Friday, June 24, 2005

ADHD and my children

Candy over at Life with Christ has an interesting viewpoint on the ADHD phenomena thats sweeping the nation. Supposedly our eight year old has been diagnosed with it. Here is what the diagnosis has done for my girl. We went out to a restaurant for lunch and she wanted to bounce around and run around the restaurant. Her three year old and five year old sisters were sitting nicely and quietly. When I told her to sit down or she would spend the rest of the day right by my side she looked me dead in the eye and informed me, that she could not sit still she has a illness that makes her hyper. : 0 What!? Someone has informed the child of this and given her an excuse for the way she is. :( She also brings with her when she comes to visit at least one new medicine. At last count she was on a total of four prescription medications and complaining of another ailment that will probably warrant another one. The child is a true hypochondriac.
Regardless of her "issues" the child must learn self control and I tell you when she is here visiting I am 100% consistent with her. Not wavering for an instant and guess what? She is happy, she is calm (mostly), and she is excited about her responsibilities. AND she can now sit still and quiet at least through a whole church service! :)
I cant wait until she is mine. She is such a sweet child who has had a rough life. I believe in our home with some consistency, routine, and order and of course unconditional love she will thrive and we are already praying that she will be able to be weaned off of her medicine eventually.
I have mentioned before that the week she spent here she loved helping around the house and doing her "school"work. She loved having a routine.
I remember commenting to her social worker at one time that regardless of the "ADHD" she has been diagnosed with she MUST learn self control and self discipline. Im sorry no police officer is going to care that you are ADHD when he pulls you over for a ticket or catches you stealing or you attack someone. The Court of Law should not care either. We should not be giving our children excuses for the bad behavior we should be training them up to know right from wrong and to exhibit self control. And to be responsible for what they do!
Funny thing I see in the foster care system is plenty of people who dont want to take responsibility for thier actions. Many parents dont want to work on case plans because they dont think they did anything wrong. It was all the "baby snatchers". They want to know why they cant have thier children back. I always tell them to look in the mirror. Until they can come face to face with that person the life cycle will continue. I dread the day 20 years from now (or sooner) when one of my foster children belongs to a child that lived in my home for a short time. I know this will happen because the thing that these "lost" parents will pass onto thier children is take no responsibility. Live however you want.
Im just so frustrated with the whole thing. :(


Around the House:
The books are almost all in the bookcases. I vowed that I would start with my very favorite/most useful books and work down and whatever did not fit was getting freecycled. Almost done.
The kitchen is clean though I still have to do the dishes.
The playroom is a disaster due to relocating it and the kids not being able to properly pick up thier toys and put them away. I hope to have that remedied by Monday afternoon at the latest.
I want to get my table moved out of the kitchen this weekend but that too may wait until Monday.
My mom and I went out to Walmart. I found some nice silk flowers and two rubbermaid containers on sale. I like to use silk because A) they are so low maintence and B) I dont have the added job of cleaning up cat vomit after they have eaten the real flowers. :)
I worked in my yard some today. I had to cut back the little saplings from around my oak tree and while I was doing that I decided to trim my lantanas back because they were taking over the flower bed. Im still soooo new to this gardening thing. My great aunt up in Alabama sent me home with some seeds for next spring I cant wait to try them out. My aunt here in Florida has offered me a Rose of Sharon cutting from her yard. Hubby and I were thinking of doing a Florida garden with native plants surronded by rocks. It would sure save us some water bill money and help us out because our yard truly needs to be resodded and we sure dont have the money for that. *sigh* Praise the Lord for my aunts though who are willing to share thier knowledge with me. My mom had horrible hayfever when I was growing up so she never really got into the yard to work and now that she is semi-rich :) she had her yard professionally landscaped and it looks beautiful.
My ultimate dream is to have a productive efficient garden that will produce herbs, vegetables, and flowers that can be cut and used around the house or as gifts. I really really want to try my hand at a rosebush one day too though the thought makes me nervous. :) Imagine having fresh roses all over the place! MMM...!
Well I better get started on those dishes!

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