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I have a six year old son who I believe has ADHD but so far he hasn't officially been diagnosed. His pediatrician told me at his last annual check up (when he turned six) that he's still a little too young for the testing required to make a diagnosis. Not too young as in he couldn't handle the tests, but regarding brain development. Some of his symptoms are being very impulsive, can't sit still in most situations, loud voice, always acting silly, interrupts, and easily frustrated. On the other hand, he can focus on an activity that he's interested in for long periods of time, so maybe he's just hyperactive and doesn't have the attention deficit part. At home, this causes problems with wild behavior and generally "driving us crazy." At school, he often gets into trouble from pestering his classmates (again, trying to be silly) or sometimes he's actually mean to them and does things like knocking off someone's hat at recess. With us and his teacher, he gets very defiant and argumentative sometimes. At the start of this school year, his teacher started a behavior chart for him where four times a day, he would draw a smile or frown on the chart for how well he did during that part of the day. We had special rewards for getting all smiles the entire week (which only happened once) and consequences for getting frowns (like no bedtime story if he got a frown that day). Most weeks, he'd get all smiles on most days and blow the week with just one or two frowns, which is why the perfect week only happened once. He showed a lot of improvement by using this chart, and after Christmas break, we did away with it. He's still doing well without it, but he still has his good and bad days too. Some background info on him, he was born at 32 weeks and nearly died from oxygen loss and sepsis from an intestinal infection at a week old. The oxygen loss caused profound hearing loss, and he's been using a cochlear implant to hear since the age of 2-1/2. Some of his issues could be related to brain damage from the prematurity or oxygen loss, and sensory deprivation from the hearing impairment, especially before he was aided properly. He's one of those "extreme" kids where he's either being a complete joy (very happy, funny, and super intelligent) or a complete handful. So we're still waiting to see if he'll ever be diagnosed with hyperactivity, ADD or ADHD, and if there's anything else we should be doing medication-wise or what not. Hope that helps!

Thanks alot for your answer! My son sounds alot like yours. Except he can't concentrate on one thing for very long. He will be 6 in May. He is only in kindergarten but some of the things he gets in trouble for are not keeping his hands to himself, hitting at recess, running in the halls, but he is not defiante to the teacher but is to me and my dh. At home he never sits still, he is always moving, jumping, running, is constantly very loud when playing. When you try to speak to him, rather it be about school or something he did wrong, I literally have to get very close to his face and hold his head towards me or he don't hear a thing I say. I constantly have to redirect his attention to me, and he is constantly fidgeting with something when you are trying to speak to him. He simply has to be moving some part of his body at all times. He also is very easily fustrated and has tantrums still if he don't get his way.

it seems all kids now a days have this problem... however if your next step is to see a Dr and try medication, make sure you pay close attention to the side affects they cause after your child begins them...some cause appitite loss...or MAJOR weight gain, moon face (which is the blow up of just the facial fat) sleeplessness, or over sleeping, listlessness or inability to find "happiness" in playing...etc... I am not against meds for the issue, its just there are a lot that dont work with certian kids...my husbands little brother is 12 and was diagnosed around 5 with it, and has been on several medications, and growth spurts were always hard because the meds wouldn't help after and it was time again to adjust the dose or change meds, and now that adolecents is approaching and his hormones are crazy its even harder to handle... if you "wind" him up with playing or something his hyperness goes INSANE and it takes forever to bring him down he gets so wound up no matter what you say or do he can't "hear" you and he gets in trouble... so make sure that when approaching this to take your child to a specialist not just their regular Dr, take him to someone with years of experience on just this and i feel your results will be better and the difficultly of the entire process will be greatly lessoned... (and the school work will improve greatly meaning concentration and ability to get along with others and follow command of the teachers)

Also buffi brings up a BIG point children with difficult births or "starts" to life often have a harder time with these issues... (BIL was adopted at 3 days old but MIL & FIL but he was addicted to drugs and born with fetal alcohol syndrome which lead to the ADHD and well he has turrets which makes treating either hard since the meds counteract eachother) Good Luck...

Thank You Tish. I am not thinking about meds just yet, he is only 5 and it hasn't become a huge issue yet. I am just fairly concerned because I have a 10 year old son too and he has never been like my 5 year old there is a very distinct difference in their concentration levels and activity level and my first son is very active too just not bouncing off the walls 24/7. Some of it is just his age but some of it is just not completely normal. That is hard to say as a parent but it is just the truth. He cannot focus on anything he hates reading or any other form of homework simply because he has to pay attention and he can't get up and jump around the room. Everything is a power struggle with him. The tiniest things turn into a big tanturm sometimes that can go on forever. A 5 minute timeout can turn into a 45 min. timeout because he is screaming/even kicking the wall because he is so angry about having to face the wall in a chair. Its very fustrating. I am just getting some facts so if I have to make a decision about meds in the future I will have some ideas of what is good and what is bad. I have 2 nephew who have it and on my husbands side it is everywhere so I know a little about the good and the bad effects of medication.

Any other moms know a little about this? Things seem to have progressed a little more this week. He was in trouble everyday last week at school but for little things like not keeping hands to himself or not listening, but yesterday he poured milk on another kids head at lunch and another kids mom complained to the teacher that he has been hitting her child. I feel so hopeless here. I talk to him about these things and him and his brother get rewared for good behavior so I have told him no rewards and he is grounded from playing outside but nothing seems to help. My oldest told me this morning he has been bad on the bus too, he said he climbs under the seats and is really loud. I have decided to start another behavior chart at home with him, I use to do it but his behavior improved so I did away with it, I guess I should have kept it. Any other ideas on how to curve his behavior and get him to focus on learning?

