Should I supplement or medicate my ADHD child?

Let’s find the most nuclear option available we have that is fastest, proven to be most effective, balanced with safety and side effects, to help my child cope with the daily demands of school - Abigail

Introduction:

Watching your child struggle with ADHD can be heartbreaking. This post shares a parent's perspective of balancing medication, lifestyle changes, and structure to support to the child succeed.

Recently I’ve been asked this question - and my measured answer will be… it’s complicated. It depends ;)

Maybe I will detail what I did for my child and the thought processes behind it and perhaps it will help guide your thinking about this issue too!

So we know that a person cope with his/her ADHD symptoms and dysfunction depends on a myriad of factors and it’s about how demanding the environment is for the person with ADHD and the ability of the person to cope with these demands. My son is 11 and taking an important examination next year (PSLE) and for me, it wasn’t about boosting his ability to ace the exams (like taking steroids).

It’s more like, let’s find the most nuclear option available we have that is

fastest,

proven to be most effective,

balanced with safety and side effects,

to help my child cope with the daily demands of school so that he has a best shot at the examinations - without feeling like he is failing and getting reprimanded for the most basic of things and

impacting his self-esteem.

Keeping my child’s resilience and self-belief in tact is the most important thing to me and at this point, I don’t even care if he can only do well enough for the G1 stream - if he feels that’s the best he can do. I do want him to be able to progress to the next level.

We opted to get a full diagnosis done at Bloom Child Psychology with Dr Vivien Yang and accessed medication at National University Hospital. Even the doctors say, in the long term, the prognosis of children on medication and not levels out in the end (if given the right environmental supports). The medication is just for the child to cope with the very stressful demands right now - because obviously, the high stakes examinations

delivered in a large class

with very low teacher-student ratio

coupled with minimal physical movement

is NOT a right environmental fit for kids with ADHD. —> hence the stress and the need for medication.

Pills do not build skills nor increase will.

Medication alone does not help the child learn the executive functioning and life skills that they need for functional adulting - neither do they increase motivation if there is no motivation in the first place.

So my thinking as a parent is that let’s get the nuclear, fastest option of medication, but definitely with that on hand, we will also work on the basic, foundational things like sleep, nutrition and supplementation, exercise, distraction-free environment etc… all the wonderful things but take time and lifestyle changes.

And for ADHD-prone brains (like mine). We are so bad at seeing that delayed impact and we often don’t persist long enough at a slow thing - even though we know it is definitely good for our child. How can clean nutrition and supplementation not be good for our child, right?? It’s just that it’s hard to see the immediate results and we don’t get that instant gratification.

So in a nutshell, we have the medication and I let my child decide if he needs to take it that day if he has something demanding going on - whether he wants to eat the long-acting or the short-acting one (long-acting for long papers on examination days; short-acting for very painful 2 hour Chinese tuition classes).

Concurrently, we are also working on nutrition and supplementing where I know my picky eaters are not going to take those foods without a protest - actually it’s me…. I can’t bear to cook those foods, e.g. liver 🤮.

In a nutshell, some questions to consider:

• do I have the luxury of time to let lifestyle changes take effect? (in view of the demands on my child)

• what are my goals for my child for supplementation or medication? What are the potential side effects, pitfalls, positive and negative consequences for each option?

• am I patient and persevering enough to see through these changes?

• are my child picky eaters? If so, what kinds of supplementation do I need?

• am I able to mitigate the side effects of the medication and make sure the impact of his/her growth, heart condition, mental health and mood is minimised?

So if you want to know more about 5 basic nutrients to heal our kids’ brains, don’t miss this webinar that we did with Dr Cheryl Kam. She teaches us how to include these nutrient-rich foods in our diets and where and how to supplement if we choose!

And if you get her products, you can use my affiliate link which gives you additional 5% discount at no cost to you! https://www.iwantcalm.com/?ref=ABIGAIL

Get instant access to the webinar now!