You're Not Taking my Teeth

The title says it all! Recently my girl had a spacer put in her mouth behind her teeth and for some reason she has this idea in her head that the dentist wants to take all of her teeth out. I have no idea where this idea came from and I am trying my best to explain that dentists do more then just pull teeth out but every time we get to the dentist this conversation begins. Dentist – “Time to get in the chair” My girl – “No! You are not taking my teeth out!” Dentist – ” I don’t want to take your teeth out” My girl – “well you can’t have my teeth because they belong to me” Dentist – “I really don’t want your teeth I have my own, see, now can you please get in the chair so I can look at your teeth? I promise I won’t take them out” My girl – “if I have to…… but you are not taking my teeth out…. mommy, make sure he doesn’t take my teeth out” I have to hand it to the dentist, he handles her very well, is calm and laughs at her wanting to keep her teeth. The dental assistant, on the other hand, gets annoyed with my girl fast and I can see the frustration growing on her face the longer we are in the room. I personally can not keep my amusement to myself during these conversations and I am sure I am of little help when I am laughing as I tell my girl that no one is taking her teeth. Now I have thought about this for a while and the only reason why I can think of that my girl would think the dentist wants to take her teeth is because my son has had a few teeth pulled. This is something that my girl has watched happen in the past but never brought up until the most recent tooth extraction my son had in which she was not allowed to watch. Maybe I made a mistake by letting my girl watch her brother have teeth pulled. But, then again this didn’t become a thing until she wasn’t allowed to watch so for now I am just going to go with the flow. Luckily our dentist has ADD himself and understands my girl, it helps that he is a patient man with a go with the flow attitude. Now if only his assistant could pull the stick out of her butt and chill out…

School Sucks

Anyone who has dealt with an ADHD child knows how hard getting through a day at school can be, there are so many things that can cause a distraction and get a child off task that I often wonder how these kids manage to pass their grade. My daughter is one of those children that make you question how exactly does she manage to get through a day. There is no doubt about it that ADHD children are smart, catch on quick and when they can focus their energy they can accomplish anything. You would think that a child as smart as she is would be able to blow through school work in minutes but the truth is simple homework like reading or a math sheet can take hours to complete. Because of how long school work takes and how defiant my little angel can be I end up talking with her teacher at least twice a day. First I check in with the office to see if she was in then I go to the class at lunch to see how the morning was, I get a basic run down of her behaviour and find out what she didn’t complete, then I take her home for lunch and discuss what needs improving or how proud I am of her then I take her back. At the end of the day we go through the same routine, check in at the office, talk with the teacher, collect incomplete work for the day, walk home, discuss how her day went then struggle for hours to get homework done. At the end of the day this routine, as intrusive and tiring as it may seem, really is the only reason my girl is not completely failing in school. Some days are worse then others of course and there have been a few times now that the teacher has asked me to take her home because she is being impossible, other bad days she ends up sitting in the office. Some days I can’t believe what I hear when the teacher tells me how well my girl did because those days tend to be the days when she refuses to listen to me at all. The worst days are when there is a substitute teacher because as hopefully most of you know, change does not go over well with ADHD kids once they have a routine. Some substitutes are great and can handle ADHD kids without issue while others have no clue as to what to do when a child doesn’t immediately do what they are told. The answer most have for ADHD kids is take away the fun stuff like gym or recess, unknowingly they are helping these kids become more active and defiant, other times the answer is having the kid sit in the office for the day. My daughter has now spent two days in the vice principals office and has had no recess, not exactly the best solution for a hyper kid. As much as I try to help out at the school I honestly want to give their heads a shake and ask why they think taking away the only chance an ADHD kid has to burn off energy will help. Personally when I’m full of energy and need to burn some off, sitting in a room doing work is the last thing I want to do. In all honesty, I don’t have an answer for the teachers questions about what to do, when my girl doesn’t want to listen nothing seems to help. The best answer I can give is take your day one step at a time, let her stand to do her work, let her color when she is waiting for the other children to finish and ignore her when she behaves badly, only acknowledge the good she does. At the end of it all, I know my girl is smart and I can’t blame her for getting bored in school. It may be hard for the teacher to get through the day but it isn’t easy for kids either.