I don't know anything about this so this may not help but my youngest brother was completely hyper when he was little - kicking, screaming etc. In the end Mum decided it was food additives doing this and she cut them out of his diet as much as she could (though this was the 1980s so it could have all changed since then) and he improved a lot after that. My brother is also very bright (got a First at Uni) but struggled more than we did at school at first - I think he struggles with English a bit so I think some of it could have been frustration. I'ld have a word with the teachers to see what they think the issues are - like do they think its ADHD, is he struggling with anything in particular and getting frustrated - and if you're worried maybe ask the doctor/ped. It sounds like you're doing eveything you can though - hope it gets better soon.

Thanks Justine. I have already cut out all sugar from his diet but I didn't think about food additives. Seems almost all foods have additives.

PLEASE DON'T RUSH to drug up your child!!! there are serious side effects of these meds that are worse than ADHD. There are natural ways to treat it. Go to Mercola.com and type ADHD, there are tons of info about side effects of drugs including hallucinations, psychotic symptoms, insomnia, cardiac arrhythmia, headaches. Natural treatment includes avoiding processed foods, most of them contain artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives, which may trigger ADHD symptoms, reducing or elimination of sugar and grains, milk, juices. Also, adding fish oil or krill oil is extremely important, also reduce omega 6 oils ( vegetable oils). Another important step, hold on with vaccinations, they may be the reason your son got ADHD in a first place as they cause brain damage. Again, your can find a lot of info on Mercola.com. Good luck!

I'm sorry, but he is five. What child doesn't exhibit signs of ADHD? It doesn't sound like an attention problem at this stage, it sounds like a behavior problem. If the chart worked, do it again, but don't jump to conclusions or with a diagnosis that will stick with your child for the rest of his life.

Whoa, slow down! Laura, I never said I was going to rush off and drug up my child, in fact I don't want to have to put him on drugs. That is why I am researching. And Chatty Kathy, He is my second child, but I also have a step son who is 20 now that I rasied since he was 5, he don't know his mother and I have a 10 year old of my own and my dd is 18 months, I think I know my own child well enough to know he exhibits behaiviors that are different then my other children, in many ways! I just know it is different with him, because I am his mom and I can understand my kids better than anyone else can, just like you understand your own children in the same way. His behavior is bad but I think it stems from the energy he has and the inability to concentrate, he becomes fustrated. I would never just rush right off and give my child medicine I knew nothing about, but I also won't sit back and blindly watch my child fall into the cracks because I was afraid to help him!!!

Oh, and Laura I did appreciate your advice to me I will look into that also. Thanks!

Hi Kimberly, I agree with you that you as a mom know your child better than anybody else, but most doctors don't think that way, they tend to treat everybody as one size fits all, I've came across some parents blindly trusting physicians without reasoning things on their own. BTW, the ADHD drugs have never been approved for use in children, for adults only. Hoping your son will improve just by taking the natural measures, and the diet is # 1.

Laura that can be true about Dr.'s. I have been in and out of the hostpital many times as a kid and a few times as a adult, I know the routine. I just want to fully research on my own before I even talk to his Dr. I haven't raised any concern with his Dr. yet. In fact I haven't had a conference lately with his teacher either. She just has been leaving me notes. I do think report cards come out soon so I am sure they will schedule conferences then so I plan on talking with her and see what she thinks. I just want to help him in any way I can be a productive person. Right now he can be very destructive which in the long run makes him unhappy with himself and I don't want him to always have to feel that way. Part of the reason for my post was to hear from moms who have kids with adhd and hear from them how thier child behaves. So I could get a idea if this might really be his problem too, because really I am unsure myself. I am just thinking in that direction because of the things I do know about adhd and the way my son is. Just gathering some facts. I am a information junky anyway, I read about everything. lol! I will look into the diet thing more, I would love to find something natural that worked.

Kimberly- Like i said before my BIL has ADHD, another thing his mother has done is removed red dye from his diet, no candy with red dye, no foods with red dye... I am not sure the full reasoning behind it or even if it helps, but I know that she is VERY big on that.... one thing I have seen with ADHD is that the child "winds" up... like they get more and more hyper until they can't "hear" you (meaning they completely stop listening) but there are down times, but if played with or "wound" up they get worse and worse... so limiting that "wind" up can help.... like make sure that if he is playing with someone, make sure to intervene and keep him calmer... before he winds up... like a break from the "excitement" or just an easy "calm down" statement might help deter some of the worse periods... and help make it easier to deal with... the school part may be that he is smarter than where he is at in school so he is not challenged and is BORED, so his behavior is normal for that.... acting out, not focusing and getting bad grades because there is no challenge to keep his attention... (that seems to be the biggest issue with kids lately they aren't being challenged enough so they stop caring) you might try searching website (support groups) for moms of ADHD kids, like dailystrength(dot)org... there maybe you can find advice and help that you haven't tried or no one has said yet... good luck....

Thanks Tish! That is his problem totally, he can't calm down once he is hyped up and he does completely stop listening. I will check out that site.

Kimberly....My DS is only 2, but I teach 3rd grade. 5 years old is very young to consider ADHD in my opinion. I would try the behavior chart again. Kids LOVE rewards. One thing you may consider is the school work. Is it too hard and he is frustrated and acting out because it's hard? Or, could the school work be too easy and he's bored? Maybe try to set a routine with him so he knows what to expect before and after school. The biggest thing is being consistent. If you are not consistent, nothing will work. It sounds like he's very impulsive....What 5 year old isn't?