Boy's Brain

I wish my son had a normal brain.

I’ve just finished reading a really great book called Delivered From Distraction, by Dr. Edward Hallowell, a very famous and very smart psychiatrist who studies and writes about and has Attention Deficit Disorder, or ADD. I read this book because my older son, Boy, has been diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and I went looking for some answers.

We probably knew all along that there was ADD/ADHD in the picture. Teachers have mentioned it over the years – along with other teachers who denied that Boy might have it. He didn’t always fit the profile. He can focus, sometimes, and other times, he can’t. We’ve brought him to therapists and counselors, sometimes at the point of pulling out our hair, trying to find out what was wrong with this kid? Why couldn’t he function like a normal child? They would talk to him, give him a few tests, and conclude, Meh, maybe he has ADD, maybe he doesn’t.

One kindergarten teacher told me, with sympathy in her voice, “I hate to tell you this, but your son may very well be a genius.” I cried about that. Another teacher scolded me, saying I’d better do something about his outbursts before my husband and I got sued by some other child’s parent. I cried about that, too.

And always, there was the sense that maybe it was just a discipline problem. If we structured his days, if we took away his privileges, if we punished him in just the right way, maybe he would straighten up and fly right. Sometimes it worked; mostly it didn’t.

Last year, I stumbled across a book about bi-polar disorder in children, and became very scared. A lot of symptoms described there were day to day occurrences in my kid.

Things came to a head this year, his eighth grade year, when he literally spent more time out of school – suspended for infraction after infraction – than he did in class. Rev and I took days off from work to stay home with him, or brought him with us to do his school work in an empty office. Finally, in February, I’d had enough, and on the same day I registered him for the public high school assignment process, I requested a transfer from his charter school to a public school. He would finish out the year in a regular high school, and probably repeat the grade before going on to high school. He was failing all of his classes, and was not even trying anymore. We got one day’s notice, and then he was going to another school.

A few days later, we took him for a five-hour neuropsychological exam (that had been scheduled since November). It took several weeks to get a result, but there we were, sitting with the psychologist, listening to her tell us that our son has ADHD. As I was soon to learn, Boy experiences the world through constant static. Sometimes he’s able to focus through the static and actually learn. Many times, however, the static takes over, and his mind drifts. As his pediatrician observed, he’s the ultimate multi-tasker; imagine how well he’ll do when the static goes away?

So what now? Now, I get on the merry-go-round of trying to find mental health professionals that are (1) accepting patients, (2) believers in both cognitive therapy and appropriate medication, and (3) covered by our insurance. In a “team approach” specialty – you can’t see a psychiatrist until you’ve seen a therapist, and only the psychiatrist can prescribe ADHD medication – you’re left trying to put together the team. Nobody says, Here’s a referral to a group; they’ll take care of you. You might as well just take out the Yellow Pages.

I’m supposed to entrust my kid and his special brain to some person I find on my own, through an Internet search or an advertisement in a parenting magazine or a list mailed to me by the pediatrician’s office.

Are you kidding me?

In the meantime, I’m reading Dr. Hallowell’s book and a few others, trying to figure out the day to day of dealing with my kid and his issues. I haven’t jumped on the oh, this is great, you have a magical brain, I wish I were that special! bandwagon that Dr. Hallowell espouses, but I’m also learning to cut the kid some slack. He’s fourteen, and there are some things that teenagers do: argue, procrastinate, sleep a lot, slack off on their homework, and so on. Friends of mine who have or have had fourteen-year-old sons have warned me about this toxic phase. But Boy is different, now. I have to help him find a way to be organized – because he never will on his own. I have to study his diet and sleep habits because there are things we can do to make his brain function better. And I have to remind myself, daily, that sometimes he’s dealing with a behavioral issue, not a discipline issue.

This is all new ground. I am happy that Boy is not bi-polar. I’m also relieved, profoundly relieved, that we finally have a working diagnosis, one that addresses both Boy’s strengths and his weaknesses (as opposed to years of being told only what bad thing Boy did each day). And I feel like I have a second chance to be a good mom, one who takes the time to take his side some of the time.

We’ll get him through this. We all need to learn some new tools, but eventually, he’ll be able to hear us clearly through the static. And then, who knows where that brain of his will take him?