Well my son that is now 24 was also diagnosed with ADHD when he was 3
yrs old. At the time he also had a speech problem which he had to go to
speech therapy for a while on. Here in my area they have a place to take
kids to be tested for differt disorders. They do not put kids on the
meds there but if needed they will guide you to a doctor, but they do
not encourge the meds. At first they took him off of sweets and soda
made sure he received a balance meal. Also we would try to find what
things would keep him busy. I did not want to give him meds if I could
keep from it. Toys that were to hard seems to frustrate them more. With
my son we found that cars trucks tonka toys things of that nature he
loved were he could take then outside and build roads or whatever. Games
were out of the question he would loose attention with them and get mad
and want to tear them up. Tv he hated had to sit too long for that.lol
But ...... the best therapy for them and the parents is to keep them
busy something that they can get the engery out. My son I put in in
soccor when he was three then baseball, football anything that would
keep him busy. Sometimes they complain and want to quit but I never let
him quit. At the time he was going from the 5th grade to the 6th grade
is when they finally said that meds would help him the most for that is
such a big change for them and alot of the times boys when they hit that
age and there bodys are changing they are more apt to deal with it on
there own. My son took ridlin only in the 6th grade and half a dose I
did not give it to him on the weekends or summer time we just learned to
deal with it and keep him busy. Also best move I ever made was
requesting a male teacher in the 5th grade worked wonders believe me
boys will mind a male teacher quicker than a female lol But now that he
is older you would never know of the problems he had. It is a lot of
hard work if you chose no meds and make sure when they get into school
you keep in contact with the teachers. My self my son was real sweet in
school just his attention wondered off but at home OMG he was a hand
full. Even if you go the meds watch and have them start them at very
small dosage I can't stand to see a kid act like a zombie on that stuff.
Good luck. My best advice is sports sports and more sports.

Daniel,

The YMCA offers grants and scholarships which would give him an
opportunity to join some sporting activites, camps, and the like.

Thank You M'Lady...
Actually I know about the y, had a scholarship last year. However it
did not include any of the sports or anything here. All it allowed was
entrance and use of the facility.

Daniel,

My son was always in trouble in school and disrupting the class and I
was getting calls from the school several times a day and then they
brought in a child psychologist and was diagnosed with ADHD he was 10 or
11.

Well when your son starts school they will require your son to stay on
the medicine or he can't go to school that was what they had told me and
I didn't like the medicine and it didn't really help my son.

I don't know if it wasn't the right dose or what and they gave him even
more medicine to take and nothing seemed to help yet and I wouldn't give
him the medicine through the summer.

I noticed one of the side effects from the medicine with my son was
weight gain and he was always hungry and one thing that I did notice was
he could sit still to watch TV.

But he couldn't sit still in school long enough or staying out of
trouble and I even tried coffee and that didn't help him either so I
know where you are coming from and he still has problems with it now and
he is 16 years old.

But the desission is your about medicine or not, I hope you well with
your son and good luck.

Thanks for the advise everyone. However, just to let everyone know, the
common issue with school and medicine? The school can not legally say,
or do, anything where medicine is concerned. They can not refuse your
childs education if you do not put him on medication. That choice is
yours and the doctors with you being the trupm decision maker. There
have been several cases where the school has TRIED to do just that, and
got sued for it. the court was with the parents every time.
However, the school can say that if your child can not behave or
whatever, then they will not be allowed etc. But they can not tell you
what to do in order to make them behave.