How I am raising my son…with ADHD

My son was asked to leave his first daycare program at the age of 16 months. Six daycare programs and six years later, I have finally realized that those environments have only made our lives more difficult instead of helping. It has taken me this many years to realize and accept that my son is different and it is not just a phase he will grow out of.
Over the years I have heard advice on how to raise my son, discipline my son, and provide positive reinforcement that will help him change his behavior miraculously. I have had childcare providers with twenty or more years of experience telling me they have all the answers. I have been told by therapists that he is acting out as a result of his father moving away.
But, year after year as I watch him grow, I watch him continue to struggle. He struggles with things that come so easily for other children. He struggles with even simple tasks like getting ready for bed, taking out the garbage. Our other two children never have these issues and I have not been able to understand why he cannot function the way that other children can. I have researched different types of behavioral problems. I have purchased quite a few books on different theories about why he has had so many challenges and behavioral problems. I have found bits and pieces of answers to some of my questions, but nothing has helped to improve our situation. I have spent a lot of time trying to understand what I am doing wrong, how I have failed him, how to be a better mother to him, and I lay awake at nights worrying if he will be okay.
When someone suggested to me that I may consider that he has ADHD, I did not really believe it. My son is a smart boy. He does well in school. Even with his behavior issues, he scored high marks in Kindergarten and continues to exceed standards in 1st grade. I thought children with ADHD did poorly in school. With him, it is strictly behavioral, so I dismissed it. I did hold him back a year because of his behavior. I held him back because I thought that his behavior was just a maturity issues, given a year, he would improve. Once he started kindergarten, the behavioral issues continued although his scholastic abilities were outstanding. I decided to put him in a private school thinking the smaller classroom size and resources would be much better than with a public school. However, as with every program he has been in, I began receiving phone calls regarding his explosive tantrums, not listening and disrespecting teachers, hitting and kicking teachers, and mistreating other children. My son is big for his age, a year older than the other children, so when he is physical with other children it is very scary for everyone. Parents see him as a threat to their children. Teachers are unable to physically remove him from situations because of his size and strength. If he makes a bad choice and is reprimanded, he tends to have a full-blown anxiety attack which makes the situation worse. It often leaves adults shaking their head and assuming that his parents just give him whatever he wants so he is throwing a tantrum. I try to do everything I can to work with schools and the time I spent with his Kindergarten teacher was above and beyond, for both of us. However, the school eventually made the decision that Shane was too much a liability for them and they were concerned about losing business because they could not control his behavior and they asked us to leave. When first grade began, we went back to the public school system. As he has continued to struggle, I was again asked if I thought it was a possibility he had ADHD, again I dismissed it until a dear friend asked if I had actually researched ADHD and if I was afraid of it. I admitted I had not researched it (shame on me), but was open to any possibility if it will help my son. Rather than lecture me about what ADHD is and why she thought my son had it, she wisely advised me to research it before I made up my mind. That night, I found an article that should have been titled “Shane Hepner”. The article described my son and all of his tendencies perfectly. I immediately began the process for having him evaluated, which we are in the middle of now. The school has been a great resource for us, although the process is slow. But, I finally feel like we are in a place where we can get assistance we need to help him improve.
One of the biggest struggles I have had over the years is having a support group; parents of children like mine who have struggled to know how to handle a child when he is having an explosive tantrum. I struggle to find childcare providers and teachers who actually have the ability to work with a child like Shane. I have providers asking ME what to do when he gets in one of his “moods” and starts to lose control over his body and mind. They ask me like I’m supposed to know in all of my 7 years of parenting experience.
So much of this is trial and error. I realize that many parents use the “trial and error” method, but that is in the foundation of a simple parenting concept “A+B=C”. When you have a child has physical or mental limitations, this simple equation turns algebraic in seconds. You find yourself having to spend a little more time and patience to work the problem in order to get the correct answer. Now, if anyone has ever taken algebra or other more challenging math classes, you know that it can be very frustrating to solve a problem, especially when you don’t understand how to solve it and there are no steps to explain how to solve it. I remember as a child I would sit and try to do long division for long periods of time, in tears, because I just couldn’t figure it out. Now I am a bit of a numbers girl. I love math, have even taken math classes for fun. So, I am hoping that at some point, as I continue to go through the steps of each problem we encounter, I will begin to become more skilled with parenting my child.
In thinking about this whole process, I realized that if I have struggled there must be many others. So, if I share my experiences and what I have tried, maybe someone will benefit from my ideas, solutions, and even failures. So, I thought I would start sharing some of the stories that I have on a daily basis. What daily challenges Shane has and what I have done to work through it. Maybe someone will have better solutions for me, maybe someone will benefit from my solutions.
For the first time in years I remember what it feels like to hope. Hope that there are others out there who can give me new ideas. Hope that my son can grow up and be happy, successful and rebuild his young self-esteem. That hope takes me to the next step in this process where the hopelessness I felt for so many years defeated me daily. I have hope that I can be good mother to my son and actually meet his very special needs. I have hope that I will not fail him because I feel confident that I am fighting a real battle for him now, not just invisible demons.