So, we have been in contact with Gigi's pediatrician for the last couple weeks. She has been reviewing Gigi's file and she has had consultations with a couple of child psychologists to discuss Gigi's behavior issues.
Well, Gigi now has a confirmed diagnosis of ADHD. She actually scored very high for this, so unfortunately it is not a mild case.
As far as the "gifted" aspect that the pediatrician suspected was part of the "problem", she still believes that Gigi is gifted, but unfortunately they can not do any testing to confirm this on paper for another 2 years. In the meantime, we were asked to address her issues as though we KNOW she is gifted - mostly because you need to approach discipline differently with gifted children and the pediatrician is fairly certain that this is the case with Gigi.
Good news is, it has been determined that Gigi does NOT have ODD (oppositional defiance disorder) which the pediatrician initially thought might be a factor. She said that after further research and discussions with the child psychologists, they determined this was NOT something Gigi has.
Yea, she does have meltdowns. tantrums, frequently tells us "no", throws things when she doesn't get her way, will even swat at us when we try to hold her etc. However, children with ODD are not simply defiant - they are downright MEAN. They are cruel and abusive toward people and animals and they are deliberately destructive. This is NOT the case with Gigi, she is really a sweetie. ODD is EXTREME behavior and unfortunately for parents who have children with a confirmed diagnosis, it is very difficult to treat. Apparently there is a HUGE difference between children who don't want to do what they are told, talk back to their parents, slam doors, scream, throw things, get angry etc and a child with ODD.
I'm VERY glad that Gigi does not have ODD.
Well, now we know what we are dealing with - ADHD and most likely gifted.
Now we need to develop a plan to combat this and arm our child to learn to successfully handle it on her own.
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2 comments:
Glad to hear you got some answers..looking forward to hearing
how it goes..we are going to need a bit of this too...only she acts
better behaved at the ped...not a long enough visit...best of luck.
We are putting some new strategies in lace here at home to see what works, I will be making some posts on our plans. Maybe some of it could help with P. Good luck - and let me know what you find out! :)
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