I do not often use my blog as a forum for venting my frustrations, but I am going to today. I am fed up with people trying to make me feel guilty and responsible for my son's Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It seems like I cannot get away from the judgmental attitudes of people who blame me for my child having the inability to focus or sit still.

In fairness, I do not receive these comments personally very often, but I hear them spoken in generalities, such as the radio broadcast I heard this morning. According to this radio personality, it is my fault that my son has ADHD because I do not feed him a healthy diet. What this radio personality does not know is that my friends used to mock me for being so over-the-top in trying to make sure I met my son's nutritional needs.

For the first 14 months of my son's life, I kept a chart on the wall where I ticked off each serving of protein, fruits, vegetables, etc. that I fed him. I was obsessed with making sure that he ate a nutritious diet because my parents did not do this for me. To this day, my son eats broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and most fruits with enthusiasm. He has never had an issue with his weight.

I also completely removed sugar from my son's diet for an entire year. This was a year of birthday parties in which he could not eat birthday cake while people judged me for restricting my son's diet so severely. Doing so took its toll on my marriage because my husband thought this was an overreaction. I only allowed my son to eat sugar again after he was diagnosed with ADHD and the child psychologist told me that I was overreacting. Removing sugar from his diet for a year did not "fix" his behaviors.

I do not understand why people want to deny that ADHD is a true disorder. My son's birthmother smoked throughout her pregnancy, and doing this doubles the ADHD risk to the unborn child. Smoking while pregnant is also linked to the child developing childhood asthma, which my son also has, but nobody is blaming me for that.

I have enrolled my son in karate classes. I have given him Omega 3's, even though he hated the fishy taste and we fought about this constantly. I have enrolled my son in yoga classes. I have tried a variety of disciplinary tools to curb his behaviors. None of these efforts has made a difference, and now my son has been referred to his school's behavioral team to try to do more intervention because his behaviors are affecting his ability to succeed at school as well as his safety thanks to his impulsive behavior and inability to think through the consequences of his actions.

The radio personality asked the same judgmental question that I have heard targeted at parents like me repeatedly: How could a parent give a Class II drug to a child? My response is, "How could I not?" I am raising a child who acts as if he is taking a Class II drug already. I have exhausted all other resources. I have shed so many tears in frustration because no matter what I do, I cannot make this child have the ability to focus or see the possible consequences of his actions. The impulsive behavior that got him referred to the school's behavioral team could have burned down the building. I am desperate to find a way to keep my kid safe.

Even more compelling is that I can see the ADHD starting to affect his self-esteem. He has always been a confident kid, and now he is starting to be affected by receiving repeated messages that his behavior is wrong, which I fear he is translating into him being "bad." I love my kid, and I want to help him. I honestly, from the bottom of my heart, do not know one more thing I could try short of meds. And people are going to tell me that I am a bad mother for this!?!! I have poured myself into this child, and people are going to throw stones at me for doing whatever it takes to get my child help!?!!

To those of you who do not have a child with ADHD, thank God that you do not have to make the agonizing decision over whether to medicate your child with a Class II drug. Unless you have lived with a child with ADHD, you cannot possibly understand what a parent goes through. I did not ask for this. I thought I was adopting a healthy child. I fed him the right foods and did everything I could possibly do to raise him in a healthy way. However, despite all of my efforts, my son has ADHD, and we will probably begin medicating him after the holidays. This is a painful enough process without being judged repeatedly. If there was another way, don't you think I would try it?

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Photo Credit: Lynda Bernhardt