ADHD and medicines for 7 year old?

Question

My son is seven and has been diagnosed with ADHD and Dr wants to put him on medicine for it but I dont really like that idea. I really dont like any medicines unless its absolutely necesary. What is your opions on the medications for ADD and/or ADHD?

Answer 1

What do I think of those drugs......I think it is legal child abuse!!

I have ADHD, two of my boys have ADHD. We have played the drug game.

Caffeine is a stimulant, it took me years to realize why my mother (she still is teaching for a private Christian school at 70 something years old) gave me coffee when I was little, still I drink it . It calmed me down!

People put her down for it but a stimulant to one  calms others down....

I tried the straterra (actually I made my oldest one deal with his adhd by saying I will try the drugs if he does). What a mistake!!

The side effects were horrid! and they give this c**p to little kids!!

That most common drugs (ritilan/adrial (sp))are nothing more then street speed, very addictive! It has come into light that children who have been given these drugs do get into bigger drugs, they are truly legal gate way drugs, when older.......

Then they give some kids blood thinners and all this other c**p and wonder why kids are having heart attacks and shooting up schools.....

I feel it was a mistake to take the pills, this is just us. You may find they are fine?

We also have more sever mental illness in this family, it is all hereditary.

Just make sure your son really has this, and not something like a form of autism,or he just is being a hyper little boy who is eating to much sugar. He is so young and the doctors hand those drugs out like candy. But maybe things have changed? Maybe they take blood tests and monitor the kids more while on these drugs?

Educational modification,diet,sleep,all will help with your sons problems. Many parents do not have the time or want to put in the effort to help there children in other ways other then drugging them, you have the power to pick which one is best for you....

These conditions are nothing new.

Good luck!!

Answer 2

I am wondering if your doctor is getting a kickback for prescribing the medicine.  I think it zombifies kids.

Answer 3

I do not think a child at that age should be put on that kind of medication. At that age children are naturally hyper and medication will just make them act like robots. His school may say he has the problem but don't always listen at age 7 a child is going to have a hard time paying attention to anything because they always want to be on the go and play. Try takeing your child to the park and letting him run around till he/ she drops! Also give rewards for paying attention when you are trying to teach him/her something and punishment when not paying attention it work for my child!

Answer 4

Medication for ADHD should be a last resort ..if your OK with dealing with your son and you do NOT feel the need to medicate your son you do not have too ...i was also asked this because Thomas only sleeps a few hours but apart from this we can cope ...so NO i wouldn't use the medication for him

Answer 5

I think you need to look at how the ADHD is affecting his daily living, schooling, etc.

Is going without going to have a huge impact on his ability to learn and succeed? Does it already?

Is trying a low dose of a medication going to do more harm then good?

I have always been against treating for adhd/add.

But now my 9 y.o is add.... I personally want her to be able to focus on her schooling and social skills better. Right now she rides the line of failing/passing and has no friends. According to IQ tests shes smart. Shes very out going and nice so she has the ability to make friends. I believe her add is affecting her schooling and social skills. We are in the process of deciding what treatment will work best (medication) and giving it a try.

Answer 6

My mom used to make me take that and i was not diagnosed with it. It makes you feel horrible. I used to spit it out. It makes you nautious all day even if you eat before you take it. My friend had the same problem. Please don't put him on it. And in the event you do if he tells you he doesn't feel good take him off it. You don't get used to it.

Answer 7

I think ADD and ADHD are way overprescribed and a creation of doctors and pharmaceutical companies to drug kids that would be far better off without any drugs and might do them irreparable harm in the process. I find it suspicious that these new "illnesses" were only recently created, no one ever heard of either one a decade or so ago, and the amount of drugs and the money for the drugs leads me to conclude doctors and pharmacies are getting rich at the expense of the children.

Answer 8

I would say just put him on the medication. It would do him more good than it would harm.

Answer 9

please do not put him on medicine i grew up with both of my brothers on meds for adhd and add please it rewins them one of my brothers is scared to go out and be around people because of the meds he thinks he needs them too function bye the way he is now 21 and thats how he acts my mother put him on the meds at about 7 and he use to be outgoing and funny not any more my other brother was on them when he was 9 he stoped taking them at 17 then he became normall again he use to flip out and be crazy if he missed his meds now hes fine but they become an addition please for you and your sons sak dont he wont be the same kid you know now he will grow out of it dont worry ps the doctors will switch his meds amillion times they can put alot of weight on him or make him really thin

Answer 10

I have 2 kids that are ADHD and one that is autistic.  They all take meds and they are fine.  Start with a non-stimulant like Straterra that makes the brain produce the stuff on its own to make him calm and focus.  Mine are on Concerta and Clonodine.  Talk to a psychiatrist, not a family doctor or pediatrician.  Let a psychiatrist make the decision of what is really going on.  My boy that is autistic was diagnosed ADHD just like the other two, but with OCD as well, by a pediatrician.  The psychiatrist and assessment team determined he was autistic (Asbergers).  He is highly functional though.  About the ADHD, yes, many kids are diagnosed with it now more than ever.  Try stricter discipline, limit red food dye and processed meat (hotdogs for example).  Being consistant with everything, doing everything the same time everyday--dinner at 6, bath at 7, bed at 8, and such.  keep him on a tight schedule.  Be patient with it all.  I tried everything possible before I put my kids on meds.  My 10 yr old was failing, and she has a very high IQ, once she was on meds and got leveled out, she is a straight A student.  The 5 year old, well, he is all boy, but much better.

