ADHD in 5 1/2 year olds

I am betting my life that my son has ADHD & possibly ADD as well. He's so darn HYPER all the time!!! It's gotten significantly worse over the past year with his age. I know part of it IS age, of course. But I had really bad ADD/ADHD & was on medicine for a long time as a kid. I personally am not looking to put him on medication because I always hated the way the medication made me feel as a kid but my parents always insisted I stay on it.

Anyway, parents who have children with it & are NOT medicated...... how do you deal with it? How does your child deal with it?

I'm just looking for some stories here, just curious. I haven't mentioned it to the doctor or anything yet. Thanks.

Me and my husband are suspecting our son who is also 5 1/2 has ADD. He is struggling a lot in school right now with his ability to focus. My husband has severe ADD growing up and was medicated which is why we have decided against medicating him. We are trying to find ways to work with him and I am looking into my natural ways to try to control it like adjusting his diet. My brother as ADD and my mom never medicated him I figured if she could do it so can we.

My son was the same way. He was very hyper in preschool and kindergarten. I talked to the doctor..3 actually. His behavior actually got worse the first half of first grade. Nothing us or the teacher were doing was helping. We did decide to medicate after talking about it with the doctor and each other. We just knew it was the best choice for us and our son. Hes been doing very well on the medicine, and has actually asked for it this week. Hes out until tomorrow when I take him to the doctor. Hes noticed a difference and doesnt want to be like that anymore.


I know you want stories on unmedicated, and we were until about a month ago. We tried many things, and it never worked. If you can find something that works, thats great. Just remember medicine is different now, and could possibly help if you decide to go that way.
I know its not easy to deal with ADHD or ADD.

Quoting Landon's Mommy *+1*:" I am betting my life that my son has ADHD & possibly ADD as well. He's so darn HYPER all the time!!! ... [snip!] ... with it? I'm just looking for some stories here, just curious. I haven't mentioned it to the doctor or anything yet. Thanks."

My son is 6 years old and was just now dignosed with ADHD. I do not have him on medication. My son at 5 years old started showing significant signs of something going on. He would be overly hyper and couldn't focus on any task for more then 3 minutes. I tried to get him tested but they made me wait until he was 6 because they said no one will test a child under that age. My son's school took half a year working on all the testings it takes to find out what exactly his disabilities are. As well as my son's Doctor doing testings. Finally 3 weeks ago I got an answer. It just seemed he was getting worse and worse as days go by. Do to my son's frustration of his disabilities he began acting out violently. His doctor says thats normal for kids with adhd because of their lack of communication abilities. My son's Doctor and school wants me to put my son on meds but I don't want to do that. I personally feel there are ways around adhd without medication and not to mention I am scared meds will make my son be a zombie. I want my son to live life not be zonked into just being there and obidiant because the meds. I just personally heard horror stories about the meds. My son does only go to school for 3 hours a day and does take the special education bus and has a handful of teachers that work with him daily and 1 that is always at his side helping keep him on task. Once you finally get your dignoses its refreshing because there are programs and such your child can qualify for now which is amazing. My son's school has this communication program were the kids get their own ipads and they have these apps and such on it that helps my son communicate with everyone when he finds it hard too. Since my son has been on the programs I've seen a good positive improvement. My son no longer seems so angry and is actually able to focus on a task for 10 minutes at a time which is super awesome because he was only at 5 minutes of attention.
Best of wishes to you deary, I hope you can get a kick start with your son's doctor and school to get the testing done your child needs to get the help he needs. I may have my answer and not medicate my son but it does make a difference knowing the issue and being able to work with it and use programs offered for adhd kids. Things will get better, trust me I felt helpless and now I'm very optimistic

back in november i took my 5 yr old son to the doctor for ADD/ADHD i didnt want to medicate him because i didnt want to take away from who he was as an individual. after a week from seeing the doctor i decided to medicate him because nothing was working otherwise to control it and the teachers were sending home letters it seemed everyday telling me he wasnt staying in his seat and not focusing on his work. the medication he is on has helped tremendously. he is focusing in school and the teachers are very pleased with the results. the medicine i chose for him is great because i can choose when to give it to him without me feeling like its taking away his personality and looking like the lights are on but no one is home. i honestly feel like i made the right decision for my son.

Quoting Patti.:" My son was the same way. He was very hyper in preschool and kindergarten. I talked to the doctor..3 actually. ... [snip!] ... is different now, and could possibly help if you decide to go that way. I know its not easy to deal with ADHD or ADD. "

I totally agree. My son (11yrs old) has adhd and aspergers. his symptoms really progressed in 1st grade. We tried managing it w/o meds for awhile. His doctor actually told us to give him coffee or diet soda and the caffiene helped curb some of the symptoms   most of the time in children w/adhd caffiene has the opposite affect (helps them focus and calm down instead of amped up)......like previous poster mentioned , the meds they offer now are very different than in the past. In fact no one can tell my son is on meds ....untill they see how different he is w/o them.

I can't say for sure that Hunter has it, but I think he does.

Children's has a program for those kids whose parents don't want them on medicine. It's like a class for the kids and parents on how to cope with it and help with behavior. I'm looking into it for when we get Hunter checked out, because I don't want him on medication either.

Thank you ladies for replying. Sorry it took so long for me to reply! I don't log on to BG as much anymore these days.

If we HAD to eventually do medicine I would. Whatever is best for him. I just wanted to try to go about it without medication first, to see where it gets us. As of right now I'm his teacher lol I withheld him from Kindergarten because I felt that he wasn't socially ready, so he'll be going in September after he turns 6 (Aug 16th). So I def. see first hand as his Preschool teacher (and as his mother) that he is very hyper, doesn't sit still, etc. However I will say that in my classroom when we do work, he is very focused. He loves to draw & write so he'll get all into it. But when it comes to EVERYTHING else he cannot sit still. Dinner is a royal pain because he's constantly up & down, up & down, etc. He won't just sit on the floor and play (like when we build lego's) he has to be moving around, fidgeting with his legs, etc. So I just know he has it. I just want to be able to help him cope & us cope.

As someone mentioned, the anger..... my son def. has anger issues! He is 100% like me (scary!! lol) I have anger issues as well but like ADD I just learned to cope with it as I grew up. I still deal with it to this day but I think it's just a lot easier for an adult to manage behaviors verses children who don't know how to exactly talk about their feelings or handle their feelings.

I appreciate all of the responses! When we go for his 6 year appointment in August I'll be talking to the doctor then, especially since he will be starting Kindergarten in September.