I'm Outta Here

It has come to my attention that my 8 year old acts more like a teenager then I would like to admit. Now I know that with ADHD comes a slue of other issues and I have accepted that fact as a part of our lives but I can not and will not accept defiance as a part of life. I’m not talking about my little girl forgetting what I just said or not thinking before she acts, I’m talking about blatant disregard for anything I have to say or ask her to do. The fact of the matter is, my child is too smart for her own good and as such at the precious age of 8 she now finds that she would much rather do her own thing and to hell with anything I would like for her to do if she isn’t in the mood to do it. She has used the I don’t understand card enough to know that I don’t buy what she is selling, and she knows that I don’t always give in to her repetitive pleas so she has taken up a new strategy. I have to admit, it is clever but it won’t work. She now threatens to move out, which as funny as it is watching her pack her things, I do worry about if she will be in her room every morning. So far we have had some laughs out of her threats to move out, her reasons are quite amusing and we have hid her bags in various spots throughout the house in an attempt to get her distracted. I have had some success in convincing her to stay by telling her I will miss her but eventually something gets her upset and she starts packing once again. I have told her that it is illegal for someone her age to move out and I have tried telling her that her favourite stuffed bunny would miss her but my attempts seem to go in one ear and out the other stopping midway to reveal a smart comeback that I wish I had thought of when I was 16 threatening to move out. The last “I’m moving out” threat had me worried more then any other because nothing I said made a difference and every time I said I missed her or tried to stump her with “how will you do/pay for/get this” questions she immediately had what seemed like a well thought out plan followed by a “well I will come visit so you don’t have to miss me”. By that point I had run out of places to hide her luggage, reasons for her to not leave and questions for her to answer. My solution? I put on my shoes and followed her out the door! She got half way through the yard before getting annoyed with my being faster than she is before she picked up her bike, hooked the handle of her suitcase to the bike handle and tried rising off. Luckily she had to stop to open the gate and that is when I caught her by her pants. Not my proudest moment as a mom but an effective one none the less. I held her by the back of the pants and pleaded with her to stay, then threatened to call the police if she left then ultimately I dragged her back into the house with the neighbours watching and listening intently as she yelled at me to let her go so she can leave before it gets too dark. Her reason for leaving? I didn’t take her to the park. In my defence, she didn’t ask to go to the park so I didn’t know that is what she wanted and it took a good 3 hours of my nonstop asking why she was leaving to get it out of her. Finally long past bedtime she gave in, said she would stay then went to bed. While she was sleeping I couldn’t help but stay awake in my bed, watching the doorway for any sign that she was awake and leaving again. Eventually sleep took over and I passed out waking to the alarm in a panic running to her room to see if she was in her bed, thankfully she was so I quietly left the room and went about my morning. Her defiance doesn’t stop there, she has learned some choice words to call me when she is mad, she gives me the finger and likes to slap me when she doesn’t get her way. Another of her favourite things to do is stick her tongue out at me and say bla bla bla when I’m talking, among making a point to do the exact opposite of what I say and starting fights with her older brother. Its not just me she defies either, she refuses to listen in class, she ignores her father and snickers at her baba while doing what she knows will upset everyone. I do my best to tell people not to take her actions personally but I can tell that a lot of people do take it personally. For me the worst act of defiance is her talking back and saying no when I ask her to do something but as long as she isn’t moving out I can ignore her attempts to get under my skin. She may be 8 going on 9 but it seems like she is 8 going on 18! Let’s hope that this is just a phase.

