How I weaned my son off Ritalin

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1074175/How-I-weaned-son-Ritalin-proved-discipline-IS-better-drugs.html

 

 

Earlier this year, Yvonne Dixon's 14-year-old son Jake turned to his

mother during the car journey home from school and said calmly: 'If I was

still on Ritalin, I think I would have killed myself by now.

'I used to think about throwing myself headfirst through a window. I

would sit in my bedroom and cry all the time.

'I didn't want to worry you - I didn't think I could tell anyone what I

was feeling.'

Jake, who lives with Yvonne, 44, a nurse, and his stepfather John, a

44-year-old retail manager, is one of the 5 per cent of children

diagnosed with ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

What is remarkable about Jake is that he appears cured.

His mother doesn't think that is because he spent three years on Ritalin

and a similar drug, dexanphetamin, but is down to old-fashioned

discipline.

'I know some parents and medical experts may scoff, but I have seen a

miraculous change in my son,' says Yvonne.

'It hasn't been an overnight change, just a steady and consistent

improvement in his behaviour over the past six years since I took him off

Ritalin.'

Yvonne, who lives in a four-bedroom house in Ingoldsby, Lincolnshire, had

been told Jake would have to be educated in a special school and need

support for the rest of his life.

Instead, he is now a bright, articulate teenager who attends a mainstream

school and has learned to curb his impulses.

'He holds up a time-out card in class when he feels himself becoming

agitated and his concentration goes,' says Yvonne.

'His teacher lets him walk about outside until he feels himself calming

down. He is in control of his condition, instead of the other way

round.'

Once branded as 'hopelessly disruptive', Jake is taking Btec courses in

advanced maths, IT, engineering and travel & tourism. He spends his

spare time mending computers for friends and family.

And yet he was condemned to a life of chemical dependency from the age of

four.

'He was like a zombie on Ritalin,' says Yvonne. 'It was as if all the

life had been taken out of him.

'He would rock himself backwards and forwards, crying. All the drug did

was keep him quiet and sitting still in class - he didn't learn

anything.

'Then, on the way home, tears would be sliding silently down his face. He

was utterly miserable.

'I'd relied on the medical profession - of which I am a part - to give me

the best advice.

'But I looked at Jake and thought: " This can't be right. You can't

go on like this " .'

Yvonne believes Ritalin is used to stop children making a nuisance of

themselves in overcrowded classrooms. 'It's a scandal,' she

says.

However, she accepts Jake has problems. As her second child - she has a

19-year-old daughter - she knew there was something different about him

before he was a year old.

'There was no eye contact,' she says. 'He didn't like being touched or

hugged, and he developed an obsession with lightbulbs.

'He did not take any interest in toys and would never sit

still.'

ake did not speak until he was three, so Yvonne called in a speech

therapist.

'She said he was OK, but he'd wake at 5am and take all of his clothes out

of the drawers, peel off the wallpaper and once took all the fronts off

his chest of drawers.

'His father was in the RAF and was away a lot when Jake was young.

 

'I do think the stress of coping with our son had a bearing on our

marital problems, but it wasn't the whole story.

'It certainly made our time together more fraught because Jake constantly

interrupts when you are talking - he can't read social

interaction.'

The couple separated when Jake was three, but she claims this did not

overly affect him because he does not become emotionally engaged with

other people.

However, his behavioural problems were all too apparent at

nursery.

'He'd run around knocking all the cups out of the other children's hands.

The staff would strap him into a chair to keep him still.

'In the past, children like Jake would have just been called naughty, but

I believe there is a chemical imbalance in their brains - perhaps they

have too much adrenaline.

'What I firmly do not believe is that they should be prescribed powerful

drugs.'

'Convenient labels'At four, Jake was

referred by his GP to a paediatrician at Grantham hospital.

'She told us he had ADHD and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Very

convenient labels, but I still don't believe they should be controlled by

drugs,' says Yvonne.

Despite grave reservations, but exhausted by Jake's behaviour and lack of

sleep, she agreed to have him put on dexanphetamin.

'This drug, like Ritalin, works on the chemical balance of the brain and

has the effect of calming down a child immediately.

'He took it twice a day and the effect was instant. He was like a

zombie.

'At first, he would calm down and then, as the effects left him, he went

into withdrawal and became utterly miserable. It was

terrifying.'

A year later, under the advice of the paediatrician, Jake was taken off

this drug and put onto Ritalin.

'The effect was the same. I moved him from a big state primary into a

village school, but they couldn't cope.

'He just sat there in class, drugged up and learning nothing. It was

heartbreaking.'

When Jake was eight, his mother took him off Ritalin.

'I tried an additive-free diet, fish oils and other so-called cures, but

nothing worked. He went back to being hyperactive and running round and

round,' she says.

A year after her divorce, Yvonne had met John, who became her second

husband. He took a no-nonsense approach to Jake.

'We decided the way forward was good, old-fashioned discipline.

'In the past, I might have been guilty of giving in to Jake, because he

was so persistent.

'I was tired and it was easier to let him race around than try to contain

him.'

Yvonne created a set routine for Jake: every morning, he gets up at the

same time.

He is expected to tidy his room and lay out the breakfast things. He has

to make eye contact and reply to questions. Manners are vital.

'He has to say please and thank you. I never raise my voice to him, and

the atmosphere in the house is always calm,' says Yvonne.

'Everything happens in a specified sequence of events.

'Coming home from school, he has a cup of tea, a snack and then is

allowed to go to his bedroom and work on his computer.

Set routine'Bedtime is always at the

same time, after a bath and reading a book.

'We operate a reward system - if he is late or becomes agitated, he is

not allowed to work on his computers. He has learned to control his own

behaviour.

'It sounds easy, but it has been a long, slow road. We've had lots of

setbacks, because if he can't have what he wants immediately, he could

get frustrated.

'But he has learned that I am not going to change my mind and give in to

him.

'I have given him boundaries and discipline, and it has worked miracles

on his behaviour. The time-out system works at home, too.

'If he feels he is becoming agitated, he has to sit down or go for a walk

until he calms down.'

Finding an interest for him was the key to his improvement.

'He gets on fine with his family, but he still does not have friends at

school.

'He has friends he has met over the internet, though - boys of his own

age who are also fascinated by gadgets and computer games, and they play

interactive games.

'Jake also has an extraordinary affinity with animals. It is as if he

tunes in to them.

'He is closer to our two Siberian huskies than anyone else.

'On a walk, dogs will just come up to him. It's as if they sense he is

different, that he understands them.'

Yvonne knows Jake will never have a completely 'normal' life.

'I am sure he will be able to get a job and live independently, but I am

fearful for him. He has problems forming relationships, but he is happy

in his own world.

'For some parents at the end of their tether, I accept Ritalin can be

seen as the answer. But I believe there should be an

alternative.

'In my career, I have seen too many children with ADHD who are treated as

if they are wild animals who can be contained only with drugs.

'This doesn't cure anything - all it does is turn them into zombies.

 

'Are they to stay this way for the rest of their lives? And who knows

what the long-term effects will be?

'I have proven with Jake that if children are given clear boundaries,

consistency, structure and a lot of love, they can live relatively normal

lives without medication.

'It isn't an instant cure, and it may take years. But it has given Jake

hope for a more positive future.

'And that is a priceless gift.'

 

 

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