ADHD, or Spoiled 5-Year-Old? We Report, You Decide

Enough time has passed that I feel okay talking about my little darling's problems adjusting to kindergarten. Being a teacher, having a note and call home about Ainsley's behavior before it's even September hits me where I live. It has been a jagged little pill, indeed.

Ainsley hasn't been "bad." She just hasn't been completing her seatwork, and she's having a really slow go of falling into the day's routine. The teacher is having to remind her repeatedly to put her name on her papers, to put her folder in her backpack at the end of the day, and to line up for recess. She is getting very distracted during her seat work and is leaving most of her little papers and exercises unfinished. She's not getting distracted by other kids and being a social butterfly; her teacher said she gets wrapped up in, "Wow! Look how sharp the point on my pencil is!" and "This eraser feels really neat!" She's being kinda dreamy and unmotivated, but the only time she's disruptive is during the one-hour quiet/nap time when she just can't seem to sit or lie still.

I was completely with the teacher during most of our talk. We have had a terrible time this summer with getting Ainsley to listen to and pay attention to us. This is a pretty new development; she has always been a little slow finishing coloring pages and basic chores, but this summer we've really struggled with having to tell her a dozen time to get her shoes on, wash her hands for dinner, etc. She has seemed very un-focused, and it has been making me nuts.

But I almost dropped the phone when the teacher said she suspects ADHD. This was after her telling me how hard it had been for Ainsley to be still during nap time. I actually said to the woman, "Are you sure we're talking about Ainsley?" My kid? ADHD? Really?

This is a kid I can schlep almost anywhere and expect good behavior. I have taken her to long weddings outside in 80-degree heat, to sit-down restaurants, school meetings, and recently, to Catholic mass. She has been known to sit in the floor and work jigsaw puzzles for hours. When it's just the two of us at home, I can bring a few toys back to our bedroom and grab a shower and get pretty without worrying about her running loose and getting antsy. She can sit still in a story time both at school and at the library, and she can spend an entire hour listening to her books-on-CD collection. This is a child we took to the musical Lion King, to a movie, and on a 14-hour drive to Florida this year. It's a kid who only got in trouble once in preschool, and that was for a defiant 3-day nap protest that the teacher told me was a common thing for 4-year-olds, anyway. She is my shy, relatively quiet kid. And her teacher is already thinking ADHD?

I know the teacher doesn't see her at home, and we don't see her at school, and I trust that what the teacher is telling me is going on is going on. I just can't help but think there are other factors at work here. I think we as parents are guilty of doing too much for Ainsley and not letting her be more independent. We let her get away with not listening to us this summer. We have spoiled her in some ways. And we haven't been doing her any favors with this.

After telling the teacher how we didn't see these behaviors in preschool, and that the fidgety-ness and inability to be still is not something we see at home, we've decided to try some other things before we jump on the ADHD bandwagon. First of all, we're trying getting her in bed a little earlier; she's been falling asleep in the car on the way home every day, and the teacher said the fidgets are sometimes a sign of a sleepy kid. Hubby and I also had a long talk with her about her behavior. Ainsley is eager to please, and hearing from us that she is not meeting her teacher's expectations has already made a big difference (she got a smiley in her folder yesterday for improving her work.) And then there's the fact that she just turned 5, and is an only child with no older brothers or sisters to learn from. Even though she has been in daycare and gone to preschool, this is a huge step. Preschool was happy fun time and seat work intermingled with play and there were no real deadlines. Full-day kindergarten is a big transition, and one that perhaps she wasn't ready for developmentally.

On a positive, the teacher has told me Ainsley is bright and really wants to be in school. Other kids come in to class grumpy in the morning, but Ainsley is smiling and laughing and happy to be there. She knows her letters and numbers and understands the work. The teacher said it's because of that that she wanted to call and see if we could get Ains on track with her behavior and habits. I am glad she is pursuing this, even if it did feel like a slap in the face at first.

I know there are a lot of faces of ADHD, and you don't have to be hyper to have it. If things don't improve, I will pursue whatever avenues her school thinks is best. I don't want to be one of those parents who thinks, "Oh, no, my kid's perfect, and there's absolutely nothing you can say that will convince me otherwise." On the other hand, I don't want my kid to be labeled as something she's not, or heaven forbid, be medicated for something we can fix with better discipline and rules. At this point, I don't know how much of what we're seeing is a stage of Ainsley's personality and how much is a possible disconnect in her synapses. I don't know how much is possible ADHD, and how much is being 5-year-old.