Good luck.  Go to webmd.com and check out the ADHD info on there.  That is where I looked when my kids were diagnosed with it.

Answer 11

Doctors are too ready to diagnose attention deficit disorder and to prescribe Ritalin.

Kids are not allowed to be kids any more - they are supposed to be little adults and to be able to have an adult's ability to focus on tasks that are boring to them.

If they cannot do this, the solution is to drug them - I think this is a major cop-out by educational institutions and a scam to make money for the pharmaceutical companies.

It would be far better to structure the educational activities so as to make them interesting enough to children that they would have no problem staying focused.

Another possible cause of the short attention span is TV and computer games. I have noticed that over the years the nature of TV has changed significantly - things on the screen move much faster, there are many quick shots rather than scenes that take 10 seconds or more.

In computer games things happen in split-seconds requiring rapid reaction times from the players. All of this conditions kids to instant action-reaction, and anything that takes a whole minute seems to them like an eternity.

Does that mean we should drug kids to overcome this conditioning so that they can sit still in a classroom? I think not!  

What we need is either to decondition them (which I don't think is a real solution), or to speed up the delivery of education to match their rapid response capabilities.

I would have second and third thoughts about drugging my kids - rather I would look into alternative schooling where they might have a chance to learn at their own pace.

Answer 12

I agree with you. My husband has ADHD and when he was little that medication really messed with him. There are ways to teach a child that doesn't involve medicine. Over the summer have quiet time. In the morning after the breakfast (maybe while your cleaning up) he needs to sit for 5-10 mins and color, practice his hand writing, draw, do a puzzle, read, what ever. As long as he does it quietly. Start off with 5 mins, and if he is ok with 5 go up to 10, then 15 etc. By the end of the summer he should be able to sit for at least 30 mins to an hour by him self.

What this does is he learns to keep himself busy. Where most ADD/ADHD kids get in trouble is sitting with nothing to do, the energy build and builds until finally they have to run, scream, jump what ever to get rid of it. If he learns to find something to do while sitting he will still have little out burst but not as bad or often. Also try to get him into an active class. There are teachers at every level that are more interactive then others. Those are the teachers he will do best with.

Answer 13

Bad, bad bad.  You can alter his diet.  A lot of children are diagnosed with ADHD these days.  It still doesn't have an exact meaning.  It changes by year.  Try the diet first and then make your final decision.

Answer 14

I was diagnosed with ADHD in the first grade, but my parents didn't want to put me on meds either. I did ok in school, but I had to work twice as hard as the other kids. If your son has good study habits he will be fine, but if he starts to struggle in a class like math, get him a tutor ASAP.

I think once he gets in high school he should have a choice whether he wants to be on the meds or not though. I never knew about my diagnosis until my second semester of college, when I basically had a break down because I finally encountered a class that I couldn't just cram for right before the test (the only effective way for me to study, since I had basically a zero attention span). I thought I was just depressed, but when I went to the doctor, after just talking to me for about ten minutes, she handed me a test to take and I was rediagnosed with ADHD. I got on the proper meds and it made a huge difference in my performance at school...even though I wasn't a "terrible" student before, all my teachers noticed an improvement.

You shouldn't feel pressured to put your son on the meds, but please at some point give him a choice. I have an IQ of 145 and had to settle for a "C" grade point average in high school because I couldn't focus in my classes or on my school work.

If you do put him on them, don't worry that he will become addicted. Most kids hate taking the meds because they can upset your stomach for the first week. You can help that by making sure he takes his meds every single day, and doesn't skip a day. He may have trouble sleeping for the first week and have no appetite, but please don't worry. Those things will pass quickly enough. I think the reason that a lot of parents are weary of the meds is because of those first symptoms, but trust me they will pass. When he gets older, make sure you see him take his pill every day because there is a market for that stuff. If a child really has ADD or ADHD, the meds have a calming effect, but if someone doesn't, it apparently hypes them up and some people use it to get high.

Answer 15

I personally don't know enough about the actual medicine on offer as I'm from the UK and when I was young the only options available to parents with hyper active kids was exercise and a diet with no sugar and sweets. Both my brother and I had or have minor forms of adhd he was very hyper and uncontrollable growing up and I my attention span was awful and still is. In my brothers case my parents made him play football/soccer a lot, he played for his country and is now a professional footballer, I tackled my attention span problems by reading a lot on stuff that really interested me. I read a lot about ancient classics like the Iliad and the Odyssey, being able to focus on these things made it easier to tackle times at uni when I just couldnt pay attention to anything the lecturers were saying,.

Also diet plays an important part, we never were allowed fizzy drinks or sweets when we were younger. In my opinion medicine should only be used as a last resort anything that messes with the chemicals in your brain in my opinion cant be good. Who do you have in front of you when your seven year old is on meds, is it the son you gave birth to? or a chemically altered one.

try and focus his attention as much as you can, sometimes kids with adhd or add can perform extremely well in sports, try chess aswell sounds mad but it worked for my little brother he's not the brightest lad but he can beat anyone I know at chess.