9K and his diagnosis

Thank you Lacey for reminding me I had yet to post that! :)

9K was diagnosed by the school psychologist, who has been meeting with him weekly all year, as ADHD and ODD. Now, I was a child psych major for 2 years, but I had never heard of ODD. I don't know how I missed that, or why I didn't think there was a diagnosis for this issue, but it makes perfect sense. ODD stands for Oppositional Defiance Disorder. You can read more about it here:http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_with_oppositional_defiant_disorder

I don't know how to put a link in. I am just not that skilled. Sorry.

It defines 9K. I should have caught this and now I feel guilty and determined to seek help for him now that I am aware. Like I said in my last post, he has his first meeting with a child/family psychologist in 2 weeks. We are addressing this issue. We are working on the diet, and we feel he is doing better at home. But of course as soon as I feel that way this happens...

I recieved this e-mail from one of his teachers today.

Dear K and C,

We have been working with 9K since we met at his IEP. He comes into room 23 from 8:30 to 9:30 Monday through Friday. We work with him on Language Arts. It is quite a struggle for him to attend, even in a group of one teacher to four students. In his classroom, he is impulsive and inattentive. His MAPS scores went down and we'd like to share those with you. He scored lower on a math Posttest in class this week, than on the pretest. I would like to invite you to come to His School and observe or "shadow" 9K some morning during his academic time in my room 23, and in his classroom. It would help us open up further dialogue with you on how we can best help him to attend to instruction. For example, he was chewing gum in my class on Monday. I told him on Tuesday that this was alright to do, in my room, since it is a strategy that helps some ADD/ADHD people focus better. How do you feel about this strategy for him? Please call me at His School at... and let me know when you can come in and observe and/or shadow 9K working. It will give you a better picture of how challenging it is for him to learn in school. Thank you for your interest in working with us, for 9K's learning.

This is a ploy. I know a lot of you read that and think, "oh what attentive and caring teacher this lady is" But no. See the bold text. I know what she means. She means...PUT THIS BOY ON MEDS! I see it loud and clear. We know he struggles. And if C went in to shadow him like she was suggesting he would do just fine, be on his best behavior. It would not give us a good idea of how it's working. It might be the same if I went in, but usually he is much better behaved for his father than me, since he is still testing the waters and figuring out what he can and can't get away with. We will see. I'm going to call the teacher and see if I can come in on a thursday because I don't work and don't have classes till 2:30. *sigh*

I'm gonna go veg on the couch now and debate how much healthy choice ice cream you can eat before it's no longer a healthy choice. :)

-K