday and said, “so what I hear you telling me is that in order to get help from the school system, he must first begin to fail in the classroom. There is no option to help prevent failure in the classroom.” She was very nice and almost empathetic and sweetly said, “it may not even come to that. As long as he is getting the information, he it may never cause a disruption in his learning.” As she is saying this, I’m wondering exactly how a Kindergarden teacher is going to keep Speedy in his seat. Or if she’ll be willing to let him walk around the back of the room, disrupting others as he gets into everything since he is still listening as he does so.

It’s rather frustrating as a parent to try and be proactive when you’re working with a reactive school system. We still have two other options we are looking into, one is through Texas Children’s and the other is through a private school. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that Texas Children’s will offer something to help us help Speedy.

I get frustrated when I constantly hear from physicians, nurses, diagnosticians, etc…. “he’s barely even 4, this just may be the way he is and he may grow out of it. He may just need to mature a little bit more. 4 is way too young to diagnose ADHD.” While that information may be true, it is not at all helpful. Because he is struggling right now in preschool. He’s way off from others his age, even others who are consided “very active”. So screw you for thinking you know my kid better than I do. Honestly, do you think I WANT him to have issues? Am I making all of this up?

I guess what frustrates me most is that in a few cases I’ve actually felt like the person/physician/nurse/diagnostician/etc… was thinking I was nuts for even pursuing any of this right now. I mean, I get that this could all magically go away in the next year. I get that we could all wake up one morning and Speedy will have suddenly gained the ability to focus and pay attention without fidgeting and moving around. I’m not saying it’s impossible. But would it be responsible parenting for me to just assume that it’s going to happen and not even attempt to somehow intervene before it effects his education and his self-esteem?

I get the whole roll of the eye thing whenever I mention Speedy’s self-esteem. I think self-esteem is one of the biggest issues kids with ADHD struggle with and that is more important to me than even the education piece. I would rather see him have a healthy self-esteem than a better education. He can deal with the educational stuff but if he has a low self-esteem, that’s a lot more difficult to overcome. So while some roll their eyes and look at me like I’m one of those psyche protecting, permissive parents……. I can’t help but wonder if they’d look at it differently if it were their child? The self-esteem issue doesn’t seem to matter - unless it is your child we’re talking about.

Bleh. Enough griping. This parenting business isn’t always easy but I’m getting better at not caring what anyone else thinks. Good news for me. Bad news for you. ha ha ha ha

4 Comments »