Waiting

Waiting can be the hardest thing in the world to do, especially for a child with ADHD. Waiting in line at the grocery store is boring for an adult and for kids but waiting in boring lines for a kid with ADHD is an experience all on its own. There is so much to see, smell and touch that something as simple as waiting in line can become a sensory overload. Immediately after getting in line my daughter starts to wander away from me, looking at the impulse items next to the register, listening to everyone else have their conversations and grabbing things off the shelf pleading desperately for me to buy whatever it is that caught her eye because in her words “I need to have this and I will die if I don’t get it”. More often than not I say no, not because I don’t want her to have the item or because I don’t think she deserves it but because I rarely bring more money than what I need. The looks and comments we get from other shoppers ranges from “oh your daughter is so cute” to looks of judgment and comments about how children should be controlled instead of being able to run wild in stores. Now I am at a point in my life that I don’t let what others think of me bother me but my daughter is not and there is nothing more heartbreaking than watching the joy slowly fade from my little girls face when she hears what others say about us. It’s when my daughter slowly works her way over to the bench near the register and sits quietly making a real effort to not disturb the “grumpy people” that I give in and buy her a treat. There have been many shopping trips when my daughter complains on the way home that people said mean things about her or me, and there have been many times when she cries that she didn’t mean to upset the people in the store. She doesn’t understand why her looking at everything or touching the items near the register bothers other people because to her it shouldn’t. Waiting at a doctor’s appointment or at the dentist is hard too. There isn’t much there to do so her mind wanders and of course she starts touching things, wandering around the waiting room and asking questions while watching the receptionist work. As most adults know even when you have an appointment there is still a wait time and others that come in after you sometimes get in before you because they are seeing a different doctor or dentist. My daughter doesn’t understand that and after a little while of waiting or seeing other people go in right away when we have been waiting it bothers her and she has no fear when it comes to voicing her opinion about it. I try to explain to her that other people see other doctors or dentists and that’s why they sometimes get to go first even if we were there before them but she disagrees. She thinks that it’s not fair that she has been waiting “forever” but other people go in first and she will let everyone in the waiting room know. She has even gone right to the receptionist to complain about her having to wait when she was there first but other people go in before her. Thankfully, at the dentist at least, the girls know her and know she has ADHD so they explain that other dentists have been waiting for the other people, they tell her the other people were late and because the person seeing her dentist came in late now we have to wait. My daughter seems to be satisfied with the answers and usually makes some remark about how people need to buy watches so they can get there on time, then she goes back to flipping through magazines or watching the girls work. Some days though my daughter is annoyed by having to wait and when the people ahead of us come out of the dentists room she tells them they need to buy a watch or not be late and make other people wait. Now most people either ignore her or laugh off what she has said but there is always that one person who gets offended that either mutters something about ignorant kids under their breath or right out tells my daughter to mind her own damn business while shooting me a dirty look before complaining to the receptionist about how parents should keep their kids quiet. I try my best to get to the doctors or dentists exactly when our appointment is for in an attempt to reduce the amount of time we have to spend waiting but as you all know there is no way of controlling how busy those offices can be. Now I have a new tactic, I have started to bring a bag of entertainment and snacks for my daughter and so far it has helped reduce the boredom but it hasn’t eliminated it. The hardest part still is waiting in line while shopping and my only option is to try to shop without my daughter but that is not always possible and really not as much fun for me. As frustrating as shopping with an ADHD child is, I find that I really do enjoy taking my daughter with me because there is complete innocence in her questions and nothing beats watching her take the grocery list from me, skipping down the isles trying to find the next thing we need to buy. A message to the people who judge: The next time you see a kid wandering away from their parents, touching everything in sight and asking a million questions, stop what you’re doing and think about how free and innocent that child is before you give the parents dirty looks or make rude remarks about kids needing to be controlled because you never know if that child is being as calm as possible, or how hard it is for that child to be in such a stimulating environment. Your dirty looks and rude remarks hurt the children a lot more than the adults and you honestly don’t know the harm you can do to a child just by simply making remarks about them.

Welcome

Welcome to our blog! You will be reading about my daughters journey through growing up with ADHD. As of today my daughter is a couple months away from turning 9 and she suffers from ADHD. Most people think of hyper or aggressive boys when they hear the term adhd but I can tell you that girls can suffer from adhd in the same hyper way boys can. So in order to get everyone up to speed with our journey through ADHD I am going to provide you with a quick back story. Right from the womb my daughter has been extremely active, as a baby she needed constant attention from me and I could not put her down without suffering through hours of screaming and crying from her, eventually that led to her crying if I moved at all while holding her. Before she could sit up on her own she was trying to pull herself up off the floor, once she learned to crawl she could not be stopped and as soon as she could walk she started to run and climb on everything. She has not been able to slow down since day one and it doesn’t look like she will be slowing down any time soon! Every day it seems like she is getting bolder in her actions, more defiant of authority and thinking before she acts less and less. No we have not medicated her and we have no intention on doing so unless her behaviour becomes dangerous for her or for others. I hope that you enjoy yourselves while you follow along with us through this journey of ours as we will enjoy writing about it. Warning: we will write about the frustrations as well as the joys of ADHD and we will not tolerate hateful or abusive comments. This blog is meant to be a creative means to express both my daughters and my feelings about ADHD as well as an outlet for my daughter to focus her energy.