Last week I told you about the beginnings of our older son, Morgan’s journey with ADHD ( you can read that here). He was officially diagnosed 4 years ago and we’ve been on quite the up and down hill adventure since. We had such good results putting him on a low dose of Adderall and we really believed that we had found a good solution to his problems.
What we learned over the next couple of years is that all of these medicines have side effects. But, at first we didn’t know that side effects were what he was experiencing. He was starting to get angry a lot, but kids can be moody no matter what–determining what was normal kid behavior vs. a medicine side effect took a lot of time. It was after talking with his doctor about it during one of his 6 month follow ups that we recognized that most of his outbursts were happening in the late afternoon/evening time. Apparently, this was a side effect pretty common with Adderall. The medicine is designed to wear off in the late afternoon so that he could sleep soundly at night but, that was causing his emotions to get out of whack. The angry outbursts started to create quite a bit of turmoil at home, so, his doctor recommended that we try a different class of medicine (there are four different classes).
It was during the second half of 5th grade when we switched to this different medicine and he seemed to be do pretty well with it. The late afternoon angry outbursts stopped and we felt like he was more even keeled. Summer came and went and then in the fall he started 6th grade—Middle School. There were SO many things went wrong for Morgan that year.
Something happens to kids when they reach Middle School age–they go from mostly happy go lucky kids to moody, rude, disrespectful little stinkers over night. To make matters worse– two boys that had been Morgan’s closest friends changed to different schools. He was also dealing with rejection–kids that he had been friends with since kindergarten decided they no longer wanted to be his friend. To top it all off, he was being bullied daily by a new kid that said all sorts of hateful things to him. I don’t know if I can attribute the mistreatment Morgan faced to his ADHD–I can just say, it didn’t help.
Having ADHD means that sometimes he acts differently –fidgeting, spacing off, and sometimes just being unaware socially. I think these behaviors went mostly unnoticed by his peers in elementary school, but everything in middle school seems to be about putting your peers under the microscope–it seemed kids were daily finding reasons to make fun of him. Also, the school work was becoming increasingly more difficult for him to keep up with and he was struggling in a lot of his classes. I was getting almost weekly calls from the principals office for behavior issues and teachers getting frustrated with him.
So to sum it up–he’s in middle school, he doesn’t have a good friend group, he’s struggling to fit in, he’s being bullied and the school work has become hard. The new medication wasn’t going to fix any of that.
Morgan has never been very good at expressing himself verbally–he’s always been a very emotional and sensitive child. But, all of a sudden, he was saying all sorts of horrible things about himself. He told me almost daily that he hated himself and that he just wished God would take him to heaven. It was heart breaking. Morgan was the child Super Rockstar and I begged God for. He was named YEARS before we ever got to hear his heartbeat. He is absolutely PRECIOUS to us and to hear him say so many hurtful things about himself was about to rip my heart out. Our efforts to tell him how loved he was by us fell on deaf ears. At school, he was being told the complete opposite and it hurt him–deeply.
I went into full on Momma bear mode. I met with our school principal and demanded that they do something about the bullying. To their credit–they acted on it immediately. It was such a HUGE win for Morgan. The mother of the kid that had been tormenting Morgan was mortified. Upon permission from the school, she reached out to me and sent the kindest email. She assured me that her son would be dealt with at home and that we would NEVER have to worry about him being cruel to Morgan again. And you know what? That’s exactly what happened. Thanks to the school intervening–Morgan and the other boy were able to face each other and talk. Today, they are the best of friends. The school also started checking in with Morgan regularly–giving him an opportunity to express his feelings and share difficulties he was having.
The second thing I did was meet with his teachers and principals to find out how to get him back on track in the classroom. I knew that falling behind was making him feel bad about himself and I’m sure he felt overwhelmed. We ended up putting him on a 504 plan–which basically means that his teachers accommodate needs he has (copies of notes, extra time on tests, not having to do as many math problems for homework, etc…)to help him be more successful. But, even with these positive steps–a dark cloud still loomed around Morgan.
Next week I’ll tell you about the side effect we never saw coming.
You go momma bear…years ago parents weren’t encouraged to question schools. Now so many things are understood , that weren’t years ago. I will be waiting to hear more, but am worried when you mentioned dark cloud. I pray it is fixable.
Thank you! It’s quite the saga. Never a dull moment with this.