Family
A place for posts about our family, our challenges, successes, and everything we do and enjoy. We hope to connect with others who face the same challenges we do and want people to see that they're not alone, that everyone doesn't live perfectly, and that we are all perfectly imperfect.
Suffering Through the Pandemic, One Child’s Journey
How many of you are so sick and tired of this pandemic? I know I sure am. I will not say everything about the pandemic has been horrible. In the beginning, I enjoyed how slow life became. I loved all the canceled activities and us being able to be home as a family. We were able to spend a lot of quality time together.
But, the pandemic wasn’t all fun and games for our family. We had our struggles. Online schooling was brutal. Some days it would take my oldest son five or six hours a day to do his school work. There were lots of tears from my daughter, who was in third grade. My preschooler did pretty well, but somedays, it was hard to get her to sit in front of the computer.
My third grader is the one that struggled the most with everything. She did well at first; she got up and did her homework without question. After a couple of weeks, she started to regress. Her birthday is in April, and she had a hard with her birthday because we were stuck home. We couldn’t plan a party or do much of anything. It was a little underwhelming. I tried my best to make it a good day, but it was still hard for her. The day after her birthday, she came into my room at bedtime and started crying. She said she wanted everything to go back to normal. That night she laid by me and cried herself to sleep. That is when I knew we had a big problem that we needed to address.
I knew she was having a hard time; there were signs. She is a social butterfly and thrives on going to school and seeing her friends daily. She made a couple of comments that she missed being with her friends. The biggest thing is that she started sucking her thumb again. She sucked her thumb when she was a baby and hadn’t sucked it for years. It was a little bizarre that she would start sucking her thumb again. She wanted us to lay with her at night until she fell asleep. It became exhausting because some nights, she would take a long time to fall asleep.
I knew that night she came into our room crying and that we needed to take action quickly before it became worse. The next day we contacted her school counselor. We were able to set up online sessions with him every week. He gave us a lot of ideas on how we could help her.
Two strategies helped her. The first strategy that helped was having a worry box. She got a shoebox and had to decorate it any way she wanted. After decorating it, her counselor told her it would be her worry box. She would have to write anything she was worried about on a piece of paper and put it in her worry box. Writing her worries down and putting them into her worry box helped her a great deal. Once she gave her worries to the worry box, she wouldn’t worry about them anymore.
The second strategy we used a lot for her anxiety was “Count 5”. When she had anxiety, she would use Count 5. Here is how it works. First, you count five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Once she did this, it would help her relax. Like I said before, we used this one quite a bit. Count 5 is the one strategy that helped her the most.
Meeting with the counselor helped a great deal. She eventually stopped sucking her thumb, and she was able to fall asleep on her own. We met with the counselor weekly until school got out for the summer. She still struggled through the summer. In our town, we could go back to in-person school in the fall. Once she went back to school full time, she improved significantly. When she was able to be back with her friends, she completely changed. It was amazing to watch her transform once she was able to go back to school.
I am grateful that we had the resource of the school counselor. If we didn’t, I think things could have turned out differently. Even though she has improved dramatically, she is still not the same girl from before the pandemic started. We still have times when her anxiety and fear take over. But now that I know she can suffer from depression and anxiety, I will always keep a close eye on her.
Why You Should Do a Mother and Daughter Bookclub
This past year my daughter and I were asked to join a neighborhood book club for mothers and daughters. I was initially hesitant because we didn’t have the time to add something else to our schedule. I am not the fastest reader either, so I wasn’t sure if we would finish the books we needed to read in time each month or not. In the end, though, we decided to join. I am so happy that we did. It has been such a wonderful bonding experience for us.
Our book club includes girls ages 7 thru 11. Both of my daughters are in that age group. They are both welcome to the club, but my 7-year-old isn’t always interested; however, my 11-year-old is eager to meet and discuss what we’ve read.
Each month we are assigned a book. Whichever mother and daughter host the book club for the month, will pick out the book. They also pick the evening that we will get together to discuss the book. When we go to our book club, the girls will run the discussion with a bit of help from their mom. The girls will come up with questions we will answer or discuss. When we have finished the conversation, we have treats or dessert. It isn’t very long, only about an hour or so. But it works because the girls at that age don’t have a very long attention span.
In our book club, some mothers like to read the book separately from their daughters. A few will also listen to it in the car with an audiobook. I like to sit down at night and read aloud to my daughters. Reading aloud makes it fun for all of us as we can talk about what we just read. I feel like we can bond more with each other this way.
If both your daughter and you like to read I suggest starting a book club with your daughters and their friends and moms. Joining this book club with my daughters has helped our relationship, especially with my older daughter. It might surprise you how fun it can actually be.
I’m also always looking for new books or things we can do at our book club! I would love to hear from you about what you’ve found that works well and what books you’ve read! Leave a comment below and let me know!
