ADHD

Ever since Tyson was little he has had a hard time focusing in on things.  I remember when Blake was born just wishing he could watch Elmo for a whole episode of Elmo's world while I fed Blake and he couldn't do it.  But he wasn't even two- just his little personality.  Time went on and he was in nursery and couldn't for the life of him sit in his chair for the lesson even though he was the oldest kid in there.  Preschool all the other kids could sort of follow along when I was teaching for my week of joy school and Ty just needed a little more help to get stuff done.  That summer we found out he had hearing problems and ended up getting him ear tubes among other things and man did that help!  He's cured!  He will do better!  And he did a little bit.  But from school to church I would hear how he is a good little boy but has a hard time focusing.  Boy did I know it though.  To get him to look in my eyes for more then 2 seconds and still next to impossible.  I have to ask then ask again 3-4 times sometimes before he listens to me.  But kids do that right?  He is young still so he will catch on.  Kindergarden starts and his teacher says he is a good boy but she has to keep on him to stay on task.  Homework consisted of me sitting with him and helping him do every problem.  He had no problem with the work he just couldn't do it alone.  He was reading with the top kids in his class.  I was so proud of him!  And I started to push him too fast and he couldn't keep up.  By the end of the year he was at the middle to end of the kids with his reading groups.  

First grade started and I was embarrassed that he went all the way back to the first set of reading books. We had gotten to the third set in kindergarden.  No big- we will catch up.  And hour after hour we would read and his teacher would say he's doing great! But I have to put him in the front of the class and next to a helpful student to kept him on task. He stays in his seat and doesn't bother anyone but he needs extra help to focus.  She would even have a parent that came into volunteer or herself pull  him back to the back table to retake math tests that he did horrible on to read it to him one on one.  He would get 90-100% on those.  Then one day I came into the class after school to help him find something in his desk and his teacher told me "I think you should have him see his dr." His lack of attention was hindering his learning and he was falling behind.  I mean, how can this happen??  I'm a elementary school teacher for crying out loud! I do his homework with  him every day!  It takes us HOURS and I want to rip my hair out trying to get him to do it but we do it!  How is he behind?  It's my job to help with with school and I'm failing!! 

We tried all sorts of little things to help him stay focused at school and he did good 50% of the time or so. After having to wait a few months I got him into the CPD (center for Persons with disabilities)  at USU.  I bought in all sorts of forms and things they had Bryan and I fill out.  I just wanted some answers if they had any and help too!  Bryan has been VERY funny about all of this.  He was a lot like Ty was growing up and felt labeled a lot from kids and teachers and is freaked out that might happen to Tyson I guess.  Or it just stresses him out so much he projects it all onto me to deal with so he doesn't have to.  I hope that doesn't make him sound mean.  I think he deals with what he can I guess.  My point is this is all on me really, and it's hard.  When the dr. said he felt like Tyson had ADHD (the attention part of it so really the classical ADD) I kind of thought that already.  When I read about ADD it just screams my little Ty. I hate to admit it but I've kind of had it in my head that ADD kids were naughty little stinks.  It's hard to really understand behavior issues I guess.  I'm grateful to go into the dr and get some ideas of where I should go from here.  He also helped me to understand that kids like Ty aren't broken or have "problems" but really just have a different personality.  And a lot of people can overly focus on things they are interested in much more then I can ever do.  Like Ty with the Wii or DS.  He is amazing at figuring out those games! Too bad he doesn't focus in on his reading like that!

I was ok with all of this but it kind of hit me today when I tired to get him to write a little note to his teacher last year.  I have to have her fill out some forms for the dr. and thought it would be nice for Ty to put a letter in it.  He fell apart.  It took us a 1/2 hour to write two sentences.  Really nothing new for him.  And not hard for him either.  When he just gets it done it's done in 5 minutes.  But there are lots of tears shed and a angry mom telling him to hurry up and get it done.  When he went outside to play after I looked at his scribbly handwriting and started to cry.  This is our life.  Not something that is going to turn off like a light switch or something he is going to mature out of easily.  Of course he will figure out how to deal with it and it will get better but it's my life.  It made me cry.  My sweet little boy is going to have a ruff go.  Why does it have to be hard?  How is this going to affect his life?  He already struggles with friends are kids going to be mean to him about it?  How on earth am I going to deal with this?  I'm already so impatient and his lack of attention in things he considers boring drives me crazy!! But what do you do!  Dust yourself off, pick yourself up and get up in the morning and it again.  I almost hate to tell his teachers next year about this because I know what they will be thinking  "oh great, this is going to be a lot of fun to deal with." I've been there I know!  But what they don't know until they know him is that he isn't the bouncing off the wall kid that can't sit still.  So he squirms in his chair a little- he just doesn't do boring.  

I love Tyson.  I wish I could fix this for him.  Some how we will figure all of this out!