Well, Cayden is finally on summer break, and excited to say the least. He is a typical 8 year old boy who moans and groans about going to school. This was our first year on medication for his ADHD and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of good days vs bad days we had. We finally have him on a medication regime that seems to be working, and that definitely contributed to the good vs. bad.
I am also a proud momma....not only has he adjusted very well to a new ADHD diagnosis, new medications, new school, new kids, new teacher,\ he has also earned the "Cool Kid Award" in his class twice - once at the beginning of the year and once just this past April. The class votes on this and then each student writes a compliment on a post it and hands it in (anonymously of course lol). He has received so many nice compliments that it is almost overwhelming. He also made Honor Roll every single 9 weeks this year, earning straight A's for his final grades; except handwriting which he was given a U in (Unsatisfactory). But he's a boy that thinks way faster than he can write, so what does the teacher expect? Anyways, I'm totally ok with that, maybe he will become a doctor....
Since we got straight A's, I told him he could pick some colors to dye his "Faux-Hawk". We used Manic Panic temporary colors and put a few in, they should wash out within a month. He already has light blonde hair, so no bleaching is required and it won't damage his hair because it's a natural temporary dye. He is so pumped by such a little thing and that makes me so happy. It is his reward for the Straight A's
Dealing with ADHD has definitely been a struggle for our family. We yell, scream, argue, probably more so than other families. We just take it one day at a time. If we have a bad day, I put him to bed and tell him it is ok - we can start again tomorrow and have a clean slate. When we wake up, I tell him it's going to be a good day, the past is the past. We try to set some short term goals for attitude, listening, following directions etc. and assign rewards for what we can complete. I use the word We to describe our days, because it's not just his bad day, we all have one and it's not necessarily because of his actions/words/tone/attitude etc. I have noticed that if hubs has a bad day at work or I have a bad day at the hospital, he picks up on it and it kind of takes him over as well. It's something we all have to work on and will do it together.
I have instituted a few different reward/consequence programs over the past year to try to help out with our behavior issues, some have worked and some haven't. The one we are sticking to is the token program. We have a set of poker chips and we made a list together of all of his responsibilities. We assigned token values to each one and also made a list of "rewards" he can cash his tokens in for. It ranges from 5 tokens for an hour of video games to 20 tokens to pick a night out for dinner and choose the restaurant, to 50 for a new video game. This seems to work out well and also teaches him the principle of saving. We tried a chart with stickers for completion of tasks and rewards for getting a full weeks worth of stars, but it isn't something tangible that he can keep with him and see and feel in his hand.
Since we are entering summer months and focus isn't really needed, I might discuss a small drug holiday for him to cleanse his system and see how he is doing without medication. I feel like summer break might be a good time to try some natural fixes like no food dye, no sugar or artificial flavors, and see if this has any impact on his focus and impulsiveness.
I think that is all for now, everyone is in bed and I think I am heading that way too.
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