Even though she has been attending high school for less than two months, my daughter has already been exposed to marijuana use.  When I say "exposed," that doesn't really explain what has happened.  I admit, knowing my daughter has ADD, and knowing what I already do about being a teenager, I was worried.  But I couldn't have expected what actually happened.

My daughter is very proud of the fact that she is "above the influence."  I thank her elementary school for instilling that in her (and hope that I have contributed positively, as well).  The problem came when her best friends started "experimenting" with pot during the first few weeks of school.  How did this happen so soon?  I wondered the same thing. 

It seems that someone's older brother and his friends who are seniors are the "really cool guys" responsible.  Initially, when my daughter found out that her close friends were using, she told them that she thought it was "stupid," and that she wasn't interested.  Over the next few weeks, despite being offered pot by these "friends" on different occasions, and despite their descriptions of how "great" it makes you feel, my daughter held firm in her convictions.

Unfortunately, she got "dumped" by these "best friends."  Those that she has grown so close to over the past eight years now no longer speak to her.  Girls who slept at my house and practically lived with us for weeks at a time completely ignore her.  And while I tell her that there are lots of other people in the world with whom she can become friends, making friends for my daughter is very difficult because she is painfully shy.  In addition to that, she also feels that, because of her Inattentive Type ADD, that she is "damaged goods," and "who could possibly want to be friends with me?"  This type of ADD is typified by lack of initiative, which means it is incredibly hard for her to start that conversation with a new person. 

I am trying to give as much support to her as I can, and I have told her how PROUD I am that she has made a smart choice, but the price to her has been painfully high.  I continue to pray, and to try to give advice on how she can make new friends.  There are plenty of kids with whom she is friendly, but making that transition to "someone I hand out with" has been a challenge for her. 

As a parent, it is hard to watch when your child is hurting and and there is very little Mom can do to help!

When my daughter was being evaluated to determine if she had ADD, the psychiatrist asked me if I had ever noticed, when I was talking with my daughter, maybe even asking her a question, that she appeared to have not heard me, despite the fact that she was looking right at me and could obviously hear my words.  As it turns out, what I thought was her being willful and rude was actually another symptom of her Inattentive Type ADD.

After her diagnosis, I found myself spending a lot of time where I find myself right now:  on the computer.  By reading information from a number of websites, I found that those who have Inattentive Type ADD are often never diagnosed!  The reason makes a lot of sense.  Kids with ADD who have the Hyperactive Type are easy to find in a classroom; they may have trouble sitting still or not talking when the teacher is in the middle of a lesson. 

In contrast to these children who become energized by stimulating situations, kids with a diagnosis of Inattentive Type ADD become overwhelmed by them.  To make this even more of a challenge, they also share the other ADD problems of having difficulty tracking details, keeping focused on conversations or trains of thought, and staying organized.  Some articles referred to the term "passive daydreamers."  They appear to be listening, to be looking right at you, but their mind has wandered off.  How could I expect my child to do well in school if this is what her brain was "doing to her?!!" 

I spoke with my daughter's guidance counselor about her diagnosis, and asked her to relay to my daughter's teachers the need for some additional support from them.  As her grades declined from A's to B's, I could accept that middle school was more challenging than elementary school - that's obvious.  I am realistic in my expectations; she doesn't need to have straight A's.  But when I check her grades online and see that she gets 105% on her test and 0%'s for homework, and is therefore getting a C on her report card, something is amiss!  Never was I so dismayed and concerned about her teachers' lack of understanding as the day a teacher told me "We have students getting D's and F's; we can't spend time on the ones getting C's."

Realistically, I am not yet sure how this "high school thing" will go.  I emailed her new guidance counselor the week before school began, but I have not yet gotten a response.  Meet-The-Teacher Night is coming up soon.  The current plan invovles my daughter writing her homework down in her assignment book which I check each night.  Of course, when I checked it today, there was nothing written for last Thursday.  The result of this error was Speech Number Eleven:  "Why You Must Fill Out Your Homework Assignment Notebook Every Day."  And while that particular speech lasts about three minutes in "real time," the Mary Poppins version is "Well begun is half done." 

It is difficult to strike the balance.   I struggle with knowing which is worse, allowing my daughter to fail or negatively impacting our relationship (and my SANITY!) because what we spend most of our time "saying" to each other is what sounds  like "nagging."  It is very hard to know when that Inattentive Type diagnosis ends and that fourteen year old begins.  I guess it is also going to require teaching some teachers, too.  I really think they need to be on my "team," as we tackle this together!

My daughter's Psychiatrist asked me, "What does a girl get when she's in Seventh Grade that she never had before that makes it clear to you and to others that she has ADD-Inattentive Type?"  After a few wrong answers, he told me, "A locker." 

