You would think that I know the answer to this question. After all I am a trained special education teacher. That is what I spent four years in school for, so that I could recognize and teach a child with a learning disability. So why is it then that I can’t come to a decision about my own child. I spend 24 hours a day with him, minus the 5 hours a week he is in school. But yet I still am up in the air about getting him evaluated for ADHD. There are a lot of reasons for this.

Number one reason is the fact that we have not made a decision about homeschooling yet. If he is going to be home with me instead of in a traditional school setting then what is the point of getting him evaluated. I know how to handle him, how to work with him without a diagnosis. I worry that getting a diagnosis will just be a label that will follow him the rest of his life. If he is home with me I can work with him in a way that suites his needs and learning style, ADHD or not. I don’t need a diagnosis to teach him.

Another reason is the medication issue. I am very reluctant to put him on medication. He is already on so much for his allergies and he has such a sensitive stomach to begin with. I don’t want to add yet another chemical to his poor little body. In fact we are in the process of trying to get rid of as many chemicals in the house as we can. Why would I pourposly add more. I know we don’t have to put him on medication if we don’t want to, but the schools most often push for it, and I don’t want him to be thought of as the bad child in the class, just because I don’t want him on medication. My fear is that he will get a teacher who can’t see past the words unmedicated and ADHD. If I decide to keep him out of school to avoid this situation then we are right back at point number 1.

As Alex get older I have been noticing that he is showing less and less ADHD tendencies. He is still a very active little boy who rarely sits still for a minute. But that does not mean he has ADHD. The impulsive behavior  has drastically reduced. He still touches a lot of things without thinking before he does it, which often gets him in trouble. But he doesn’t have the more severe impulse control problems. He doesn’t run into the street, he doesn’t hit, and he doesn’t often act first, think later. He does have some temper control problems still, but again he is an active little boy. I also feel that he doesn’t have a large attention problem. When he wants to he can spend hours focusing on one thing. He does still have a tendency to jump from one activity to another during free time, but that is getting less and less as he gets older. I am really starting to feel like he is growing out of many of the ADHD behaviors, and what I really have is an active boy. And is there really anything wrong with that. I don’t think so.

So what is the problem you say. School is the problem. Every Tuesday and Thursday I worry about the report that I get from his teachers. It seems like every day is something else. The biggest one is that he has trouble sharing and trouble getting over problems. I am really starting to wonder if this is more a problem with the teachers than with him. He has the same issues here at home and with friends, but for the most part I have been able to work through those with him. In fact the last play-date we were on, I don’t really remember having a problem with him at all. Other than trying to drag him out of there. So once again that brings us back to the homeschooling.  Is he just one of those kids who does better at home? Am I capable of providing the right learning environment for him? Will we want to strangle each other at the end of each day? At the moment I don’t have answers to any of these questions.

As of today we are still planning on sending him to his last year of preschool, and Lizzie will be starting the 2 year old program in the fall as well. I think we will have to see what the next year brings.