People may enjoy reading this then again they might not, it comes with the territory of being a writer! I am a single dad, I have a five year old boy named Payton who just started Kindergarten about 3-4 months ago. Payton's mom is very active in his life but
she lives in Texas and we live in Florida so it makes it tough for her to do much. Wow have these past few months been a beating for all of us.
Payton has always been a very well behaved child. From about 10 months on he started getting "NO' when he did something wrong and eventually he did get spankings (not at ALL like may dad gave them, but enough for him to know I meant business). I have to attribute his good behavior to the discipline he has received growing up because he has never got out of line and acted up at Wal-Mart like that screaming kid we have all seen, right!!! Who am I kidding?
He has had his share of being upset but truthfully he has never thrown a fit in a store or anything remotely close. But when Payton turned about 4 and a half, I believe the medical term for what happened to him is, "He turned in the Devil!" All of a sudden when day care started preparing him for Kindergarten with some sort of structure, he went nuts. He would act out, talk back to teachers, run away when they called him, and the worst was when I actually received letters home that he was throwing chairs and eventually asked to leave the school...for good.
My toddler was expelled from Daycare! It sounds crazy, especially to me. I would leave work to go pick him up and before I got a word in he would look at me and say, "Daee, what are we gonna do with me?" After a year of trying to figure it out myself, I took him to the Neurologist and said "Doc, I don't think it is ADHD because I have that, but somethings else is wrong with my kid...help"...he looked at me, listened to me for about 90 seconds explain symptoms and said, "Paul, it does not GET anymore ADHD than that kid!!!"
WHAT A RELIEF! Now I felt sorry for the kid. I felt ashamed and embarrassed for all the times I yelled at him, told him to stop acting up, or even punished him...and then THAT minute passed and I said, 'oh well, let's move on!'
The first couple of months of Kindergarten have been ultra stressful for us both. The cool part about it is knowing that they could not just throw him out like day care did. HA It's the PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM, they're STUCK with him!!! No, seriously; lots of meetings, lots of Daddy thanking the teachers and staff for working with me. We tried two different meds in many different strengths. 5mg Focalin XR, 10mg Focalin XR, 30mg Medidate, and then finally a few weeks ago...the grandad...20mg Focalin XR.
Mon - "Payton had a great day today"
Tue - "Payton had a wonderful day"
Wed - "Payton called the children stupid but all in all had a great day" (what did you expect...he's still five and MY son!!!)
I felt like God handed ME my report card and said, ok Paul...you did good, here's your son back!
It was like night and day. Throughought the past year or so, Payton has rarely shown me any similar disrespect that he would show anyone else (I'm lucky I guess), but at the same time, Monday, I sat there and watched a totally different kid even to me. Tuesday it started to sink in as I saw him pick up his stuff with not even a twist of his nose. Happy, jovial, eager to get to the next thought waiting just five seconds around the corner!
So I know what you are saying...Great story Paul, we all love happy endings, but this section is for ADVICE smart guy.
Here it is: Don't be afraid of meds! Don't be afraid to make a HUGE decision for your children. If you choose the wrong med...choose another! If you make a bad decision, stop and take a different route. It is a thousand times easier for you to take an alternate route to your destination when the road has just been paved for you, then after it has been detoured and demolished years later.
I totally understand someone not wanting to pump their babies full of chemicals, but look at the grand scheme. I personally looked at what could have happened to Payton if he did NOT get some help. I made jokes with his mom about him being locked up by the time he was 21, but those are the kind of pictures you have to paint sometimes as a parent because your kids cannot paint that picture themselves. They don't have the ability to make the tough decisions on how their life will be patterned. There are plenty of inmates, or unsuccessful people (or successful yet unhappy people for that matter) in this world that say, 'man I wish my parents would have set me straight', or 'wow, I wish they would have made me do this or that'.
Many parents today unfortunately are still mentally children themselves and think that everything will be 'ok'...well it will...if you make it 'ok'. Many parents are so selfishly into themselves and the idea of "having this child" (begin dream sequence music here and think of bubbles and billowy clouds) that they forget to forget about themselves. When I had my son I was 31. I look at people having children at 19 and wonder how they do it. More power to them, seriously, but I was pretty mature at 31 and still no where near where I was at 32 with a crawler...or 33 with an infant...or 36 with a Kindergartener.
Live for your children. Make the tough decisions for them now...and they will make the RIGHT decisions for themselves later.
(November 2006) (
