[Keith Seymore]

I have one child on medication.

By way of background, my wife and I have been married 25 years and have our own natural children. After our kids were almost grown we adopted a set of bi-racial twins. The birth mom was a crack addict and alcoholic, so the twins have shown signs of fetal-alcohol syndrome and ADHD. They were pretty sick little girls when we got them at an age of 10 months old.

My wife and I are very much "non-medicine" people and have tried discipline, counseling, diet, time outs, rewards, stickers, charts, you name it. Finally, this year, we started one of the twins on medication.

The difference has been night and day. We are talking about a 9 year old child that has had a tantrum every day for her entire life (over going to bed, or brushing her teeth, the most miniscule stuff) and instantly they stopped. We are going on about 10 days in a row with no tantrum!

So I am saying that in some instances medication is appropriate, but I think you'll know when that is the case. In our situation, the twins have some clinically diagnosed challenges and we will do whatever it takes to help them through it. But - I think there is definitely something biological/genetic going on inside these little girls of mine.

K