By: drwilkow on 5/1/09
There are differing opinions about whether or not to medicate.

Some psychologists advocate a combination of medication and behavioral therapy.

For me personally the number one thing that I have found which works for me as an adult with ADHD is structure. If I didn't set up a structured work environment I wouldn't be able to keep the job I have right now. In fact, I tend to thrive in bringing order to a chaotic workplace.

Jglennon mentions creating scheduled routines to manage behavioral outcomes for her son Alex. That's a great non-medicated alternative.

Hopefully, isthisforreal will check out some of the websites and legitimate ADHD coaches for her son.

Tomorrow at the Waseca Public Library at 1:30 pm, I'll provide a free handout about the ten stages of psychosocial development based on the work of Erik H. Erikson. This will be in addition to an adult ADHD self-diagnostic test.

So please plan on attending to hear more about ADHD from a childhood development level as well as adulthood.

There are also some other ADHD resources available at: www.tcjobhopper.com

By: isthisforreal on 4/29/09
Sometimes you think you're the only one struggling with a child who needs help. Medicines don't help, they just numb the mind and give the parents and teachers a little peace. The child's self-esteem is more important. We're dealing with a teen who's off playing nintendo in his mind and letting his schoolwork go undone. With the added pressure of failing grades and kids who reject him out of hand, it's nearly impossible for him to "want to" try to finish tasks. If you think this is so hard, try being the kid with the problem when everyone around him says, medicate.

By: jglennon on 4/28/09
This story sounds just like our son. We hired an ADHD coach to help with our son, Alex. He's not medicated. Our coach advocated us restructuring our parenting approaches. She also had us use two different programs. We used www.adhdnanny.com to help us schedule routines and to provide consequences when the routine wasn't met. It's definitely for younger kids, but it really helped us manage. We also used www.playattention.com. It's a neat program that allows Alex to control their games like Harry Potter. He uses his mind to finish tasks and improve memory. It's a long road, but we're doing well. It's good to have someone sort through the clutter to get help.