15 yo son refuses attention meds b/c he googled side effects

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I am not a fan of medication. When it is needed it is needed, but you have to remember that a person can NOT successfully use any of these drugs every day over their entire lifetime, and the issues you see now are not going to disappear. If it is possible, your son will do much better long term if he can learn to work-around his issues and build a life that suits his needs as they are.

You say he wants to be a programmer, so I have a simple question: how is his attention when he is programming? Can he stay on task and complete a project? My son is currently a computer science major at a good university and while college admissions are admittedly getting more and more competitive, it remains true that this is an industry that values talent and has a few hidden ways to find talented individuals who may not dot all the i's and cross all the t's on paper. If your son needs to take a twisted path to his end goal, so be it. That should be his choice. Be brutally honest with him about his prospects if he can't pull the grades, but it has to be his choice.

My non-ASD daughter is the one in our family with attention issues, and she has figured out that as long as she is multi-tasking, she can stay focused. So, she is the kid that is drawing at the same time she taking notes in class. She is the kid that is watching a video the entire time she is doing her homework. And she is pulling straight A's in honors and AP courses. Once we stopped telling her what she was supposed to do, had her talk to some adults we know with attention issues, and then let her experiment with alternatives on her own, she solved it for herself. It confuses some of her teachers, but they eventually figured out that this is how it needs to be for her and, well, it is hard to criticize a student who is excelling. One teacher was calling her out in class for not paying attention last week and after my daughter insisted she was, decided to quiz my daughter on the material. My daughter aced all the questions and the teacher apologized. My daughter finds this story hilarious.

My son had different issues in high school, on occasion he seemed determine to commit what I call academic suicide, and boy did we have some arguments! But pressure from me never helped, it just made things worse. Yet somehow things are working out for him. He IS finding his way.

At this age, I think you need to allow your son to find his own way, instead of pushing medication. If you don't, you could easily become the focus of his blame and resentment when things don't work out. I'm not saying to ignore the problems, I'm saying to work with him instead of against him, and to allow a few things to fall short while he learns from them. It's OK if he has to take a crooked road to his goals. A lot of boys and young men do.

Thanks DW, for your comments.

I've run out of thoughts, or maybe better yet, i'm overloaded with information. So many google alerts about aspergers, so many emails from aspergers websites. Too many exams where he learns nothing at school and it all has to be learned from zero at home. Too worried about his professional future.

mr. bigmouth, supplements are much less regulated than drugs. supplements don't have to be proven safe or effective. if there are terrible side effects, the FDA can remove the supplement from the market. for example, the diet pill ephedra was removed from legal sale after several people died from heart problems while taking it. supplements aren't allowed to claim to cure a disease unless there is special FDA approval. they still make other unsupported claims.

Nothing wrong with experimentation with legal over-the-counter drugs and supplements, so long as you have some sort of idea of just what you're putting into your body, so that you can avoid contradicting or fatal matches.

I hadn't been volunteering where I work for about two weeks and had extreme anxiety/panic attacks before I had to leave, so I had an Ibuprofen, some green tea, and an anti-anxiety supplement.

It's a great combination and makes me feel calm, yet confident at the same time! Rather than either an active but erratic and anxious mind, or calm but dulled one.

If anything, I recommend finding things out on your own than relying on the system.

I genuinely don't trust most medical practitioners, it's all about "Here, take this. Now where's my paycheck?"

When you complain about how your medication makes you feel:

"Those are just the first-use side effects" (even if you've been taking it for years.

"You must have missed a dosage or two. The withdrawal symptoms are powerful."

"Yes, but it's not doing anything bad, now is it?" (if you say it's not doing anything good).

Seriously, even the doctors recommended over-the-counter Melatonin instead of prescribing me some sleeping pill with probably 20+ side effects.

Truth is though, I'm posting this on a thread by a mother worried about her son, so it may not be the best context to be saying this stuff.

Hey,

The computer obsession is good. Especially if he is building an audience etc on youtube. I was obsessed with the web, i ended up making all my friends online and getting a job in that area.

Those friends are now the backbone of my support network, the job funds the rest of my support. It's not perfect, but i found my fit in the world.

As a kid of course, everyone tried to get me away from the computer. If i'd followed the advice i was given / my parents were given, maybe i'd be stacking shelves somewhere...

Instead, i do work millions of people use (my code has been run in space too) and i get to have my Lion with me all the time. I am happier and the world is better for it.

I refused ritalin as teenager because the side effect for me was not feeling "together". I felt more floaty and found that feeling very unsettling. These days i know its a sensory difference, so i use a vest which applies pressure.

Maybe something like the vest, e.g. better managing the underlying difference is better than trying to medicate away the side effects: http://spacedoutandsmiling.com/reviews/ ... asewearcom

Hope that helps,

Jamie + Lion

DW makes some great points. I think a big problem is that most people when they legitimately don't know what they're talking about, they'll never say it or admit it. And it's okay if you don't know how to raise a child with special needs, but you have control over how you go about that. You can blame him/her for their problems because surely as a parent you can never be wrong (wrong approach) or you can educate yourself/get help from someone who does have the required knowledge (right approach). Education is so important, cannot stress it enough.

I think especially with autism/ADHD people often have the idea that they are things that can be changed if you just work hard enough. I think it's because of their life experiences and how they were raised; putting in effort just naturally let them to get the things they wanted like a job, a house, a relationship etc. Provided they got opportunities in life of course. But that's just the issue with disabled people; even if they put in two or three or four times as much effort they often will never be able to achieve the same things because of their limitations. Not even mentioning how much less opportunities they get in life. Some people are just capable of less no matter how much you don't like that fact or want to change it; also imagine that if it's that hard to accept as a non-disabled person, how difficult it is for those that have no choice but to accept it.

I do understand how rigid he is as far as meds go. I am the same way. Unfortunately, I went into the hospital (signed myself in but the ER let me know I didn't have a choice if I wasn't safe from myself) While I was there I felt a bit more at ease taking meds. I don't know. I think it was because there were people close by who could help if something went wrong? I still had some anxieties but it wasn't as bad as when I need to take meds alone.

I don't know what to suggest but I hope it gets better for him....and for me too haha.