I received an email from a woman, the mother of a 25 year old son with ADHD, Learning Disabilities and Bipolar Disorder. The story is about what happens when parents must make hard decisions, decisions they never envisioned having to make as a parent. Although not really her name, I'll call her Mary. She would prefer to remain anonymous however, she felt it was necessary to share her story.

Mary was divorced when her son was four years old. She had custody, although he did go to his father's house every other weekend. Her ex-husband was not supportive in dealing with the many issues of raising a child with special needs and most often blamed her parenting for his misbehaviors and problems in school.

Mary worked hard with her son, he was a bright boy but struggled in school. Many nights she helped him with homework for hours. She taught him to read and by second grade he was reading on a fourth grade level. The subject matter was not a problem, but even so, he routinely failed tests and got poor grades because he often forgot or lost his homework.

When her son was in fourth grade, Mary remarried. Her husband worked with her son, but could not understand exactly what was going on. Even so, he attended all of the school parent teacher conferences, helped with homework whenever he could and tried to spend time having fun with his step-son. Often, this was overshadowed by calls from teachers and problems in school. They requested testing for learning disabilities and ADHD but the evaluation came back that Michael did not have ADHD, rather, he was just trying to adjust to a new family.

By middle school the problems had not yet gone away. One teacher, who had ADHD, talked to Mary and explained about ADHD. He realized that Michael had been evaluated by the school district before and suggested that Mary have Michael tested privately. She did and ADHD and Math Learning Disabilities were diagnosed.

Mary's ex-husband did not agree with the diagnosis and would not give Michael medication when he was at his house. He still continued to blame Mary's parenting skills for Michael's problems. Worse, he continued to tell Michael what he thought, allowing him to blame his mother rather than accepting responsibility. Mary made the most of it, sometimes becoming angry, but trying to help Michael at school took most of her time.

By the time Michael was 15, he was smoking, stealing, sneaking behind Mary's back and defying household rules. Nothing Mary did worked. She received support from her husband, but her ex-husband consistently blamed her. Her son was beginning to blame her as well and refused to take medication. Things became worse at home.

Mary didn't know where to turn and finally, in desperation, she decided to let her son live with his father. Maybe, if he could see the struggles on a day to day basis, he would help her in helping him, rather than fighting him. It was a hard decision, but one that Mary felt would be best in the long run. Maybe as a teenager, he needed his father. Mary quickly called her ex-husband and made arrangements before she could change her mind. When her son moved out, she cried for days. She second guessed her decision, but in her heart she knew that she had needed to make a stand. She had needed to let her son know that he could not continue to defy her house rules and threaten her with moving out.