Behavioral Therapy for ADHD: Branden’s Update

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Thinking about using behavioral therapy for adhd? This is a new approach we are trying and wanted to share our update.

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It’s approaching one year since the last time I wrote about our ADHD journey with Branden and a lot has changed. Ups and downs and shifts in treatment are totally expected and this week we started a completely new chapter in our ADHD journey: behavioral therapy for ADHD.

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If you have been following along, you know that our Branden is 11 years old now and has attend two different schools in two years. We have finally planted roots in Ohio, (we even got a dog!) and are still working to find the best way to approach Branden’s ADHD as he gets older.

Upon moving to the new school district, we were able to drop his IEP for speech (yay), but still have one for his behavior. While he has truly flourished this year academically and been on honor roll, he still struggles with the other stuff.

Towards the end of 2019, we had a period of about two weeks where he was telling us he was swallowing his ADHD medication and then spitting it out when we weren’t around before school in the morning. Due to this, his behavior was on the negative side, and I’m putting that politely, while at school that week.

Once we figured it all out, we started trying all sorts of negotiations at home to get him to take him medicine, but the core issue was that he doesn’t like how he feels on the medication. Truthfully, we couldn’t blame him

We ended up finding a really amazing physician who is well versed in everything ADHD who is helping us meet our goal of getting him off of medication completely.

RELATED: The Mental Weight on an ADHD Mom

Enter: behavioral therapy for ADHD

We are at the VERY beginning stages of exploring behavior therapy for ADHD, but feel super lucky that there is a well-know facility nearby that specializes in this. Branden knows that he will need to put in the work to make this successful and we are rooting for him because I can’t even begin to capture his joy about making this switch in words.

What exactly is behavioral therapy for ADHD?

The CDC describes behavioral therapy for ADHD as:

Behavior therapy is an effective treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that can improve a child’s behavior, self-control, and self-esteem. It is most effective in young children when it is delivered by parents. Experts recommend that healthcare providers refer parents of children younger than 12 years old for training in behavior therapy. For children younger than 6 years old, parent training in behavior management should be tried before prescribing ADHD medicine.

When parents become trained in behavior therapy, they learn skills and strategies to help their child with ADHD succeed at school, at home, and in relationships. Learning and practicing behavior therapy requires time and effort, but it has lasting benefits for the child and the family.

We have had our initial evaluation and next week he will meet with a therapist who specializes in behavioral therapy for ADHD and we will move forward with this new way of treating the ADHD. Honestly, I feel like I can speak for both Chris and I when I say that we are breathing a sign of relief over here. He’s going to learn skills that will help him well into adulthood for coping and managing his ADHD, so this is a huge step in the right direction.

I wanted to share this new chapter with you all because over the last month or so, the few ADHD posts that I do have up on the blog have had skyrocketing amounts of readers and I wanted to keep updating in hopes that maybe our experiences are helping others.