People with ADHD are different, but still...

So to promote special needs a great site has been started, and Saturday's are filled with postings about special needs kids.

Check out the Special Saturday website!

Taken from the about page of their site:

So what is Special Saturday?
Special Saturday is a group of people who want to raise awareness about children and adults with special needs. We aim to do this by devoting every Saturday to informing and spreading the news to as many people globally as we can about both the difficulties we face raising our children or by having special needs AND how amazing our special children are including their achievements.

This Saturday we are to either do a blog post, or tweet "People with ... are different, but still ..." I decided to add a post to my blog.

So, here goes. Children with ADHD/PDD-NOS are different, but still are children, like any others. I know my daughter can be strange when she acts like an animal when it isn't really called for. She can focus on one thing for a very long time (orca's have been her favourite animal since she was 2 years old). Her mind can wander and she may not pay attention when you need her too. School work is sometimes more difficult for her, because her memory doesn't work the way other kid's memories do. She doesn't really have any friends, because she doesn't act like her peers. Her anger can be worst than any adult I have ever seen. She can throw things, and scream and call me names, but she is still an 11 year old girl.

My daughter loves to have her nails done, and will sit quite still for that. My daughter loves books and movies, and can read for hours at a time. She loves having her hair done, and checking out the latest fashions. Rosy has a crush on a boy (well many actually, including Justin Bieber). She can kick your butt at some of the board games we have too. Rosy would be an awesome best friend, if someone would be there for her too (and not tease her when her back is turned). Watch out, cause she can pretend like no other (writing or play acting stories all the time). She has dreams to be a vet, or marine biologist, or an actress one day. Seems to me that she is very similar to most 11 year old girls out there! Just give her a chance to show how she can love like you can, play like you can, and pretend like you can. Yes, she is different in some ways, but she is the same in many others!

*This post was written as a part of SPECIAL SATURDAY which promotes awareness of special needs. Check it out on Facebook – Spec-sat bloggers, and on Twitter @SpecSat using the hastag #specialsaturday.

It's Official..Now What?

Well, we met with the psychologist and the counselor and dd has been diagnosed with ADHD and PDD-NOS. Now what happens??

DD and I are going to the pediatrician next week, and she specializes in ADHD, so we will get more info there. Then we I will meet with the psychologist, counselor, teachers and principal to go over what can be done at school. I understand this is going to be a long process, but I'm looking forward to getting things going. A friend said that I might get upset that this has happened (that dd has been diagnosed with something), but I'm not feeling that at all. Maybe because we have been dealing with this for a long time..who knows?

I got some more info on PDD-NOS, and will have to post more on the symptoms too. I think my previous post on them was a little long and convoluted.

At the meeting we learned some interesting things too. One major thing is the fact that dd has trouble at times remembering how things happened. She will remember parts of what happened, but it may be in the wrong order, or it may have things added to it that didn't actually happen. Makes it interesting to figure out if she is lying or if she is telling what she remembers. I know there are times that she is really lying, and that's so she won't get in trouble, but there are other times where I'm going to really have to evaluate things. I'll give a quick example, as this may help. DD was taking the cat, Shadow, out on the back deck (she is an indoor cat), and I had her bring the cat back in (it was starting to rain too) twice. She didn't go far on the deck, just a couple of feet away from the door. About 20 min later dd was playing a game with her brother, and she told him that she had taken the cat out and had her all the way down the stairs, and that the cat got spooked, because of getting dripped on, and that she (dd) had to chase Shadow back up the stairs and into the house (I don't have the exact rendition, but it was pretty elaborate). I let it slide, and I'm glad I did, because I now know that, that story may be what she "remembered," even though it didn't happen. Funny how our brains work!

Anyway I'm off to bed. I have a mother-daughter date with my dd to get make-overs at the Shopper's near by. Looking forward to that!

Assessment Coming Soon!!

I'm excited, and scared at the same time. Hubby and I are going to be meeting with the psychologist and dd's counselor on Wednesday evening to get the final assessment for dd. I'm excited, because it will mean that we are that much closer to getting her the help that she needs. I'm scared, because she could easily say that nothing is for sure, and that dd will have to go through more testing, or that there is nothing wrong at all (which I doubt at this point, after all that I have read).

This past Saturday was brutal, as dd didn't want to do her homework properly. She was to write five paragraphs about ancient Egypt, and she only wrote three and a list of things. I told her that it wasn't correct, and that I would sit down and help her. Well, that's not what she wanted at all. She figured she didn't care, then she said that she would quit, and then she just fought us about everything. Hubby was getting so frustrated, and taking away things from her room (radio, special pillow, etc.) wasn't working either. I finally got her to settle down and sit down so I could talk with her (calmly talking to her over and over). I explained that we needed to work on her homework, and she finally agreed (almost an hour later). We sat down at the computer and I showed her how to do some research and we then got to work on her paragraphs. I just can't wait to get help with this kind of thing. We can only take so much! It's affecting our ds too! He was in tears, because he was worried about how everyone was being with each other (especially his sister yelling at mom and dad). Thank God we were able to get things on track again.

Better get some dinner started. I'll post again soon!

New Beginnings

I'm a mom to two great kids (and I'm not biased at all..lol). How to begin this is going to be the hard part. hmmm

Well, let's see might as well talk about my daughter, as she is the subject of this blog. She is 10 years old and will be 11 later this year. We are in the midst of having her tested. The psychologist is leaning towards PDD-NOS and also ADHD. We will have the report on May 4th (I'm so looking forward to finding out what the diagnosis is, so that we can get her the help that she needs). There is one problem with all this though, is that I don't know if the "symptoms" she is displaying has to do with these disorders, or that fact that she was sexually assaulted by a friend's son (something that is hard to write still).

My mom said the other day, that maybe the assault was (in a sense) a good thing, because it helped us get some counseling which led to us getting her tested. She is not autistic and not aspergers, so PDD-NOS is the possibility, but then again it could be stemming from the assault. She doesn't interact well with her peers at all, and is not "mature" like they are, so she doesn't really have any friends.

Okay, so I am all over the place. Let's get going on what has been happening over the last year an a half, and maybe that will help.

Oct. 2009 - My daughter went to school quite normally that morning. She had her good days and bad, like most kids. I got a phone call from her teacher to come in and talk with her at the end of the day. I went in, and was able to send my son home with our neighbour (good thing). My dd and I sat down with the teacher and she told me that my dd had told a friend and two teachers (cause the friend was caring enough to tell the yard teacher) that she had been assaulted by a friend's son. WOW what a thing to find out! Tears, anger, frustration, shock, dismay are just a few emotions that I went through. CAS had to come out that evening, and that started the long process of talking to the police and going to court. Court was crazy, as we had to go twice (another long story). That part is now in the past and it is time to get on with all the other things.

During the past year and a bit we have been taking dd to counseling and trying to continue on with life. Things began to become more apparent that we needed her tested, just to see what was going on inside. Outbursts of anger, not listening (more so than a normal kid her age), acting like an animal when it's not appropriate to do so, baby talk at inappropriate times, and other things too. Her peer relationships were not good, and she loves to hug kids, when they don't want to be hugged (getting into someone's space is not a good way to make/keep friends). Now I understand that some of these things are also related to having being abused, but it is sometimes way over the top. When you look at what the teachers have to say on the questionnaires about how she acts in class and interacts too, it's apparent that there is something else that we need to look at, so testing began about two months ago.

I don't know if this will be a good thing to do, but I figured I am going to try this out. I need a place to talk about what is going on, and I'm hoping this may serve to help other parents out there!

I hope to post more about our daily life, and the issues that we deal with. Maybe this will help someone else out there!