There are several of you that I feel very close to at the moment. When my Ds was 4, the daycare recommended medication, he had been diagnosed ADHD, we thought he was too young. We moved to another town, the daycare there basically kicked him out. Took him to a pediatrician, who told us that she did not like to medicate at that age, by the end of the visit she was referring us to the Psychiatrist. He is now 7 and will be going into 2nd grade. He is on Strattera, I feel a high dosage, 40 mgs in the morning and evening. It really helped him calm down and also not get so frustrated. Before medicine he could not play with a transformer without getting made within 5 minutes and throwing it across the room, after the medicine he sat with the same toy for two hours. I enjoy taking him with me now. Before medicine, I never took him any where with me.
He touches everything, throws things even though he has been told not to. School has just been awful, but the Special Ed department is working with us, just can't get the school administration to do it. To the person whose daughter stole $2 from the teacher, what did the school do?
To the person asking about meds whose child is starting Kindergarten. I wish I had better news but you may be in for a really rough year. If you child has been diagnosed ADHD, get with the Special Ed dept in your school district and see what help you can get. Once you find out your childs teacher, schedule a meeting with them. Since my son falls under Special Ed we have what is called an ARD (Admission, Dismissal, and Review) where the teacher, principle, counselors, and anyone we like get together to discuss how to help our child succeed. Our special ed dept actually held one after the school year and there must have been 15 people there. It felt so good.
Some of the other postings had great advise. Structure is important. Since these kinds like to be in control, someone told me if they want to do something that I don't want them to do, instead of just saying "no", which may cause a meltdown. Give them a choice of two things you are welling to do. The example I was given, child wants to go to the bathroom to avoid school work. You say, you can sit in that chair or that chair. Sounds silly but it directs there attention to where you want it, but they still feel they have some control. I used in on my boy for our trip to Disney. He didn't want to take swimming lessons, I explained he could skip the lessons, but would wear a life jacket at the water parks, or he could take lessons and not wear a life jacket. He chose the lessons.
As far as waiting in line, take a gameboy if you have one. This was our first trip so I was really worried about lines, it was July 4th week, so I knew it would be busy. Whenever he would start to drive us nuts, I'd ask if he wanted his gameboy. We also found all kinds of little fidget toys (little toys that stretch out, pipe cleaners are great) for him to play with, but didn't really use them. Mainly forgot about them. He actually did very well in line, but we never waited more than 45 minutes.
To the person whose daughter won't try because she can't do something well. My DS is the same way. He wants to be a Goalie, but won't practice. If he can't do something, he stops trying. I keep trying to explain we all have to practice to do things well.
If anyone would like to PM me, I would love to here from you. Most of the time, only those that have children like ours, understand them. I keep hearing that there is hope, but sometimes it doesn't see possible. I just try to remember something nice that my boy does, such as when at Disney World he was running to our room and when there were a group of people he said "excuse me, coming through"! That group of people commented how they had not heard that in a few days from any children and what a good boy. They would be amazed that he had been kicked out of 4 daycares in 2 years!
). At school, he was disrupting the class. It didn't help that he was finishing his work long before the other kids - and then filling his time with noisy things (like tapping pencils, trying to talk, moving and fidgeting, etc). We finally finished the process for the Gifted/Talented program and he spends extra time there, helping address the problem of finishing his work early and having nothing to do. 
