Nachoridnary BOY

Unless you have a child with ADHD you will never understand the excessive amount of time, attention and patience a child with this diagnosis needs. Although Dwayne and I have 4 kids combined and one with mental and physical disabilities, they combined do not equal the time it takes to raise Aiden. He is exhausting to no end. So much in fact, I have just quit my job in order to better serve this child's needs. After being diagnosed with ADHD this year we decided to put Aiden on Ritalin. Aiden had been having huge behavior and school work issues since beginning the second grade. After only two weeks on the medication we received good reports from his teacher letting us know he was now able to settle down and pay attention in the classroom and started getting better grades on his assignments. The medication is taken twice at day. 6:30am and 11:30 am. The effects of the pill unfortunately wears off prior to me picking him up from the sitters at 6:00pm so the hours I see him, there is no difference. Homework and spelling has become the biggest battle sometimes taking over 2 hours a night to complete. This leaves me exhausted and frustrated and leaves me spending only 10 minutes a night with the other kids. To make things worse my work schedule combined with Dwayne's had left little consistency in Aiden's life which is one of the most important things a child with ADHD needs. It's sad that every day my kids have to ask who is picking them up from the sitters, what time, and where will they be eating. Sometimes I worked till 8, sometimes till 7, sometimes till 5, all depending on the day of the week.

 Dwayne's schedule is even worse since he works a late day shift combined with call outs, the ability for him to partake in the child rearing schedule has become obsolete. After months of consideration, it has been determined that the only way this family is going to stop the bounce around schedule is for one parent to be at home. The obvious choice is me since Dwayne loves his job and it is my kids that are home 90% of the time. Things at my work had become more and more stressful leaving me spent by the time I get home each night so actually quitting is a sigh of relief although with it comes the stress of a greatly reduced income. I have chosen to work part time for Uhaul as a reservation agent from home. The pay is less than half of what I made before (hourly) but with some serious cutbacks and Dwayne's ability to make additional income working overtime, I am ready to take on the challenge in order to get some consistency in our hectic and stressed out lives. I am hoping that I can provide additional attention to the three other kids while helping Aiden to be successful in school with a very regiment homework schedule. If it doesn't work, we will reevaluate and make more life evolving changes as needed.