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My mom brain was like, but these are stimulants and they're,

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you know, medication and I'm drugging my kids.

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And so it took me a little bit to get my head around treating my daughter at first.

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And then I started hearing things that were coming out of her mouth.

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And when she would be trying something, she was taking piano lessons and was having a hard time.

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And she was saying, well, but I'm dumb.

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I can't learn. And she was having some problems with friendships at school when she was in first grade.

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And it was hard to hear that and to see that. And that was what really kind

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of helped me go, okay, your medical brain knows this.

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Your mom brain should listen to that.

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Music.

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Hello, I'm your host, Miriam Brown. In addition to my teaching certificate,

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I have a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's in curriculum and instruction.

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I spent the last decade as a public school teacher, and I want to give you insider

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tips on how to help your child do well in a system that might otherwise fail them.

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Today, I'm talking with PA Erin Coffin.

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This is part two of our ADHD series, and today we're going to be talking about ways you can treat ADHD.

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Music.

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First of all, I want to talk about medication and how you decided to choose

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to do medication. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

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I look at medication a little bit through two lenses, one through my parent

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lens and one through my professional, my PA lens.

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When I look at medication from a PA standpoint, the data is overwhelming.

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Overwhelmingly clear that stimulant medication for kids with ADHD improves outcomes

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and not just helps them get good grades,

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but helps them to become confident learners and to feel that they can actually do these things.

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But then also, they're much less likely to engage in risky behaviors like drug

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use and oppositional defiant disorder, petty theft, and falling in with the

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the wrong crowd, the troublemakers, that kind of stuff.

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And these are all things that kids with ADHD are at high risk for.

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And the data overwhelmingly shows that if you diagnose a kid in elementary school

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and get them started on stimulant medication, that they are much less likely

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as teenagers to get involved in that stuff.

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I think another thing sometimes parents don't take into account is how it affects

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them with their friends. I remember I had a student that had forgotten to take his medicine.

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And one of his friends got out of his class early to run to my class to warn

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me, the student didn't take his medication today, Mrs. Brown,

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and he can't sit with the other kids. And I think it's not just the teacher, but lots of times they'll do bothersome

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things to other kids and it can hurt their friendships and isolate them.

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Yeah, that's totally true.

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Kids with ADHD tend to be more impulsive. And with friends, they tend to do

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things that bother their friends. And when they're on medication and they're able to focus, they tend to be less impulsive like that.

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And so, yeah, that is definitely another thing that we see with kids with ADHD,

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that when they do take stimulant medication, we see improvements in that social

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behavior, which makes a huge difference. And all of those kind of things in my medical brain, I could look at that and

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say, yes, those are things that I want for my kids. But my mom brain was like,

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but these are stimulants and they're, you know, medication and I'm drugging my kids.

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And so it took me a little bit to get my head around treating my daughter at

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first. And then I started hearing things that were coming out of her mouth.

3:47

And when she would be trying something, she was taking piano lessons and was having a hard time.

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And she was saying, well, I'm dumb. I can't learn.

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And she was having some problems with friendships at school when she was in first grade.

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And it was hard to hear that and to see that. And that was what really kind

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of helped me go, OK, your medical brain knows this.

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Your mom brain should listen to that. We started her on medication and it took

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a little bit of time and fine tuning and finding the right medication.

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And it wasn't like we found the right medication that's been the same forever.

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There's been changes over time. And as kids grow and metabolism changes,

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sometimes we have to change their medication. Right now she's in eighth grade and in the midst of puberty and that.

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Changes how kids respond to medication and everything. There are other,

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I guess, social implications with taking medication.

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My daughter struggled with medication because she feels like she's different than all her friends.

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And she's one who is super open and cannot keep a secret.

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And we told her she doesn't have to tell the other kids that she has ADHD.

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She doesn't have to tell them that she's on medication. That's not something that she keeps to herself.

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And so her whole class knows that she has to take a pill and she has ADHD.

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And people would tell her, well, you're just smart because you take a pill to make you smart.

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So that was hard for her. And a lot of times she started hiding her pill and

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we'd find pills hidden around the house and realize that she wasn't taking them.

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So we've gone through lots of different iterations with medication and how well she's taking it.

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And so even though the stimulants do seem to help with focus and help with a

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lot of these other impulsive things that kids with ADHD struggle with.

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There's their own feelings about it. So we've tried also to give our kids some

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say in what medication or how or when we're using medication.

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And that has gone okay and not so okay at times.

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My son was on a stimulant for probably about two years after he was diagnosed

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and was doing great, I thought.

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And then I think about seventh grade, he was saying, Mom, I don't like taking

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the medication because he loves to do art. And he felt like the medication was taking away that creative side and taking away his fun ideas.

