Whether or not we are consciously aware of them, anniversaries are important. They carry emotional freight both good and bad. Last Sunday I passed an anniversary. It was one year ago that Howard and I decided to put Link on medication for ADD. The one year mark is a good time for me to pause and assess the results of that decision. It was not a decision we made lightly. I was frankly frightened. Even after the medication proved to be a great boon to Link, I worried about what the costs would be.
A year later Link is still on medication. It is hard for any of us to remember what it was like before. We’ve all adapted to the more focused Link and he has finally been able to learn some things that were beyond him before. He has learned them well enough that he is still able to do them when he is off the medication. The major side effects have been suppressed appetite and difficulty settling down to sleep. We make sure that he is off the medication every other weekend or to have a chance to sleep and eat lots. The doctor helps me monitor closely his health and development.
For Link continued medication is the right choice. He still has social, emotional, and some educational catch up to do. He probably will not completely catch up to his peers until he is adult. That is a typical developmental pattern for ADD brains. But I’m trying to minimize painful experiences as much as possible. I can’t take them all away. That wouldn’t be good for him either. We all need painful experiences so that we can grow from them. Right now he is struggling with recess. He keeps getting left out of games and being at loose ends. I’m trying to talk through that experience with him and help him find his own solutions. He also needs practice speaking. This means I need to be sitting down and having him read out loud to me. Not just that, I need to be talking to him about things. I need to be having conversations with him.