One Year Later: Childhood Anxiety and ADHD

It's been one year since we started down the road of diagnosis and treatment for Carson's anxiety and ADHD. I can't believe how far we have come. (If you are new, or don't remember what we went through, you can read about it here.)  Fro struggling and violent outbursts, to the best reader in his class! He loves to learn and especially loves reading, plus, the kid is a math whiz! It is such a change from last year. I really think I owe a lot of it to his teacher.

Mrs. J is amazing with Carson. She has the structure he needs, but allows the kids to have fun in her class as well. By December she figured out that if you let Carson "work for you" he will do his work too. By that I mean, he gets his schoolwork done, he gets to complete a special task to "help" her. Things like clean the white board, wipe down desks, or organize the books are his "rewards" for good behavior.

Life at home has improved too. There are far fewer fights in the home. The amount of love and affection that now flows from Carson is so heartwarming. He loves his brother and family so much. He has even made himself physically sick worrying about his brother having surgery to put tubes in his ears! He likes to snuggle and have family reading time at bed almost every night, which is something for a 6 1/2 year old!

Carson is still on medication for ADHD and for the anxiety, but he seems to be doing very well. Our only concern is his weight. He's very skinny, to the point his bones stick out everywhere. We have a follow up appointment next week to address that with his doctor.