I was gifted this amazing little boy from God. His name is Fergus. He has these amazing eyes, the color of almonds. The sparkle with mischief and gleam with intelligence. He is full of compassion for others and he’s curious about everything. He doesn’t stop moving but he’s capable of slipping into super, super slow-motion when someone is waiting.
For his first 4 1/2 years, it was just he and I. Experiencing the world through his eyes with fresh curiosity and amazement was like a rebirth of sorts. I didn’t have a radio in my car, so anytime we drove anywhere (which was often); we talked. We talked like two adults. Fergus had a very large vocabulary and an inquisitive mind when he started school.
We didn’t have a lot of behavior problems prior to school. He went through a biting phase and gave himself a concussion when he fell off the coat hook he was hanging on.
His “behavior” problems started when he started school and my take on it is the schools had and have an expectation problem. It is unreasonable to expect children as young as three years old to sit still, pay attention and behave perfectly for hours on end. My opinion is that it’s unnatural. Preschool was a nightmare.
His Kindergarten teach was an amazing, loving and creative woman. She called me to tell me he’d had a good day and I burst into tears of relief and joy. She gave him a carpet square to use as an island and the classroom carpet was an ocean he couldn’t go into without drowning or being eaten by sharks. It kept him from moving around her classroom and putting his hands on the other children.
Fergus has always been a loyal person. If you were his friend, he took that seriously and defended you if he deemed it necessary. Which is how I got a phone call telling me he’d pushed another child off the top of the school’s playground slide. That child had pushed his friend, so Fergus pushed him. Off the slide. Onto the ground, breaking the child’s backpack strap (when he tried and failed to catch him) but not injuring the child (thank God!). I offered to pay for the backpack.
I took Fergus in to a mental health professional to be evaluated and he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which I’d never heard of previously. I tend to question things and I seek out knowledge and proof. I went to my local library and read everything they had on ADHD and ADD.
As I read, I realized my son was being described and I was devastated that my perfect child wasn’t perfect. Moreover, to my surprise, I realized that I fit the description even more readily than my child! At the time, they believed there was a genetic component but it hadn’t been proved yet. I’m convinced it’s genetic.
Throughout the years, Fergus’ teachers would go on and on about how polite and likable he was. Then, they started with the buts. He can’t hold still. He’s always touching others. He doesn’t pay attention in class. He doesn’t turn in his assignments. He distracts the other students.
Over the years, I’ve become convinced that ADHD and ADD run rampant in my family. My mother and father both have associated behaviors. Most of my siblings have characteristics of it. Both of my sons have it. Fergus has ADHD and Samson has Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), which is basically the thought problems without the hyperactive movements.
I’ve never been diagnosed and I learned some great coping skills as a child. Fergus had to be medicated before he was able to realize any kind of scholastic (behaviorally) success.
All of the books I’d read told me not to expect a miracle pill, so I didn’t. Imagine my surprise and sorrow when we switched medications and found a combination with dramatic results. One after another, at the next parent-teacher conference; Fergus’ teachers remarked on what a difference there was in his behaviors. It was PFM (Pure Fucking Magic).
At this point, I don’t think having ADHD is going to negatively affect my life.
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