Help

Some hope. After losing all hope on understanding what is needed for my son, St. Peters found me. Strange? As I was sitting at St. Peter's University hospital for a doctors appointment for a family member, I drove the entire office crazy, or I should say my son, Hamza, drove everyone crazy.

He was six at the time, and I found that people have very little tolerance for non-behaving children. Doesn't anyone know that there is no perfect child? If I yell or try to discipline my son, then people will whisper that I'm a horrible mother, maybe even abusive. When they see my son out of control, people whisper that I'm a horrible mother, that has no control over her child. Either way I'm a horrible mother in the eye of the world.

It was Nancy, the only brave person to approach me in that doctors office and offer me some help. She was a nurse, who told me about a great program that St. Peter's has for children like my son. It's called forKEEPS. For info go to:

http://www.saintpetershcs.com/Services/OtherServices/CommunityOutreach/ForKEEPS.aspx


This program is located in New Brunswick, New jersey. Not only do they help the child, but they also help the parents, by guiding them throughout issues that will arise everyday with a child with ADHD. My husband and I meet with the therapist once a week. We were told of different activities to do with our son at home. At this time we only had Hamza and Aaisha, his older sister. The therapist also helped us to consider feeling with all the attention that Hamza was getting.

The program was very school oriented. Hamza went everyday from 8am to 3pm, Monday through Friday. He had his own teacher and therapist.

Unfortunately, everything in life has to have its flaws.

As a parent still struggling to understand my options with treatments for ADHD, forKEEPs concentrated on medicating my son. They tried several types and different doses, but the results were on different scales. On medications he was definitely less active, and had the ability to concentrate on the task at hand, but he also became very emotional. Always crying for every little thing. While he was already anti-social, on meds, he became even more withdrawn. It was like he was crawling into a hole within him self all the time.

After three month we took him out of the program, but now that he is ten I wonder if we did the right thing. As a parent one must ask are meds the best option for treatment? Some say yes and some say no. For me I still have no idea. My husband is dead set against using meds as a solution, for me, I'm not so sure. If I could go back maybe I would have kept Hamza in forKEEPs. I actually recommend it to all struggling parents out there in NJ.

Really Funny:

This is South Park's idea of a cure for children with ADHD