Peter graduated from kindergarten but just barley. This little one has really struggled with the academic part of school. This baffles me a little because I know he is smart enough. He knew all his ABC"s by shape and sound before he was even 2 years old. After much trial and error we realized he is also blessed with the curse of ADD. I say blessed with the curse because it is both. With ADD you can notice so many things, your brain has the ability to do so many things at one time. People with ADD are very curious, smart, excellent problem solvers because they can think out of the box, and creative just to mention a few things. But they are also cursed, because it is so hard to focus on 1 thing at a time that it can take forever to learn something. Their brains are working so hard that they get exhausted and just can't take any more so they let their attention wander. I myself have ADD and my wonderful mother had taught me many tricks to help me to be able to focus. The older I got the easier it was for me to know what I would need to pay attention and when I knew I wasn't going to get anything out of . . .
Recognizing the signs we decided to give him the caffeine. We have already gone through this with Ellie and between her doctor and I opted to try the caffeine route first. This is something these kids are going to have to deal with their whole lives. I like the caffeine route because I can control the side effects. (This doesn't work for everyone but it worked for Ellie and we were going to try it for Peter). Peter didn't like soda for breakfast (that is what we used for Ellie) so I found some sweet mints that have 1mg of caffeine in them per mint. We tried these so I could dose him appropriately with it being such a small dose.
I gave him them in the morning for a few days then I went into the school to talk with the teacher and see how he was doing. When I talked with her she was so excited that Peter had been finishing his morning work everyday without complaint of needing help. We found the trick for him. After that announcement I told her about his mints.
Something that people don't realized with ADD people is that it takes a lot of energy to focus and those with ADD are focusing on so many things at one that there just isn't enough energy for their brains to function "normally" Caffeine helps give them that extra boost so they can focus on the things that they are supposed to focus on. It was a little late before we figured this out so he is still behind but we will just have to wait and see what the summer brings. 
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