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April - posted on 04/11/2010 ( 1 mom has responded )

My son has lived with ADD (no hyperactivity) since he was about 4 (he's 9 now) when I started to notice he had a problem. He is very bright in reading, spelling and science (let me first say that I home school) but has lots of trouble in all other areas. I have tried many different techniques and he just can't focus and gets very frustrated with himself when he just can't get it. I can show him how to do a math problem 1 day and he can do a whole page of it with only a few wrong answers but by the next day I'm having to show him how to do it all over again and this has been going on since second grade. So far I have only gotten him as far as regrouping because he forgets it if I don't have him do it at least every other day and he should already be doing division and adding fractions, etc. but I can't move on cause he still hasn't mastered regrouping. I am worried that the choice I have made in not medicating him is starting to effect his learning. I was medicated as a child (Ritalin) and I did not like the way it made me feel for the most part but I was able to take in more details when I was given instruction and was able to keep my brain focused better but I did suffer from depression but I don't know for sure if that was from the medication or not. I am really not sure what's the right thing to do here. He's falling way behind in a lot of important subjects. I would like to hire a tutor that specializes in learning disabilities but they are expensive!

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Lori - posted on 07/08/2010

My son started to fall behind. That was when I made the decision to medicate him for school. I don't medicate him in the summer or over long breaks. I also do a lot of teaching how to pay attention. It may be time you read up on Learning Disablilities to see if the strategies that you are using is conducive to his learning style or not. There are many ways of learning, and maybe the way you are showing him isn't his style. I have heard kids sing the way to regroup, act out the way to regroup, have a procedure step card that shows them how to regroup. My son had great teachers thsi year who were creative! Go to the library do some research on different ways of teaching.