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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Medication and how it works
People stay with treatment they believe in, and belief rises when they have a part in it. So offering the behavioural piece is doing two jobs at once: the direct one, and keeping everybody on board with the medicine. Be honest with yourself about which is which. Dressing buy-in up as clinical necessity tends to unravel the moment a parent reads more widely.
This explains how treatments work. Never start, stop or change a medication because of something you read here.
'you were gentle in your dealings with them' (Quran 3:159), and the verse says harshness would have scattered them. How a plan is offered decides whether people stay with it.
آل عمران
فَبِمَا رَحۡمَةࣲ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ لِنتَ لَهُمۡۖ وَلَوۡ كُنتَ فَظًّا غَلِيظَ ٱلۡقَلۡبِ لَٱنفَضُّواْ مِنۡ حَوۡلِكَۖ فَٱعۡفُ عَنۡهُمۡ وَٱسۡتَغۡفِرۡ لَهُمۡ وَشَاوِرۡهُمۡ فِي ٱلۡأَمۡرِۖ فَإِذَا عَزَمۡتَ فَتَوَكَّلۡ عَلَى ٱللَّهِۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُتَوَكِّلِينَ
By an act of mercy from God, you [Prophet] were gentle in your dealings with them- had you been harsh, or hard-hearted, they would have dispersed and left you- so pardon them and ask forgiveness for them. Consult with them about matters, then, when you have decided on a course of action, put your trust in God: God loves those who put their trust in Him
Qur’an 3:159read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a study of over three hundred children on methylphenidate, poor adherence was linked with maternal distress and with strain in the parent and child relationship rather than with symptom severity alone. It measured whether the medicine got taken rather than how treatment packages were received. Even so, it locates adherence in the family rather than in the pharmacology, which is where acceptability lives as well.
Gau SS, Shen HY, Chou MC, Tang CS, Chiu YN, Gau CS. (2006). Determinants of adherence to methylphenidate and the impact of poor adherence on maternal and family measures.. Journal of child and adolescent psychopharmacology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A plan people feel part of is a plan they keep going with.
When appetite disappears at lunchtime, work with the child's rhythm instead of against it. Feed them properly at the hours they are actually hungry, which is usually breakfast and then the late afternoon and evening.
One of these medicines arrives inactive and has to be broken down by your own body before it does anything at all. That design flattens the rise and removes the spike that misuse depends on.
If you carry a firm dislike of medication from childhood, it is worth asking what you actually remember. Often what is remembered is a row between two adults rather than anything the medicine did.