cthrn

Hi. My oldest son (now 17) was diagnosed with AD(no..H)D (also called inattentive)just before 8th grade. I had been asking teachers since preschool if they saw an attention problem but they saw lack of motivation, lazy, just not trying, needing to feel real success.........etc. Anyway, ADD is often difficult to diagnose. the person kind of drifts off, but doesn't cause disruption in class so the teacher doesn't always notice. Apparently, my sons eyes would still follow the teacher, while his brain just took a little vacation. I've heard that most girls with add are inattentive like my son. They tend to be content to just sit much of the time. they may have hyper moments but not often at my house.

Anyway, Ritalin has been a miracle for us....along with some behavior therapy as needed. Inattentive ADD tends to have more anxiety associated with it... and, like you, we did owe my son a huge apology. He is now in Senior honors English and made the honor roll.

Call your daughter's guidance counselor and/or the school social worker. See what they can do to help. They may arrange (free) testing. At the very least they should be able to give her some free assessment sessions. Loss of self esteem is a very real side effect of ADD and can be helped, but ohhhh, soooo slowly. See if some kind of tutoring might not help. once she is able to consistently focus she will learn easier. There are also many coping skills which she must learn to help her learn. My son has to review his subjects everyday for a set amount of time. His mind doesn't seem to "keep" the information so he has to keep looking at it, looking at it, looking at it. The counsellor says that is a way of "tricking" the brain into thinking the info is important.

One more thing, as her mom you probably have a pretty good feeling for whether or not she's ADD. Don't let anyone gloss over it until you agree with the assessment.

wish you the best....