Listen to Grandmothers: Their advice comes from many years of hands-on experience!

My 39 months old  grandson is a very active and stubborn (strong-willed) little boy.  He is also very out-going and can carry on a conversation with any adult he meets.  As the old saying goes - he never meets a stranger.  As an infant, he didn't nurse well and didn't sleep well.  When he began walking, he was literally into everything and easily excitable.   He began talking early, and now at age 3, he talks constantly.  Between the ages of 2 and 3, he did not focus on any task for more than 2 seconds, it seemed.  He did not eat well.  He practically bounced off the walls.  It seemed that he never listened to admonishment or  to instruction, yet he still gained knowledge quickly and would later mention something he had learned despite the fact that we all thought he had not been listening to us. 

My daughter constantly worried that her son was ADD/ADHD.  I tried to assure her that he was just being a typical boy.  Sure, were her son to attend a public school or a public day care facility, someone would probably soon become exhausted in taking care of him and would want to have him labeled as ADHD and drugged.  That, alone, was reason enough to keep him from such places.  For a more thorough explanation of my thoughts on ADHD, click on the labels entitled "ADHD" and "Dyslexia" and read the posts listed under each label. 

I reminded my daughter that I'd had much experience with dozens of young children over the past 31 years.  I was trained and certified in Occupational Child Care & Development. I worked in child day care centers as pre-school teacher, as well as run my own child day care out of my home for many years.  I've taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School to young children for almost as many years.  I've raised and educated 3 children to adulthood, and now I am helping raise and educate my grandchildren.  In all of that time, I've only come across 2 or 3 children that would even remotely come close to being called ADHD ( if  there is such a thing!) and I, personally, do not think they needed medication to control them,  nor do I think my grandson needs meds to control him! 

I told my daughter that stubborness / strong-will can be a good thing if it is directed towards what is morally right and good.  I told her that her son has the makings of being a strong leader - not a follower.  I told her that God had made him like this for a reason.  It was up to us to guide him into becoming all that God intended him to be. 

Despite my reassurances to my daughter that her son was normal and that his personality was a positive thing, she would still fret that he was somehow not "normal".  She worried over her son almost obsessively until he underwent a recent medical/nutritional evaluation.  The medical practioner was very impressed with her son's knowledge and vocabulary, as well as with his out-going and active personality.  This medical practioner told my daughter that her son "was going to grow up to be a leader - not a follower"!!!     (Which was EXACTLY what I had told her months earlier!)

My daughter came home grinning from ear to ear, with a look of complete peace and relief.  Her fears about her son had finally been put to rest.    If only she'd listened to me in the first place!  She would have saved herself  from alot of grief and worry.