The Focus Gear

We’ve sent my son to school for two weeks now after taking a six-hour duration Adderall pill each morning.   The first day I wasn’t certain if he was going to fare well with it at school because he was telling his teachers he wasn’t able to control his emotions, but they wanted to continue it to see how it went.  And it was a good decision.   My son is able to focus at school.   He’s working intently during work cycle and is excited about his work.

There are some challenges though: he does have an anger management problem we’re going to hear more about in a teacher conference next week.   Apparently he gets quite upset when someone interrupts his work.   Which is singular given that prior to the Adderall my son would interrupt his classmates fairly regularly.

He and I have talked about it a bit  And it’s been intentional that it’s only a bit.   I’m trying to casually talk about things that happen at home and relate them to how his day in the classroom goes without letting him know I’m getting a detailed account from his teacher.  

When we were talking on the ride to school we were talking about what the Adderall helped and what it made more difficult.   I asked him if it helped him to focus more because his teacher had said how intently he was working on his assignments.   My son said, “the Adderall unclogs my focus gear.  Because it always gets clogged with other thoughts.”

I asked him if it made him angrier and he said sometimes it did.   We talked about how we’d been working on using kind words at home and that using a calm tone and nice words to talk to someone when they’ve upset you.   He said he was going to work on it.   I know this is going to be hard for him because he has a sudden and dramatic reaction to minor things,

Next week we go back for a month follow-up with the prescribing psychiatrist and will see what he suggests.   I’m not keen on making any medication changes if we don’t have to though; my son has adapted well to it, including coming down from the medication at the end of the school day.   He was blowing up for very minor things a week ago, acting almost like a child several years younger in age. He’s suddenly a lot more mature acting in both behavior and words.

It’s working, this unclogging of the focus gear.   I’m so glad for my son.  I think a lot of the anxiety he had has decreased too because he’s being successful at school.   He’s much calmer and is acting several years older mentally.  I think he’s proud of himself.     I’m proud of him too.

The Big Boy Update:  My son and I play Fortnite Monopoly the other night.   After we finished the game my son said, “we might have to play another round.  Because my body is just exploding with being ready.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wants to feel like she can help.  She has to accept help from people every day and all day long.   She wants to feel like she knows things and can do things.   One of the best things we do to help her mental state right now is to have her help us with something.   She is a feisty one, but she needs to feel like she’s contributing…like she’s needed…like she’s not a burden.