Oh the Chocolate

Through the years we slowly have picked up triggers that seem to aggravate my son's ADHD and chocolate is one of them.  It seems that chocolate does have a stimulating effect and not necessarily in the hyperactivity as you would think, but it seems to just turn his brain on just a little more.  I guess you would think this could be a good thing, but trust me it isn't....particularly when given later in the day.  Chocolate stimulates his mind in such a way that as it gets close to bedtime, he becomes naturally exhausted, but his brain doesn't want to shut down. So, instead of sleeping he ends up staring at the ceiling for quite some time.  Now, sleep is something that is incredibly important for a child who suffers with this condition.  The less sleep, the more agitated they become and the more difficult life becomes for those around them.

For those of you who may also be looking for extra tips to help your add/adhd child get better sleep,  we turn on a white noise (I think we have it on a running stream sound) for our son nightly, which helps tremendously.  We found ours at Walmart for around $15.  

While we know what chocolate will do, from time to time we choose to "chance" it again.  To see if we get the same result,and sadly without fail we always do.  Then we just want to kick ourselves the next day as to why did we try this again.  Last night was one of those times.  My husband decided to get the kids a special treat from the store and brought home little slices of chocolate pie w/ a chocolate pie crust.  We discussed the concerns knowing full well what we were getting ourselves into, however we just "hoped" it wouldn't affect him too badly today.  Well, again, it appears that my son may not have rested well.  This morning he was not in the best of moods and was a bit aggressive in his attitude.  This is where we have to remind ourselves that we have to stay calm and collected because the natural tendency is to become aggressive back and begin raising our voices to let him know that he is not acting appropriately..... during these times, it can be difficult to remember to keep our own cool.  We have found however, that when we take a much more calm approach, while it may not fully fizzle out the episode, it does help prevent it from escalating further.   Needless to say, I don't suspect we will be giving him chocolate in the evening again anytime soon.