attempting to receive a diagnose

Today Sam has an appointment. It is her second appointment with the ADHD clinic of Children's Mercy Hospital. This appointment is supposed to take 2 hours. It will give the doctors involved more time to observe and talk with her. The first appointment I was told that it does look like she more than likely has ADD. I'm pretty sure she has it. Trying to do homework with her is torture. Trying to have her get ready in the morning sounds like a broken record... Have you combed your hair yet? Get your shoes and socks on your feet. Comb your hair. Get your reading folder. Didn't I already tell you to comb your hair? Brush your teeth. Shoes & Socks! Why have you not combed your hair?? repeat any one of those lines and chances are I say it about 50 times each morning.

I started a list for her and Max a few weeks ago. It has roughly 7 things on the list. It is even laminated so they can't throw them away to easily! It is what they must do each morning. As in, get dressed, use the bathroom, (brush hair-- for Sam), eat, brush teeth, shoes & socks, reading folder (for Sam)/get glasses (for Max). Max did great on this list... for about 3 days! He would even be ready early. Sam never liked it. Now neither one will really use it. I thought it would help for them to have their lists and not have to listen to me say the same things over and over everyday.

Sam has been making us late to school lately because she will not comb her hair or get her shoes on. So last week I started a new rule. If she makes us late she has to clean a room after school. That may sound harsh but seriously, all the stuff is hers! She is SO messy. Even trying to get her to clean after school takes 1-2 hours because she messes around so much. It drives me crazy. Yesterday she had the dining room floor to clean. She made a "bed" the other day in the floor and it still was there. It included blankets and pillows. Then since she claimed this as "her bed" she figured she could leave it as messy as she wanted. She had tons of artwork on top of this pile along with card making materials, jewelry, markers, paper, yarn, even crayons shavings from sharpening crayons on it. Then scattered around the table she had 2 pairs of shoes, socks, pants, towels, trash, and plenty of toys. It drives me crazy at times!

OK, back to ADD. what will it mean if she is diagnosed? Probably not much. First things that are tried are behavior modification techniques. From there meds are tried. A friend told me her daughter tried several different meds before they found one that worked. She also said a lot of them made things worse!!

Some big news to share about Sam.... After Christmas she will be homeschooled. I'm only homeschooling her, not Max or Joe. Pray for it to work smoothly and give me lots and lots of patience!! I'm told I'm such an easy going patient person but Lord help me when I have to repeat myself a thousand times before something gets done!! Seriously though, I am hoping the one-on-one will help her tremendously.