We've been having a lot of trouble with our soon-to-be 12 year old son. He's been distracted, sleepy, forgetful, etc. He can barely drag himself out of bed in the morning. His normal MO is to be up at 6, so this can't-get-out-of-bed kid seems foreign to us. And he has been forgetting assignments and having a hard time focusing. It's very un-mushroomhunter behavior.
Suddenly, last night, I remembered that we had had put him back on his asthma meds a few weeks ago and that we had experienced the exact same set of problems the last time he had had an episode during the school year (the problems are less noticeable during summer). We'd been pretty diligent about the asthma meds because we didn't want weak lungs during this swine flu outbreak.
Oh, she realized in a rush, this behavior is not his fault and he isn't the throes of some sort of strange and awful middle school phase. He's having a physiological reaction to strong drugs. Is it no wonder that illegal drugs can have such an effect if readily-prescribed drugs alter the body's chemistry so much? I really don't think enough attention is paid to side effects, particularly in a growing child. It's a delicate balance to get it right.
Now I feel bad about getting so mad at him. But hopefully the new organizational tools we've put in place to combat his lack of focus will be of some help to him, even after he has regained full use of his brain.
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3 comments:
How wonderful that you didn't get further down that mothering road before making that connection . . . happy for you both.
I'm glad you figured it out, my friend! :o)
You are an excellent mother, my friend :-)
I miss you.
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