From the time my daughter was about 4 we had noticed that she could not keep her mind on one task for more than a few seconds. This girl has been in an excellent Catholic school since first grade. However, her conduct grades for grades 1-5 were consistently unsatisfactory. She has had detention because of conduct, forgotten homework, lost homework, lost anything and everything, more times than we care to remember.
The last straw was when she stayed last summer with one of her out-of-state aunts for a couple of weeks. The original plans were for her to stay a week or so with the aunt, then another week or so with her grandmother. Since they only see our daughter maybe every other year when either we go up there or they come here (we're 1200 miles apart), they were not completely prepared for having an ADD child staying with them. Her grandmother cut her stay short saying she couldn't handle her. It was an unpleasant experience for everyone involved. And, it was then that, after debating for more than a year, we finally decided to have her tested for ADD.
As we suspected, she is ADD and was placed on 10mg Adderol, the lowest dosage available. Subsequently, the dosage was upped to the 15mg dosage once a day. The change has been absolutely amazing. This child has gone from being a C - D student to straight A's the last report card. Her conduct grades are mostly "Outstanding" with the balance being "Satisfactory".
I don't appreciate in the least Boortz' statements that ADD is a parenting problem. To be nice about it, unless Boortz has an ADD or AD/HD child, he doesn't have the first clue what he is talking about. Boortz tips his hand about his motives when he talks about the government and docile citizens. Boortz is not concerned about children, and children's welfare. He really appears to, for some unknown reason, fear being drugged by the government and is using ADD as some sort of front.
I will put my and my child's mother's parenting up against anyone anytime. You will NOT find a better home than what we have here. We have tried every approach possible to get our daughter to focus. We have had serious around the dinner table talks about personal responsibility. We have both had serious one on one talks with her about personal responsibility. When "being nice" hasn't worked, she has been grounded from her favorite things more times than we care to remember. We have prayed as a family together about this problem. She has told us she has prayed in church about it. She is as aware as any of us that this is a problem. I have no doubt that she wants to be able to focus but just does not have the ability to focus for any extended period of time.
Yes, I suppose if we wanted, we could become absolute tyrants for parents where every single lost train of thought by our daughter would incur serious consequences but at what cost? If we wanted, we could scar the poor girl for life and she would hate her parents for being parental tyrants. And, yes, she might comply for short periods as she has with our "nice" approaches but the compliance would be out of fear. Is that really fixing the problem? Not hardly. This type parenting is extremely destructive and probably just as importantly, it wastes valuable time in this child's life.
She is in sixth grade now. She is 6 years away from starting college. Her grades need to be maintained where they are now so she can go to college in order to give her the best chance of making it in the world. If Adderol gets her there then that's all the better. Hopefully, as the doctor said, she will outgrow this when she matures and will not need the Adderol.
Mr. Boortz points out that Dr. Bob Jacobs "correctly points out that there is no proof that ADHD exists." At the same time, there is often no physical proof that headaches exist. People will report the symptoms of a headache but often even a CAT scan will show no reason for the headaches. This by no means indicates that someone's head really does not hurt. And, when someone has a headache, they can also take two tablets of acetylsalicylic acid, more commonly know as Aspirin. Scientists believe that aspirin's ability to reduce the body's production of hormone-like "prostaglandins" is the reason for both its effectiveness in relieving pain and reducing inflammation... but they don't know. Similarly, no one knows exactly why Adderol and Ritalin work, they just do. I don't know what kind of proof Mr. Boortz wants, or if he even wants proof.
As a side note, our daughter is not completely free of losing her trains of thought. She is still an "air-head" at times. She still loses things. She still forgets what she is supposed to be doing. The difference has been that the degree and frequency of these lapses has decreased dramatically. We have learned that you cannot give this child a list of things to be done in order to complete a task. She simply loses it after the second step. Last Christmas, after a minor emergency here when her mother received an electrical shock and had to go to the emergency room, I asked her to help me clean up some of the things that were broken in the accident. The task involved about five steps that I started to describe to her. After the second step, I could tell from the blank look on her face that I had lost her. I then wrote down each step for her. She completed the task perfectly. I see this as more "proof" that ADD exists. I suppose if we continued to increase her dosage she would be laser focused and maybe "docile". But that is not what we're after.
So, I take it very personally when someone like Boortz insults my parenting by insinuating that ADD is a parenting problem. We have a very fine home. You will find no better. And, our daughter is doing fine, Mr. Boortz. Thank you very much.
Now, flame away!
EACH TABLET CONTAINS
|
5mg |
10mg |
20mg |
30mg |
Dextroamphetamine Saccharate | 1.25 mg | 2.5 mg | 5 mg | 7.5 mg |
Amphetamine Aspartate | 1.25 mg | 2.5 mg | 5 mg | 7.5 mg |
Dextroamphetamine Sulfate USP | 1.25 mg | 2.5 mg | 5 mg | 7.5 mg |
Amphetamine Sulfate USP | 1.25 mg | 2.5 mg | 5 mg | 7.5 mg |
Total equivalence | 3.13 mg | 6.3 mg | 12.6 mg | 18.8 mg |