10 years old...one active kid!

I don't know if I buy into ADHD being as commonly diagnosed as it is now, I still hold that sometimes it is just lack of discipline children.

My oldest has been diagnosed with lead poisoning. This happened under the supervision (or lack of) by his parents, primarily his father, who left a box of lead bb's out, and at 18 months the baby ate some of them. Looking back, the oldest has alway had a fixation with things in his mouth. I believe this started when he was first born...born with strep B complications, he was not fed orally until he was about a week or so old, as he had pneumonia and the medical staff were concerned that he would aspirate the food. They kept a pacifier in his mouth, and from the point that he could grab, everything went into his mouth and we struggle with that today. Especially paper and plastic.

Lead poisoning can "mimic" ADHD symptoms so I went surfing to see what behavioural things we can impliment to help. Since we started the SOS, that has helped, even moreso since I got him a set of headphones. When he uses them the work goes much smoother.

He wants to excell in school, but as I sit here and he has had problems getting his work underway, and now is at 30 minutes working on the same problem, his sister is distracting him, which does not help, she is not doing it intentially, she is just working on math and tends to talk herself through it. The youngest is playing on the floor in the living room, and the oldest, I see him trying to ignore the distractions around him, his head jerks to the "newest" sound and thoughts of what he was doing are gone.

He has perfectionist tendancies and would rather fight doing the problem rather than doing it wrong. I see this predominatley in spelling and have been looking for alternate ways to get that done.

Below, I found this "Bill of Rights"...wow...that is my oldest to a "t"...


Bill of Rights for Children with ADD

HELP ME TO FOCUS ...
Please teach me through my sense of touch.
I need "hands-on" and body movement.

I NEED TO KNOW WHAT COMES NEXT ...
Please give me a structured environment where
there is a dependable routine. Give me an
advance warning if there will be changes.

WAIT FOR ME, I'M STILL THINKING ...
Please allow me to go at my own pace.
If I'm rushed, I get confused and upset.

I'M STUCK, I CAN'T DO IT! ...
Please offer me options for problem solving.
If the road is blocked, I need to know the detours.

IS IT RIGHT? I NEED TO KNOW NOW ...
Please give me rich and immediate feedback
on how I'm doing.

I DIDN'T KNOW I WASN'T IN MY SEAT! ...
Please remind me to stop, think, and act.

AM I ALMOST DONE? ...
Please give me short work periods with short-term goals.

WHAT? ...
Please don't say "I already told you that."
Tell me again, in different words.
Give me a signal. Draw me a symbol.

I KNOW IT'S ALL WRONG, ISN'T IT? ...
Please give me praise for partial success.
Reward me for self-improvement, not just for perfection.

BUT WHY DO I ALWAYS GET YELLED AT? ...
Please catch me doing something right and
praise me for the specific positive behavior.
Remind me--and yourself--about my good points
when I'm having a bad day.

{Author Unknown}

Then I found this...

Teach self-monitoring. Help your child become aware of the things that distract her. With time and practice, she'll get to know what being distracted feels like, and will recognize when her attention is drifting. ADDers benefit from positive affirmations, such as "I will pay attention to my work" and "I will stay focused until I'm finished." Teach your child to repeat these as needed to encourage herself to keep going.

This we already do, but additional reinforcement always helps....Biblically...self-control which Titus teaches us to teach the young men. It may just take longer with him. The most relevant statment I read was "it is not that they cannot pay attention, it is that they pay attention to everything."

I see this when we are around people. The oldest has a hard time when there are a group of kids versus when it is one on one playtime. Or at church when there is a smaller class. (Once, in a bigger church, he walked out of the classroom and there were so many kids no one noticed, he ended up exploring the whole church and it was not noticed until I came to get him.) In Awana when he was a "cubby" they actually assigned one teacher to him specifically because he would complete his assignment and leave. I think this would probably hold true to a point even now.