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And as his teacher, I don't know how much you loved always his fun ideas because

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sometimes some of his fun ideas are like pranks. So I don't know.

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But so in seventh grade, we said, OK, well, let's see how it goes.

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And we noticed his grades did drop off. We've gone back and forth about should

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he have to be on medication or not.

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And for the most part, he has not.

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And some of those things that I've worried about teens, we're seeing that lack

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of self-esteem. I mean, I have guilt as a mom.

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Like, should I have pushed him harder to stay on the medication?

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And still now, do I need to make him go back on it? So those are things that

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we still struggle with as a family trying to decide on medication.

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When they have ADHD, they're impulsive and it can be frustrating for like parents and teachers and peers.

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So they're receiving a lot of negative messaging and it's really hard to have

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a good self-esteem when you're constantly getting negative feedback from everyone around you.

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I think sometimes people think you're just putting them on the medication just

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to make it easier for teachers or to help them get good grades.

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But it's not just school. It really does affect so many aspects of their life.

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So do your children tend to go off their medications in the summer or on weekends

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or how do you handle that? Yeah, that's for the most part because my kids have not loved to take medication.

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Usually we give them

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drug holidays on the weekends and in the

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summertime there's there have been times like I said we had my daughter on a

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non-stimulant and that one had to be taken daily for it to be effective and

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so that that was a little bit more of a fight with just taking the pill every

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day she felt like I don't need it on the weekends.

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But in order for it to continue to be effective, we had to take it daily.

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And then the other thing is, the other consideration with medication is that

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the weekends and the home,

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like the after school time that we sometimes have to actually pay attention

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to because all of that time with family, if they're behavioral,

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impulse control issues, kids can really struggle feeling like they're always in trouble with mom and dad.

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And mom and dad are always mad at them because they're having a hard time with behavior.

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And so sometimes it does help to continue medication later in the day or use

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a medication that works through the evening time or helps on the weekend.

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Or sometimes you do have to do homework and chores and things like that that

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you do need focus on the weekend. And so everybody's different.

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For the most part, we've tried as a family to say, OK, we can work through some

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of these other behaviors and we will deal with them in order to focus on helping

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our kids do well in school. But I think that's a decision that everybody makes themselves.

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So and how the family life is working.

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For parents that don't want to medicate, what are some things you can do without medication?

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Medication so we have also in

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addition to medication but this is what a lot of times parents

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will will look into as

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well cognitive behavioral therapy so working with a counselor and both of my

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kids have their own counselors that they see and then occupational therapy is

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another thing that can help a lot my daughter has has done occupational therapy

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and the therapist has helped her with,

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you know, bringing in her school computer and helping her get that organized

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and bringing in her bag and going through and helping her to create organizational

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strategies that work for her. And then they also play games. And so it's therapy that seems like fun that she really enjoys,

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but they play games that require her to pay attention to multiple things at

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the same time or that require her to follow multi-step instructions and things like that.

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So those are are some strategies and there is data that those can be helpful.

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I don't want to diminish that they can be helpful. And a lot of parents do find

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a lot of benefit from them. But we don't see as much of the improvement in those outcomes,

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like I said, through those teen years, those antisocial behaviors or decreased

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sexual activity or decreased drug use in kids with ADHD who only utilize behavioral

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therapies, unfortunately. So they're definitely helpful. And a lot of times we as parents want to say,

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well, I want to try those first and see if they work from a provider standpoint

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and looking at the research. The other thing that I see is there is this small window where you can really

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make a big difference in this child's life and you can really change that trajectory.

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So I look at the research on that more, I guess, and try to balance it out.

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I think what you're trying to say is there's disadvantages to waiting on the medication.

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And I don't know why we're so hesitant, but I see a lot of parents that'll want to try diet first.

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And I don't know if it's just denial that, like, I went through when I had a

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chronic disease denying that I needed medication.

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So I don't know if that's just a natural part of coming to accept that they

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need medication, but I think keeping in mind that there might be a disadvantage

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to waiting for the medication as well.

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I don't know if that happens with people who find out their kid has diabetes

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or something. Are they also hesitant to want to use medication?

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I noticed that I did that as well, even with, you know, ulcerative colitis.

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Music.

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So, stimulant medication really is the gold standard for treating ADHD.

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And there are some other therapies you can do as well to help on top of the stimulant medication.

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But when you're making your decision about whether or not to medicate,

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it's a good idea to think about the disadvantages of not medicating your child,

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not just on their academics,

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but also on their relationships and their self-esteem and some of their impulsive

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choices that they might make that really could negatively impact their life.

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I hope this discussion helped you and we'll see you next time when we talk about

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doing homework with your ADHD child.

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Music.