So confused

Bethany had her follow-up appointment today for the ADHD screening. The nurse called us a few days ago, and said that it looked like she was going to get a positive diagnosis for the ADHD, and set up an extra long appointment so we could discuss it with the doctor and choose a medication. I had mixed feelings about medicating her, but Nate and I went into the appointment expecting to at least talk about it. Unfortunately, we saw a different doctor from the one who ruled out the Asperger's. That one had PCS'd (i.e. moved on to another base--apparently, we were among the last people she saw here). So the new doctor comes in and says, "So what are you here for?" Grrr. She hadn't even looked at the questionaire we filled out, or the nurse's interpretation. So we had to sit while she looked through it, and then go over our whole story and observations again. She decided that Bethany was only borderline ADHD, and some of the behaviours can be explained away by her young age--sometimes you don't know if they do what they do because they're young, or because there is something wrong. I completely agree, but it's a bit aggravating to go in expecting one thing, and come out with another. The end of the story is that we're just supposed to watch her for a while, and see how she does, see if another year of preschool will help her, and maybe get her reevaluated in a year or so.

In the meantime, I did some reading about ADHD, and got a few suggestions of ways to help control it that would be good for any child, whether they have ADHD or not. Things like more outside time (they called it "green time", playing in the grass is supposed to be better than a playground over asphalt, or whatever), less TV/computer time, more structure, getting kids to repeat your instructions when you tell them something, etc. So I'll try to do some of these things and see if that will help too. In the meantime, I guess I need to try not to worry. Yeah, right.