The Beginning

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) seems to be a hot topic these days. Those who don't understand think it is just an excuse to medicate our children because their parents can't handle them. However, for those of us who have a child who is afflicted with ADHD it is a serious issue and we are constantly looking for answers that will provide our child with a calm and safe life.

I have heard it said of ADHD children that their mentality is "Ready. Fire. Aim" Thought and action are simultaneous even though the consequences could be devastating.  From our experience, this was true and didn't seem to change as the years went by.

We had been married for ten years and had five children, two girls and three boys, when I became pregnant with our sixth child. This child was another boy whom we named Todd. All of our children were busy and active and that was the way we wanted it. Todd was a welcome addition to the family and with six children, we felt prepared as parents to deal with just about anything as we thought we had seen it all by this time. We were wrong.

It didn't take long before we knew Todd was different somehow. He didn't sleep like our other children and he was always in motion. Children are always inquisitive and reaching for things but Todd took this to a new level. As early as two months, we discovered if we held his hands to prevent him from grabbing something, he simply used his feet to get it. Do you know how hard it is to change a diaper while trying to hold the baby's arms and legs?

Todd was walking by eight months and by the time he was one year old, Todd could do just about anything he put his mind to. He could climb up anything and nothing I did provided any obstacle at all. I put up a kitchen gate so that he wouldn't escape. He would pick and choose when he would just climb over the gate or when he would kick it down. He kicked it down so fiercely once that it took off the sheet rock and the floor boards. Then were those times he would just climb on top of the gate and sit on it and yell 'elp, elp, elp'.