adhd moms please come in...

my son is 3.. How do I go about diagnosing him with adhd? I do not want to medicate him, I want to learn ways to cope and treat it. I can almost guarantee he suffers from this. Please give me some resources. Thanks

Re: adhd moms please come in...

I am a teacher and I believe to get an official diagnoses you have to get it from his doctor.

In the school, its really important with routines and structure. If you can give your son a time frame of how the day is going to be.

Try not to let their be idle time. When he is finished with one thing, have him ready to start something new.

I thought this article was really helpful interesting.

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/adhd_add_parenting_strategies.htm

Good Luck!! Everything will be okay

adhd moms please come in...

thanks so much. i just want to get him help and guidance before kindergarten starts. I will have to speak to his ped. thanks again

Re: adhd moms please come in...

They usually will not diagnose ADHD until they are at least 5. My dd's preschool teacher at 4 thought she might have it but said we would have to wait until at least Kindergarten. In Kindergarten they told me to wait until 1st grade and at that point I brought her to the dr.

She is now a teenager and takes no meds and has calmed down tremendously then when she was younger.

Re: adhd moms please come in...

Def cut back on or try to eliminate food dyes and processed foods. Red food dye is especially known to trigger ADHD. I have add as does dh. He is on mess I haven't been since I found out I was pregnant with ds1 in nov 09 then he nursed then I got pregnant with ds2 in 2011 now I'm nursing him so I'll be off the meds for awhile now but what helps me cope is having a tight routine and having everything really organized.

adhd moms please come in...

You could certainly see a pediatric neurologist if you wanted to. You could also get a CPSE evaluation through your school district and a psychologist could make a diagnosis if appropriate, or at least give you a direction to go in. I don't know how often they make ADHD diagnoses at age 3 because there is so much "normal" activity and inattentivness at that age.

Re: adhd moms please come in...

Ds has adhd.

1. call your school district to get a cpse started. They will not dx, but they will help with services that adhd kids need...receptive speech and ot.

2. There are many alternatives to medicine. We are trying to hold off as long as we can. We will evaluate at each parent teacher conference. If you don't want meds, go to a developmental pediatrician over a neurologist. Neurologists are known to rx meds right away. We used dr Huang at lij.

3. Fish oil and other vitamins and minerals help. Red dye and gluten can also be triggers. One of my coworkers is a health nut and she is giving her 12 year old adhd son coffee each morning. Stimulants have the opposite effect on adhd.


The right help makes a world of difference. Always keep an open mind BC adhd kids have trouble focusing on s lot of these tests. With the right services you will see changes.

adhd moms please come in...

I don't know about ADHD but can say if you go to a developmental Dr make the appt now. I can't even get an appt until december. There are very few drs on LI to go to that specialize in this.

Re: adhd moms please come in...

We suspect DS might have this. He's not even 4 yet, and both psychologists we've met with (private and through an agency) said they do not formally diagnose until school age---often not until 7 or 8.

We went through CPSE and he's just started meeting with a woman 1:1 twice a week who is working on his behavior.

His behavior really is the hardest thing to deal with. He can be really really good, but he also can easily spin out of control. We saw some of this tonight when we tried to take him out to dinner. Any kind of changes in his routine and transitions in general can turn him into a crazy little boy.

We are taking it day by day.

Personally, I think this age is way too young to consider meds since we don't really know yet what his overall "issue" is.

Message edited 10/13/2012 7:29:41 PM.

adhd moms please come in...

I agree with the above poster's route. If it's a matter of difficulty in dealing with your 3 year old's behavior (regardless of whether he'd be formally diagnosed with ADHD or not), you can see a private psychologist to help you with behavior modification, and also do a CPSE eval to see if the school district would provide anything.

Re: adhd moms please come in...

To add onto my post from above, we started with a private psychologist. He was actually the one who recommended going through the school district, after meeting with DS 3 or 4 times.

I've also googled a lot of stuff and DH's behavior mirrors several other things, not just ADHD.