The Decision To Medicate

At some point most of us parents who have children on the spectrum will be faced with the decision rather or not to medicate our children.  I've always felt like to many parents choose to medicate their children without putting forth the effort to explore other avenues first to see if there are other options that might work for their child. 

We have worked hard with our son, and have spent countless hours doing research on things that could possibly help him.  Sometimes we were successful and sometimes we were not.  As he has gotten older we are having a harder time helping him, and finally broke down and got more outside help.  He has a great therapist who has really helped us and has given us some great tools to help him when he gets frustrated and angry.  

Sammy has always been an anxious child and seems to be wound very tightly.  He gets easily frustrated and has always had a hard time handling his emotions appropriately.  We have exhausted every avenue possible to help him that didn't involve medication.  As he has gotten older it has become increasingly harder to help him with his anxiety and the doctor who is involved with his therapy program suggested medicating him to help with his anxiety.  We thought long and hard about it and watching Sammy struggle with his anxiety seemed cruel to us if there were medications that could help him.  So we decided to try the medication.

The decision to medicate is ultimately the decision of the parents or caregiver and for us it has been the right decision.  Sammy's anxiety is so much better, he's not as easily frustrated as he has been and even his OCD has eased up a bit.  We have not had to threaten him with the consequences of his behavior chart in weeks and he is much more relaxed and easy going.  Things that annoyed him before seems to annoy him much less and he's trying new things that in the past he would freak out about.  His body language is more relaxed and less tense.  His movements aren't as stiff and rigid as they have been and he's loosened up a LOT.  We were worried about medicating him up I'm so happy that we decided to.  It may not be right for every child and every family but it has been absolutely the right choice for our son.

It's Been Awhile

I have had problems logging on to blogger for months now.  Joe bought me a new laptop for our anniversary and what do ya know, I'm able to log in again.  
Things have definitely been busy around here.  Sammy is nearing the end of what has been a frustrating and at times infuriating school year to say the least.  We were fortunate that he had a very kind, compassionate and caring resource teacher that we just adore.  I can't say the same about his Kindergarten teacher and I'm not even going to get started on how I feel about her.  Sammy is over the moon that he only has a few more days of school left.  Since his class doesn't do any sort of Kindergarten graduation we are throwing him a surprise party tomorrow at my parents house.  His pepaw and memaw are bringing him a new computer, we got him a new computer desk with tons of educational games and his nanny and papaw got him a computer chair.  His best friend may be coming, and there will be lots of food and fun.  He has no clue that we have anything planned for this weekend. I cannot wait to see his face tomorrow.

He has struggled so hard this year with his anxiety and it's been hard on all of us.  He has also had a LOT of sickness this year which has been really rough.  We have done fairly well at being able to help Sammy with certain aspects of his Autism but his anxiety was something that we just couldn't seem to break through and help him with.  We got him in with a new therapist who we really like and she suggested medication for his anxiety.  Before I had Sammy I always questioned parents decisions to medicate their children. It seems like now days people are quick to medicate their kids for anything and everything.  So Joe and I struggled with the decision of medicating Sammy for his anxiety.  We tried coping techniques, breathing exercises and everything else that had been suggested to us or that we had researched but nothing helped to ease his anxiety.  His anxiety was starting to consume every aspect of his life and it has been hard to see him like this.  After a lot of thought and consideration we felt it was cruel to let him continue to be anxiety ridden without having explored all possible avenues.  Since being on a low dose of medicine he has shown a LOT of improvement.  His overall disposition is better, he is happier and less anxious.  He doesn't seem as overwhelmed and nervous and for him I think we made the right decision.

I think we will continue to see improvements as far as his anxiety goes.  I was worried about how he would handle going to new school in the fall but he is sooooo excited.  His excitement helps ease my mind and worry about how he'll transition.  I just hope that the kids and teachers are kinder and more compassionate.  It's sad that this is just the start of his school years and already myself along with his bests friends mom are just at our wits end with the whole school experience.  I've had a few people ask me if I've considered home schooling and it's a personal decision for every family and it's personally for me something I don't agree with.  I understand WHY people chose to do it, but it's definitely not for us and not something I can say that I would ever chose to do. I'm not up for debating why I feel the way that I do, but again it's a personal choice and while it may be right for some families it's not right for our family.