Diagnosis

This is a quick summary of why we are here today. My 5 year old son, Rocco, has recently been diagnosis with ADHD by medical professionals.

Let me back up a little bit to understand how we got here. I have thought something has been off with my son since he was an infant. That feeling is so hard admit let alone to describe but it's been with me for five years now. When he was a baby, he needed constant attention. While you might say this is normal. He's a baby! Just trust me when I say CONSTANT attention. I gave less attention to my twin daughters combined when they were babies then I gave my son. Toddler days, I wished my son would watch TV show for a 20 minute break, but he never seemed interested for more than 5 minutes. And the E.N.D.L.E.S.S. energy! Wow! I will say though even with these things I would have never thought ADHD, I just thought oh he's a boy.

When he turned three I had him tested by the school district and he came back with severe speech delay along with some comprehensive and fine motor skill delays. So we started a 5 days a week, special day preschool. During the next couple of years, certain behaviors led me to seek medical help. These are hard to describe, but I'll try to give you a couple...

Rocco likes to touch is sister's heads. Just a little tap to the top of the head. Not to hurt them, but he just likes to do it. So after the touching is annoying them, I ask him to stop. He looks at me and touches them again. I start to get angry and threaten a time out and then he does it again. Now this is what I think is different about Roc. When he did it, you can tell in his eyes that he didn't want to. That he wasn't doing it to get my attention, he just HAD to do it. Like he had no control over it. Like an OCD person has to turn the door knob 9 times before leaving.

Not many kids would play with him at the park. I think they mistook his size and thought he was older than he was. Kids would talk to him and he couldn't comprehend it clearly and when he wouldn't respond it was like they lost interest in playing with him. He also has trouble understanding social cues. He'll exsessivly ask someone to play with him and not realize that it's annoying that person. Or not understand when someone wants to take a break from playing.

Rocco takes Karate lessons. So during a learning exercise the teacher lined up 4 kids and had them take turns kicking a pad. When it was Rocco's turn he kicked but didn't say "Kee Yah" while doing it. The teacher says, "Good job Rocco just remember to say your Kee Yah next time." He goes to the back of the line. There is maybe 30 seconds until it's his turn again. Same thing, kick no Kee Yah. Teacher corrects Rocco again and sends him to the back of the line. 3rd time and Rocco still doesn't Kee Yah. This time the teacher says, "Rocco, are you going to say your Kee Yahs or do you want to do 10 push ups?" To which Rocco replies, "I want to do 10 push ups." He says this in a happy voice. My son could not understand that the push ups were a punishment.

In preschool, his teacher describes his focusing problems with this example: If Rocco is sitting right in front of me during book reading circle time, then he answers all the comprehensive correctly. If he is sitting behind one child and after she reads the book, she points to a letter and asks Rocco what letter is this, he responds "a five". When at station time and Rocco has one on one time with a teacher, he acts jittery, excited, happy, but often not able to complete the task because he is nervous like.

I recently had Rocco's evaluation at school with his teacher, speech therapist and school psychologist. Rocco is a very happy kid that is well liked by all staff and peers. He is still delayed in speech, some fine motor skills and in the one percentile in a couple areas. He can not name all the letters in the alphabet. Considering if I put him in Kindergarten at the beginning of this year, he should almost be reading at this point, I would say I'm concerned. Regular Kindergarten has 32 kids in the class and requires one hour of quiet circle time each day. Rocco can't make it pass 10 minutes in his class of 14 now. I can't imagine how it would be like in a bigger class and teachers that are annoyed with his lack of focus.

My son is funny, sweet, a good sharer and fun to be around. Then the day gets in our way. I feel like I spend a lot of the day correcting him. Rocco stop touching your sisters, stop climbing on the couch, stop asking for more juice, stop pooping in your pants, stop stop stop. Not one offense is a big deal, but it's hard when it's all day all the time. This is not fun for me and I can imagine it's very annoying to him as well. So he's on tract to go to a "Special Day" Kindergarten in the fall and my question is, when does he catch up? When does he go to normal school?

I felt and still feel like something is off with my son. I don't say this lightly and often times think, nothing is wrong with him and I'm just a horrible mom. My lack of good parenting skills is resulting in this behavior. I have read at least 15 parenting books, taken 4 classes and I still make many mistakes throughout the day. Everyday! But something inside me kept nagging at me that something is wrong with my son! I called the doctor and had a long talk with her. She agreed that something was off, but didn't know what. She ordered blood work, genetic testing, austism and adhd screening. Several forms, tests and doctor appointments later, we have arrived at ADHD. Now what?