So far, this morning I've had brekky, fed the animals, then spent the rest of the time trying to round up a naughty bengal that had escaped out the front - again. The little bugger was having the time of her life , bounding down the street, visiting the neighbours. Until she got scared and started "calling" for me, even then, as soon as I got to her, she bounded off again but luckily her destination was home and then spent an awful lot of time leaping around until she'd had enough and went inside. Now , I could do with a nice cup of coffee.
No Autism, apparently she has ADHD, ODD and possibly a couple of other things.
Her brother has Autism and ADHD as well. Its been difficult with these kids and we had put their bad behaviour down to the domestic violence they experienced for much of their life. This girl is an absolute carbon copy of her dad the poor kid. Because her problems seem to manifest as nasty behaviour we'd managed to overlook the possibility of an underlying disorder.
So back the the pediatrician next week and he will probably prescribe Ritalin, hopefully it will make a difference for her.
We also picked up some glasses for her today so she should be all set to make a new start at life.
According to the pediatrician, yes they can run in families.
In fact we really hadnt considered having her other kids tested until I made an offhanded comment to him about the ritalin being so successful for one that we should probably give it to all of them. He asked about the others and she stood out as being the squeaky wheel but I still wouldnt have picked her for ADHD. Kinda feel bad that we hadnt picked up on it sooner.
In hindsight I am quite sure their dad has some kind of disorder, probably sociopathic/psychopathic but maybe that stems from something undiagnosed when he was younger? He has other children that also had much difficulty in school, one dropping out at 14. Its just so hard to tell whether their difficulties come from their upbringing or something else.
I've always been very against medicating children, but I'd have to say its worked wonders for her boy, I just hope it does the same for this one too.