Then I found this:

Homeschooling an ADHD child can be a real challenge. Here are some of the issues we deal with regularly in our home:


•Distractibility - cannot keep on task when given an assignment
•Frustration - low frustration levels when given an assignment that is confusing or repetitious
•Boredom - easily bored with repetitive tasks like spelling and handwriting, or math facts
•Clueless - unless you are working with a gifted child, you will reach times where the information just isn't understood
•Careless - sloppy work and careless mistakes
•Endless school days - unaware of the concept of time and prove this by taking 3 hours to complete 5 math problems
•Insanity - can drive even the sanest parent to question their sanity
•Noise - 3 or more children chattering away at the same time, tapping pencils, rolling desk chairs across the floor; child 2 distracts child 1 while child 3 has disappeared to who knows where
•Grace - God's grace is sufficient, for His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)

My first thought....someone has been in my house watching...especially under the noise and insanity headlines! I have know for a while that my oldest is a uniques and different child. This explains how different he is.

I pray that God will give me the ability to remember this as I interact with this child daily.

Our adventure at home

Monday was the little man's last art class. He was sorely disappointed to see it come to an end. While he was in class the older two and I went to the library. My oldest was complaining as he did not want to go. Once we got there, he actually found the most books! And found some more he wants to check out next week

Wednesday, we knew a storm was coming, so while the older two finished their art lessons, the little man and I went to pick up supplies in case we were stuck for a few days. Good thing we did.

Thursday we awoke to a raging storm, the wind howled and snow blew. Sprintime in Montana! We had just started our schoolwork and the power went out. The kids finished as much as they could on the computer battery power, but that does go down quickly.

I was able to get the radio running and found there were power outages all over yhe area. I called to let the power company know we were out and they told me it may be a while, we had a transformer station down, as well as broken poles and a fire on 2 poles that lead to our house. We got to practice homesteading and self sufficiency.

We kicked up the fireplace, which the kids love when we do that, I called DH and asked him to pick up some water as we loose our water supply when power goes out.

The kids and I did chores as best as we could, then we read for while. Mostly fun stuff, poetry and short stories. Lunch was leftover fried chicken. I did get a giggle as each of the 3 children headed to the microwave to heat up their lunch and the realization that it does not work without power. To funny!

We gathered buckets to melt snow for the toilet, which they found fun. The oldest saw we were going to run short on firewood, so he took the inititive to go outside in the snow/rain and mud to get more to dry out so we could burn it for heat. He provided enough until well after Papa got home.

When hubby got home, he stocked the house with firewood, brought in 30 gallons of water in jugs, and took over the managing of the fireplace.

Dinner was soup, as I can use our gas stove, but not our oven when we have no power. We also ran some hot soup and Tea down to my mom's house (we hoped she would join us but she did not).

After dinner we broke out games. Popped popcorn on the stove and made hot chocolate.
When it was time for the younger two to go to bed, there was still enough light, but soon we had to light the oil lamps and candles. The oldest got a kick out of writing a journal entry by oil lamp and remember that is how Abraham Lincoln learned.








By the time I went to bed, the bedroom was cold, I snuggled under the blankets praying that the Lord would guard us through the night. Hubby slept by the fireplace to keep that running all night.

Friday we woke to still now power. The kids were impressed with the fact that dishes can be done by hand, after warming water on the stove. They were not so thrilled at the "spit bath" idea, but those were done quickly and into clothes that had been warmed by the fire. We continued with our chores and played some more games. The kids were disappointed when the power came back on. I was relieved, concerned that we would loose all the food in the fridge and freezers.

It is now Saturday morning, we have electric now, but still no water (damage done to a specific line, we are waiting on the power company to come fix this.) I MISS RUNNING WATER. Hubby has taken the empty jugs to refill them as we have no idea at which point the lines will be repaired. The power company has their hands full with this storm.

A good lesson as we are learning what we need to do for future outages (like water storage!), things that worked well and things that did not. HMMMM how do I put this in their schoolwork? life lessons?

What looked like a regular week at the start, quickly turned into an adventure!