How to Survive Summer Break With a Summer Activites Poster
Summer break is here! For parents like me, it’s a love/hate relationship with summer! I love to be at home, but I know it is essential for the kids to get out and have fun. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get a little nervous about what I will do to entertain the kids for three months in the summer. I worry they won’t have enough activities, or I won’t be able to do enough to keep them entertained.
The thing I like to do most, and one way my family survives summer break, is with a summer activities poster. What is a summer activities poster, you might ask? It is so simple; it is a large poster with all the fun ideas and activities written on it that we want to accomplish during the summer. As we do an activity, we cross it off, and when we need something to entertain us, we look at the poster and choose one of the activities we have yet to do.
To create a summer activities poster, you need three things:
- One large poster board
- A lot of colorful markers (we prefer to use colored Sharpies)
- Fun and silly stickers
When we create our summer activities poster, we first decorate the poster with a heading written all fancy and crazy! We like to have fun with this. We’ll put things like “Our Awesome and Amazing Summer Activities” or “2022 Summer Of Fun!” Then we’ll add some stickers to it! The kids go crazy with this one! Once we’ve got our heading on the poster, and it’s got stickers on it, we write as many ideas as we can think of on the poster. I recommend you put as many activities on it as possible! We try to come up with enough ideas to fill the poster and leave very little open or white space. The ideas can be as straightforward or as extensive as you wish. It is up to you. I recommend putting a little square in front of the activity, so you can put a sticker on it to check it off when you have completed it. And then have fun and aim to complete all the activities on the poster before returning to school.
Simple Ideas for Your Summer Activities Poster
- Check out books at the library
- Join a summer reading program
- Make homemade ice cream
- Watch a new movie
- Sleep outside on the trampoline
- Make a new and delicious summer treat
- Go hiking and explore
- Go to the local swimming pool
- Complete a sewing project
- Go on a bike ride as a family
Extensive Ideas for Your Summer Activities Poster
- Go on a family vacation
- Go on an overnight campout as a family
- Take a day trip to a big city
- Have a sleepover at grandma’s and grandpa’s house
- Stay in a local hotel overnight and go swimming in the pool
There are no right or wrong ideas that you can put on your poster. Just have fun and make sure you get the kids involved. Their opinion matters the most; to be honest, sometimes they have the best ideas!
I hope you have a happy summer, and good luck completing your summer activities poster.
Should You Medicate Your Child for ADHD?
Should you medicate your child for ADHD? That’s the big question. I want to tell you about my experience and share the decision we made on whether or not we should medicate our son for his ADHD.
Before I get started, I want to remind you that I am not a doctor. I have no medical background. I am just a mom with a child with ADHD that wants to share my experience with medicating our child for ADHD.
First, I know that medicating your child with ADHD is controversial. I only want to share what we did as a family and our experiences.
We met with an ADHD specialist once my son was diagnosed with ADHD. We talked in-depth about what the best action for our son would be. Our specialist helped inform us about the different types of medication and the effects and side effects of the medicine. He also educated us on what we could continue to expect if we chose not to medicate our son. The specialist left it entirely up to us as parents, and In the end, we decided the best path for us was to medicate our son.
We thought long and hard about what to do. We did our research at home. We wanted to give our son the best chance, both at school and at home. For us, that best chance was to medicate him. Understand, there wasn’t anything we viewed as negative about our son. He is brilliant, has a curious mind, and would often hyper-focus on various things. At school, he struggled, and it was difficult for him to make it through an entire day in class. His mind would start to wander, and he’d quickly lose track of what he needed to be doing. He also struggled to remember assignments and homework that needed to be done. We knew that medication would help our son in these things, and in my mind, if there was something that could help my son be successful, then I was going to do it.
My son started taking medication for his ADHD in the second grade. He began with a low-dose extended-release tablet. We chose this strategy so that he wouldn’t have to retake his medicine during the day at school. It allowed him to get through his day at school and continue being able to focus until the early/late evening, for about 10-12 hours in total. It took us about three or four different medicines to find one that fit him. We found one that worked and one that he said helped him focus and that he felt comfortable taking. We relied a lot on his opinion on the medicine too. We would often ask him how he felt when he was on the medication and ask whether or not he could tell the difference after taking the medication.
He was on this lower dose extended-release medication for all of his elementary schooling and part of middle schooling. Once he returned to school after Covid, we changed the dose to be higher. At that time, it felt like the medication wasn’t lasting as long, and he couldn’t focus as clearly as he had been before. He has now been on a higher dose of medicine for two years.
How Did We Know to Change the Dose?
I often ask my son how he is feeling about his medication. We will ask how he is doing and whether or not he thinks his medication is still helping, and whether or not he feels he is still able to focus and is doing well on it. That communication has been essential for us as we continue to monitor and help our son. He tells me if he feels fine on it or can’t focus anymore while he is on it. Also, when we go to the doctor, his doctor asks him lots of questions about his medication. We’re always trying to make sure we have the correct dosage and whether or not any severe side effects would cause us to adjust his medication.
