[momagain5]

hi,we have adopted a 10 year old boy who has adhd,but the inattentive type,he is on meds.he is not really hypersactive in a physical sense,but talks alot.usually its in the am before his meds.but tonight we went to dinner with a friend,and he would not stop talking!3 adults and a child,and we could hardly get a word in.he didnt eat well either.he goes on and on about subjects hes interested in,movies he likes.he asked our friend you wanna know what happened in the movie ,he said no,but he just kept talking.this is the first time it has been this bad while dining out with him.any ideas,how to handle this,i dont want this to be a pattern.should i remove him from table and talk to him,before letting this behavior continue?it was not a pleasant dinner for any of us.he doesnt do this at home during dinner,so im just not sure why this happened.but i want to try to prevent a repeat of it,or handle it better.please any advice.

[mrsred]

Was it a late dinner so that his meds had worn off? If not, what did he eat today? There are quite a few foods that will effect adhd meds. For instnace any type of citrus fruit or juice (including lemonade) totally dilutes
concerta and many other adhd meds.
My son gets very jabbery once his meds have worn off.

[jkke]

That doesn't seem familiar to me but I would recommend researching ADHD more.

BTW: Have you had him long? Was he professonially diagnosised while he was in the system? What other than medication have you done for him for his ADHD?

I found that supplements have really helped calme my child down but also he was pretty hyper when he first moved in with us - at random times. It could also be RAD

Omega 3 is sometimes called nature's ritalin and magnesium also has a calming effect. Please research and ask your doctors about alternatives to just medication.

Some on this board will disagree with me but I believe supplements have really helped our son and it is worth looking into.

Also, he was probably trying to get your attention b/c you were with someone else. Again, I don't know your situation but my kids would be more hyper in the beginning with us when we were around other people - we adopted them 8 months ago from foster care.

Behavior modification also saved us. If I were you I would have taken him outside, sat him down and told him that he needed to calm down and allow everyone to enjoy their dinner. Make him calm himself down and don't let him speak until he did. It may have taken awhile but make him be responsible for his actions.

[momraine]

I have a kid who is a jabbermouth too. He is not add, just an attention hog and talking is one of his methods of getting it. We also have some attachment issues, but he has gotten so much better. I can tune it out, but dh gets a little frustrated with it. He is learning when to stop now. But needs frequent reminders to let other people have a turn to talk. Also he doesn't like to eat and so will talk at mealtimes to avoid eating.

[athikers]

My RADlet was a non-stop talker, so make sure ADHD is on target. I have worked (in my previous life) with several girls with ADHD who just couldn't shut up to save their lives. PARTICULARLY in social situations (i.e. dinner) and even worse in "new" social situations.

[AmyAnne]

An idea Lorraine123 gave me which I have tried was to place my child's hand over his own mouth and tell him he had used up all his words for now and I would let him know when he had more (Lorraine told her daughter, I think, that she had lost the privilege of talking)

My husband has bluntly said "Son, this is grown up talk now" and that worked

[momraine]

My husband tried telling my son that he did not have to talk all the time, my son gave him a blank look and said, yes I do. LOL
Now dh will say, it's time for you to stop talking for a while. Or we do the quiet game for a while and see how long he go.

[mallory4]

I had a dd with the same problem--at some times, she was just a normal chatty kid, but at other times, she could not stop talking. Literally could not stop. We once took a 10 hour car ride with no more than 2 minutes of silence from her! Another time, visiting (doting) grandparents from out of town got so frustrated they gave her the silent treatment for a whole day--very sad for her.

What worked for us was, at a time when she wasn't hyper/zingy/can't shut up, we had a conversation about it, explaining that everyone's ears need to rest sometimes, and that there were times when we just needed her to stop talking, period, even if we were having conversation.

We took the approach "we know you don't mean to be rude, and don't mean to be annoying, so we want to help you know when to stop" and we worked out a hand signal we could use that would let her know she needed to finish whatever she was saying and then stop.

That way, we could remind her in public without embarassing her. It almost always worked. On the odd occasion when it didn't, we could just take her off somewhere private and say "I've reminded you twice that you need to stop talking. Since it seems like now is not a time when you can stop, you will need to spend this time alone." and have her sit in a room where we aren't. Wouldn't work in a restaurant, of course, but worked at home & at relative's houses, etc.

My good friend works with a lot of special needs kids and they use "social stories" to teach kids appropriate behavior. So, she might write a story about a kid who talks too much sometimes, and how it made other people feel, and then use that story to find out how your son wants to be notified when he is talking too much, and write the ending of the story to show that the parents in the story use that method of notifying their talker, and he learns to stop.

Then the next step would be to teach him how to judge for himself when he should stop, which she would write up as a list: When people stop asking questions, when people seem distracted, when people say they aren't interested, etc.

[momagain5]

thanks everyone for your advice and understanding.

[mrsred]

I spent hours in daughter's room cleaning yesteerday, the last four with her helping. I thought I was going to lose myh mind, because she talked nonstop, most of the time not saying anything.
And when I would say "STOP!" then she would spend five minutes telling me how she was just about to finish before I told her to stop and that I should just wait and then she would be done with what she was saying and she would stop talking but I interupted her and told her to stop, so I need to be more patient and wait because she was just about ready to stop talking she just had one more thing to say about it and she was going to stop talking, but right before she was done I told her to stop but I didnt' really need to because she was going to stop she just had to finish her thought and then she was going to be done with it, and infact would be quite right now except that I had told her to stop, and so she had to finish what she was sayhing and then tell me she was going to stop, and .....
you get the idea. ADHD meds are 12 hour meds... un fortunately kids are up a lot longer than 12 hours.

[qs mom]

My son has the 'affliction'. I have to step back to look at what he's doing. He doesn't like to eat either. So I need to check to see if he's doing it to avoid eating, or if he really can't stop.

THere are times when my son honestly cannot stop - talking, moving, whatever. EMDR has helped. If he is too hyper and cannot stop moving, I need to alternately squeeze or pat his shoulders. This is calming for him. Then he can return to dinnerr.

If he's avoiding eating, he needs to be quiet, he cannot speak another word until he is finished eating.

[Hadley2]

mrsred--lol! And, of course, now she has to start all over because if you don't hear the whole thing without stopping it won't make sense, it flows together and you spoiled it and now it's a crisis because how is she going to remember all that?....

I get this, too.

[waited2long]

MrsRed, I can actually hear your daughter, like she's in the room!!! That was Perfect writing!!!!!!!

[stevenstwin]

yeah, my 16 year old does that to. At home, at school, with us, with friends - I think it is one of the main reasons that my teen daughter is so easily driven crazy by him! SHE has friends over the other day and did it to them. He'll say, when we're watching tv, "okay, I better stop talking now, or I'll make everyone mad" but he cant' do it. Literally has to leave the room when it's bad. The ADHD meds seem to help, but I'm not sure we're on the right kind at the right dose yet.

[momagain5]

thanks everyone,
i feel so much better now knowing that others have this problem also.mrs.red,you made me laugh,in a good way.we have had a few rough days lately,but getting better,alot of other factors,i was sick,family coming to down,a family crisis,and on top of all that pms!thanks so much for the support when i needed it.you all are great!