My story

I am the mother of a nine-year-old boy with ADHD.

Nikoli was diagnosed when he was in first grade, but I had my suspicions long before that.

Nikoli was adopted from Russia, and from what I have read, many, many kids adopted from Russia exhibit ADHD symptoms, plus other conditions/diseases such as bipolar disease, RAD, FAS, obsessive/compulsive disorder and on and on.

Before we got Nikoli, I was pretty convinced most ADHD kids were the result of bad parenting. The kids were wild, the parents didn't control them, the kids got away with everything, etc. I read anti-ADHD books, one being "Ritalin Is Not The Answer." We had a bio daughter, Katherine, who was easy and a breeze to take care of. I didn't totally dismiss ADHD all together, but I just knew the real cases were few and far between. I was quite smug.

We were unable to have a second bio child, so we adopted. We got Nikoli in 1999, about six years after the Russian adoption craze started. We were so happy - he was the child we thought we wouldn't have and he was pretty darn cute.

Now, I don't know if anyone will believe this, but I suspected something on the flight home, when Nikoli was just 13 months old.

It was a whirlwind week and Nikoli should've been exhausted. We boarded the plane back to the United States in Moscow and I thought he'd pretty well zonk out. No way. Since we had very little time to make travel plans, we didn't have a seat for Nikoli, so we laid him on the tray tables with blankets and pillows. Instead of falling asleep, he constantly flicked the magazines in the pocket in front of him with his finger, just furiously flicking.

He was busy after we got home, but I just attributed it to him being a boy.

He needed special ed preschool, and his first teacher suggested Ritalin. I was quite indignant. I said I would have him checked for allergies and we would work on behavior at home, but I would not put him on Ritalin. I knew at the time she wasn't even supposed to suggest it, but I didn't start a fuss.

No allergies, of course, and we just continued to work on his behavior.

Kindergarten was a disaster. Kindergarten discipline consisted of the child putting his "bee" in the "beehive" for a transgression. Nikoli was in the beehive almost every day. His Kindergarten teacher was finding every way possible to say, "Your son has ADHD" without saying, "Your son has ADHD!"

And all this time, with the plane ride home incident still firmly trenched in my mind, I did not want to admit Nikoli had ADHD.

First grade started the same way Kindergarten ended, and after one really bad incident at a karate class, even my husband was saying, "This isn't right, something is wrong, we have to take him to the pediatrician."

The pediatrician had us and his teacher fill out a few forms on behavior, and after a visit with both of Nikoli and us; we left with a script for Adderall XR.