New road up ahead: ADHD

As we all know, I have two sons who were adopted from Ethiopia at 16 months of age. As we also know (or should by now), adoption is filled with unknowns. This is because we can't know how a child's trauma-filled past will affect them at two, or five, or thirteen years of age. Lack of proper nutrition, potentially poor prenatal health, the experience of being relinquished and moving from orphanage to orphanage...all those things leave an imprint on a child's brain and heart.

When we brought Yosef and Biniam home, they were ready to love, and to trust. Sweet, smiley little boys. They grieved, yes, and that was healthy. We worked through it. Biniam seemed to have the hardest time. He struggled with emotional issues related to food, yet in time those faded away. Upon homecoming he couldn't walk and had low muscle tone (in addition to parasites and a double-ear-infection), but he quickly caught up. We eventually learned his vision was extremely poor, so we dealt with that. He overcame those obstacles just like he overcame the food struggles. My son is a survivor. And a fighter.

We realized a year and a half ago, though, that as time went on, things just weren't going well with Biniam anymore. Nothing major, just little things...that made parenting him extremely stressful. And none of it added up. He had an amazingly kind, sweet heart...yet would regularly take a toy away from a sibling. Almost without thinking. He was so tactile and literally could not help himself when it came to jumping in puddles, stepping in snow...even if I'd JUST specifically told him not to. He doesn't have a defiant bone in his body, yet had a terrible time following through on certain tasks I'd ask him to do. Loves his sister Kaitlyn to pieces, but would get disproportionately upset if she did something to him (even though she's much younger than he is.) The boy can never find his shoes, or something that is lost. I tell him to go look, but he just wanders aimlessly around.

And then there's the constant MOVEment. Biniam has a great attention span, but he's usually moving. I just figured he must be an active kid. So we dug our heels in, hoped he'd outgrow the issues, maintained consistent discipline, encouraged him to jump on the trampoline to get his energy out...and had a really hard time seeking out positive interaction with him. It was just so tiring. I felt angry toward him, and I hated that. As many parents know, it's exhausting putting on that happy face each day, determined to make it better than the day before, only to want to give up an hour later.

Recently it reached a point where I felt like we'd reached the end of the line. We had tried everything with him...time-outs, early bedtimes, taking away privileges...he was just always in trouble. And again, not for anything super BAD. But he's IMPULSIVE. And disorganized. Therefore, he's in trouble a lot. (I know, it sounds weird. It is weird.) And then there are his many QUESTIONS.

He asks a lot of questions.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I came upon an article that, well, may as well have been written about my son and our family. It was an article about ADHD.

I'd always assumed that four-letter-acronym couldn't be it, because he DOES have a decent attention span, doesn't flit from activity to activity, he enjoys being read to...basically he didn't fit my stereotype of an ADHD-affected child. (I also read up on Sensory Processing Disorder and of course attachment issues, but those definitely didn't fit.) Yet I'd become suspicious because of his moving around so much. So I started doing some research. And this article listed some myths about ADHD. Guess what? Every.single.one. was something I'd believed was a reason he couldn't have it. Those myths now corrected, he's a classic, textbook case.

The article also went on to talk about strengths of kids who have ADHD. Yep, those described him too. Other kids think Biniam's a ton of fun. They love to play with him. He's outgoing and funny and exuberant and enthusiastic. He's generally pretty well-liked.

So.

We haven't had him officially evaluated yet, but I know what the outcome will be. Really. I'd stake my life on it. He's (over)due for his well-check anyway, so I'll talk to our pediatrician then.

Children who come from "hard places" tend to be at higher risk for various things, including ADHD. Still I did NOT see this coming. Part of me feels relieved to have discovered the reason for all the stress involved in parenting him...and part of me feels sad and frustrated. I would not have chosen for my child to deal with this...and I know, saying that sounds so stupid!!! Because really people, it's NOT the end of the world. For having ADHD, he compensates really well. If you dropped in unexpectedly on any given day, you'd even see that our home is pretty quiet. Not chaotic. He's mostly just a regular little boy. It's just those little things that, over time, amount to what feel like big things.

For me right now it's all about coming to a place where you make peace with the situation you thought you had, and move forward with the situation you actually have.

Thus I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking. I'm discovering that I'm afraid of LABELS. I'm scared my son will cease to be known as Biniam, a fun and nice kid, and will become "that kid with ADHD." I'm also realizing that I fear JUDGEMENT...people thinking that I'm using a label to cover over poor parenting or a disobedient child. "ADHD is over-diagnosed", they'll say. Everyone is an expert when it comes to kids and behavior. (Quick tip: don't judge other peoples' kids. You haven't walked in that family's shoes. Can I just say too that I'm so incredibly grateful for a couple of close girlfriends who I can be painfully honest with and who accept me and my kids no matter what? If you are raising children from difficult backgrounds, or if you are raising a biological child struggling with something, support is so important.)

And so I went back and forth about blogging this. Because of everything in the above paragraph. But I've decided to share it because it's part of our family's story now and a new part of our journey. We went into adoption all those years ago knowing there are unknowns. In fact, for years I kept waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop. I was more than fine with that. (If you're not, you probably shouldn't adopt, or have children in general, because you can't control for everything. Nor should you. God works through brokenness and situations that on the surface are less than perfect.) Because so much time passed without that happening though, I guess at some point I moved on and believed that there were no further issues to address at this time.

But there WERE issues. And yet I feel hopeful. Hopeful that we can give Biniam the tools to succeed, and especially hopeful that my relationship with him will improve, now that I can take a deep breath and see that he's not TRYING to be difficult. That there are REASONS he struggles with looking for stuff, or becomes distracted when I've asked him to do certain things. I also feel validated, that it wasn't just me, that the past couple of years HAVE been incredibly challenging. Parenting a kid with ADHD when you didn't know they had ADHD. Yeah, I can tell you from experience that it's not real fun. And it may or may not cause you to want to rip your hair out.

I've already instituted some small changes in our home that have made a big difference. When it's time to pick up toys for example, I have Biniam go work downstairs...away from the other kids...and have everyone else work upstairs. And he is extremely productive and does a great job, and generally does it in a timely fashion...Whereas before, I'd have them all working on the same area until it was clean, then move on to the next, and he'd wind up in trouble for becoming distracted and not getting anything done.

I'm sure I'll share more about all of this as time goes on, but for now, this is where we're at. I have a pile of books on children and ADHD on hold at the library that I'm waiting on and I have big plans to dig into rebuilding a healthy, positive relationship with my little boy. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Biniam is a survivor and a fighter. He will succeed. I have a feeling I have a lot to learn from him.

And at the end of the day, God is faithful. He also has a grand sense of humor. I am such a low-energy person, He knew I needed me some ADHD in my life. So, hello Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder. It's nice to meet you. You can hang out here, but you won't be defining my son, or getting in the way of his life. If you thought so, you obviously don't know his story or his past. Biniam beats the odds. And we're a family. Come what may.