ADHD is one of those disorders where you don’t actually treat the disorder, you treat the symptoms. There is no cure for ADHD. Most ADHD children will grow into ADHD adults. There is a lot of research being done on the most effective kids ADHD treatment. A lot of it is trial and error as all kids handle things differently.

I strongly caution parents to really think about ADHD medications before buying into what the pediatrician tells you. I am not criticizing pediatricians here, but there is a whole lot to consider when it comes to medicating children. My son was on ADHD medication for 5 years before we found out that he had epilepsy. And ADHD medications tend to trigger seizures in people with epilepsy. The thing is that a lot of conditions can mimic ADHD. Epilepsy is one of them.

If I would have been able to convince a pediatrician to order a sleep study before my son was 8 years old, we would have found the epilepsy sooner. I requested a sleep study, for the first time, when he was 6 weeks old. I knew that there was something going on in his sleep. But I couldn’t convince anybody to look into it. I kept hearing, “Well, ADHD children don’t need as much sleep.” And I would hear, “Tics and twitches are common in ADHD children.” Some of those tics and twitches were seizures. And some of the things that my son went through while on ADHD medications were very scary.

At 4 years old, his grandparents and I saw him in flight mode. He was on the ADHD medication Vyvanse. He got sprayed with the water hose one day, as he had many times before, and his brain went right into fight or flight mode. He flew. And he flew right towards the street. It took 3 adults about 10 minutes to catch him. This is just one example.

Many ADHD symptoms can be managed with life style changes. Put routines in place, keep things structured, make minor adjustments at home that will make life easier on both the parents and children. The best piece of advice I have is this, do your research. Research the condition, research each symptom, research different strategies to address each symptom.

With my son having many struggles due to ADHD, I’ve had to find many creative ways to combat different symptoms. I’ve tried many different things. I will be sharing many different aspects and symptoms of ADHD along with different strategies I’ve used to address them on my website at ADHD Ninja.