Allowing Our Son to Choose When to Take Medication
My son can choose when he wants to take his medication. He can decide not to take it on the weekends or in the summer, often choosing not to. He always takes it if he has school or something significant and needs to be able to focus, such as going to a marching band competition. He’s in the drumline and loves it!
I can tell the days that he doesn’t take his medicine. He is more unorganized when not medicated. He can’t follow directions easily. He also can be very, very talkative. He can only stay focused for short about of time. He is much calmer when he is on it, and he can stay focused for more extended periods. He can follow directions. It helps him to be able to get his homework done.
Our Son’s Side Effects From the Medication
As everyone knows, often, medicine has side effects. They can be minor, as often is the case with ADHD, but with our son, there are two side effects that we watch closely.
The first side effect is that my son doesn’t have much appetite when he is on his medication. His appetite is the most significant concern for us with his medication. Our concern doubles because of his tactile defensiveness, which ends up being a huge problem. If you have read my posts about his tactile defensiveness (A Mother’s Experience With Tactile Defensiveness), you know that he already struggles with eating. Then to add to it, he doesn’t have an appetite, which makes it even worse. We constantly have to force him to eat. We also always watch his weight to make sure he is gaining weight. When he maintains or starts to lose weight, we bring it up with the doctor to discuss if we need to change his medication.
The second side effect is that my son has difficulty falling asleep at night. It is hard for him to calm down enough to fall asleep, and because of this, he ends up staying up later than he should. Some nights, he’ll watch TV to settle down, and then he’ll stay up reading a book. But staying up late does make it hard for him to get up and go in the morning.
Conclusion
Should you medicate your child for ADHD? From one parent to another, you need to do what is best for you and your child. It doesn’t matter what other people think. If you decide that having your child on medication works, that is great. Suppose you decide that you would instead not put them on medication and would rather supplement with something else. That is great too. As long as you do what is best for you and your child, that is the correct answer. Please don’t worry about what other people think or say. Only you know what is best for you! For us, it was to medicate, and it has proven helpful and has had a significant positive impact on our son both at school and at home. We have seen mostly positive from him taking medication that has shown us we’ve made the right decision for him.
Our Experience With an ADHD Diagnosis
Our son was pretty young when he was diagnosed with ADHD, inattentive subtype. He was halfway through second grade. He would have been seven, turning eight. It would have taken us much longer to have my son tested for ADHD if it weren’t for his second-grade teacher. I am incredibly grateful for her.
I have a hard time remembering what happened last week, let alone ten years ago! Bear with me while I recall these events. When my son was a baby, I never really noticed anything, at least not that I remember. I didn’t start seeing anything different until he was a little older. I wasn’t paying much attention because we focused on understanding his tactile defensiveness and getting a diagnosis for that.
Looking back on it, the only thing that I remember that would have made me question ADHD is that he could never do two-step commands. I always had to ask him to do one step at a time. For example, I could never ask him to put his shoes on, get his coat on, and then put his book bag on in one sentence. I had to break up my instructions.
In first grade, his teacher mentioned that he had difficulty following directions. I just thought that was my son being my son. I didn’t know anything about it, so we didn’t do anything. His first-grade teacher ended up having my son tested at the school without our permission. That made me pretty upset. I wasn’t upset that he got tested, just that his teacher didn’t inform us or ask for our approval. With that incident with his teacher, we didn’t do anything further.
When he got in second grade, my son’s teacher talked to us at the Parent-Teacher Conference. She said the same thing as his first-grade teacher. He had a hard time following instructions, and he got distracted easily. She was the one who said we might want to get him tested outside of school. That is where his diagnosis started.
After we met with her, I contacted his pediatrician. We met with him, and he referred us to a specialist at the university where we live. Once we met with the specialist, he decided my son needed to get tested. That was a significant process. We had to fill out pages and pages of paperwork about my pregnancy with him, how delivery went, how he was as a baby and a toddler, and how he was at home. His teacher also had to fill out paperwork on how he was at school. The paperwork took us a couple of weeks to complete.
Once all the paperwork was complete, the doctor had us bring our son to the office so he could have some testing done on a computer. I am not sure what he did on the computer. We were not allowed in the room while he was taking that test. They explained it to us, but I can’t remember what it was.
After all of that, the doctor finally told us that he had ADHD. He explained that there were different types and that our son had the inattentive type of ADHD.
I would love to say that we came home and researched ADHD and what it was and how to deal with it, and we became experts, but that is not how it went at all. After all of my research, and even after all these years, I am still learning new things about ADHD every day.
That was our experience getting our son diagnosed. I would love to hear from others about your experience of having your child or children diagnosed.