Prior to Seventh Grade, students are in one room and have one teacher.  In their one desk they keep all of their belongings, so chances are slimmer that they will lose or misplace things, like homework or project instructions.  Having one teacher who teaches most, if not all subjects is a benefit because that person can keep the student with initiative and follow-through challenges focused on all assignments, maybe even review everything needed for the following day before the students go home.  But in Seventh Grade, a student has to keep herself organized.  The results if she doesn't, or in the case of a student with ADD, if she can't, are usually incredibly messy lockers, which lead to not being able to find that math paper that you did finish (so you get a 0% for that assignment) or the instructions, including the deadline date for that project that you did start, but now, even if you finish, will get only partial credit  - if you're lucky - for turning it in late.

Having been educated on this "locker phenomena," I understood my daughter's struggles a little better.  She wasn't lazy, and she probably did actually care about her grades...can you fully appreciate how much better that made me feel?!  It was very liberating, as the Mother/Problem Solver, to reach that realization that "This is a disease, and there is something that can be done about it!" 

After a phone call to the Guidance Office, I made sure all of my daughter's teachers were aware of her need to have her Homework Assignment Book checked at the end of every class.  Every evening, she and I would review what was written there together.  I won't lie to you and say, "They all lived happily ever after!"  There were teachers who didn't consistently follow-through.  There were days that I worked late or had other evening committments that kept me from checking.  There were days that she just plain didn't do it.  There were other days when I just plain couldn't do it. 

We say that we would "do anything" for our children.  For me, that includes turning into a constantly nagging, pain-in-the-rear Mother.  Some days, I hate that about myself.  Some days, I don't want to be that person, so I stop.  Some days, I just feel like, "I shouldn't have to keep telling her to make sure she has her house key, or that her cell phone is charged, or to put her dirty clothes into the hamper and not strewn around her floor."  But then something will happen, like she'll get locked out of the house and call me at work from a neighbor's to come home and let her in.  Then I think, "Bad Mother!"  I realize it is ridiculous.  But, in other areas of my life, when a problem is identified, and a solution is found and put into place, the problem usually remains solved.  Unfortunately, this has not been the case with my daughter's Inattentive Type ADD.

But today I have a lot of energy.  Today there is no school, which means no homework.  Her room is a total disaster, but today that's okay with me.  Let's see if I can maintain it all for the rest of this day!!

Two years ago, when she was 12, my daughter was diagnosed as having ADD-Inattentive Type and Depression.  My first response was, "Not MY child!  I did everything right - read lots of books about pregnancy and parenting.  How could THIS have happened?!"  Truth be told, up until that point - the moment when the phrase "Inattentive Type" came out of the Psychiatrist's mouth - I just really thought it was ME!  "Maybe I'm just not as good a parent as I thought!"

What took us to the doctor in the first place unfolded at my sister's wedding.  I noticed my daughter had cuts on her knuckles.  When I looked closer, I noticed they were letters, one on each knuckle, spelling out a boy's name - the boy who was "breaking her heart" at the time (now referred to as "The Turd").  My daughter had some friends who were "into cutting", and "taught her" how to do it.  After months and months of having her lock herself in her room, barely speaking to anyone in the family, and watching her grades go from A's to C's, this was the event that compelled me to get help.  "This is not something I know how to handle by myself."

I blamed myself for a long time, especially since the times when she cut herself were usually after she and I had had a fight about something - not cleaning her room, not turning in a homework assignment, not giving up on a boy who was bad news.  Once I learned more about the "Inattentive Type" of ADD, Depression, and Cutting, things made a little more sense, but that didn't make life any easier.  Want to know what did?  Medication.

I never wanted to have a child who "had to be medicated."  "I've seen THOSE kids.  MY kid isn't going to be one of THEM."  (Please accept my apology, all you Moms of THOSE WONDERFUL AND MISUNDERSTOOD KIDS!!  I know better NOW!)  The Psychiatrist asked me to trust him, and I thank God every day that I did.  We saw changes in my daughter within a few weeks.  She didn't seem miserable 24/7 (I still wouldn't describe her as "happy all the time," but at least I don't worry she will hurt herself when she's behind her closed door!).  Her friends noticed the difference, too.  And she said she "felt" better.

Eventually, she got rid of "The Turd," started spending more time with her friends, and over the past two years has had increases to her Prozac, Strattera, and Adderall.  Life is alot better than it was, but we have our struggles every day.  It is so hard to tell where the "disorder" ends and "being a teenager" begins. At the end of the last school year, I took my daughter to a "Moms and Daughters Night" at her school.  She immediately left me and went off with her friends, while I attended the "Just for Moms" session.  The Moms in that room joked about things they do with their daughters, how they get them to "open up," how they talk to them about boys, and drugs, and sex.  I couldn't relate to ANY of them.  They don't have the first clue what life is like with a child who has Inattentive Type ADD.  That's what this blog is about.

At work, I'm the one that people seek out when there are problems, and can usually come up with some ways to solve them.  I think I'm an intelligent person (though there are plenty of people who would argue that, I guess).  Raising my teenage daughter without going nuts?  Solving that problem requires simply taking one day at a time!!!  To keep my sanity, or maybe to make YOU feel better about what's going on in YOUR house, I'm going to share here.  "Welcome to the jungle!"