This is not an article about whether or not to medicate your child if they have Attention Deficit Disorder. That’s a personal decision, and one that requires that you be well informed on your options. Maybe I’ll tackle that on a later date.
If you have a child who is taking medication for ADHD, there are a few things I want you to be aware of, and that’s the purpose of this post.
First, do your best to get your child on a medication that lasts for 12 hours. There are several of them out there; I’m sure you can find one that works. There are a few reasons I say this:
Your ADHD child has enough to deal with at school without having to show up at the office or nurse’s office to take his meds. Everybody knows what it’s for, including the mailman, and your child gets stuck with a label. If you let them take it themselves, you’re putting added pressure to remember on them, and it won’t work.
Your child needs to concentrate and pay attention all day at school. If she’s taking a 4 hour ADHD medication, it takes time to take effect and then as it approaches the 4 hour limit, it begins to wear off. At best, you’ve got about 2 1/2 hours of solid medication in there. When she takes the next pill at noon, once again she has to wait for it to take effect, which can be as much as 30 minutes.
With the up and down effectiveness of 4 hour meds, your child’s day is being disrupted. Can you imagine a day when you had to concentrate on something and you were going between feeling focused and clear to scattered over and over again? A 12 hour medication evens out the day and makes it more productive.
The other thing I wanted you to be aware of (and another good reason for 12 hour meds) is that this time of year, and for the next few months, students are getting ready for mid-terms and then finals. This is more stress inducing in the spring than in the fall because this is the last chance of the school year to get those grades up.
It also means that lots of kids who don’t have ADHD are looking for a kid who does so that they can buy some of their medication. To them, it’s better than Red Bull at keeping them up and awake and alert. Obviously, this isn’t something you want your child to get involved in, so be on the alert. And don’t assume your child is too young – if they’re as old as 10, I’d be on guard.
Yes, that sounds a bit extreme, but that’s the way it is. Better to know than be sorry.
Your post ADHD Medication was very interesting when I found it over google on Friday by my search for med. I have your blog now in my bookmarks and I visit your blog again, soon. Take care. Parejaspareja.es
Do you have an rss button so i can keep track of when you make another posts on your site? I’m pretty lazy so i just add my favourite sites to an RSS reader and it tells me when there is new content. Cheers.
Yes. It’s in the upper right corner. You can subscribe to either posts, comments, or both.