Help Kymani's Fight To Succeed

My name is Alejandra and this is my son Kymani. He is six years old. Kymani is a very happy, playful, smart, little boy, who loves to explore anything and everything he finds. He loves animals, especially reptiles and our dog Pablo. Ever since he was born Kymani has been bright and seemed to be more advanced than other kids his age. My husband and I thought wow, we must have this genius little boy on our hands, but little did we know it was just the first sign that something wasn't right.When Kymani was three he began having tantrums and even as such a young child would not take no for an answer. He was very hyperactive from the moment he got up to the moment he went to bed; he always had to be doing something. What would be a normal bedtime routine for most, would take us hours, fighting, and crying just to simply go to bed. He then began displaying very destructive behavior. He purposely would break his toys or if he knew something was special, he purposely destroyed it. One minute he would recognize that something was special and would say he wanted to take care of it, but then he would purposely break it or damage it somehow. It’s almost as if one minute he was present, and the next he wasn’t. As Kymani continued to grow, things only got worse. Things got to a point where I felt like I could no longer control him and as his mother I felt helpless. We kept telling ourselves that it was just a phase and eventually he would grow out of it. Kymani is now six years old and started first grade this year. The problems I mentioned have only gotten worse but yet we still wanted to believe that he was just being a kid, and that eventually he would start being “normal”. This all changed when Kymani’s teachers told us they were concerned about him because he was displaying all of these behaviors in school and that we should have him evaluated for potential ADHD or ADD. We were reluctant but we knew we had to do something. Kymani has now been diagnosed with signs of a weak right brain.The results of his assessment have verified why he can't stay focused on schoolwork, takes too much time or needs a lot of encouragement to complete routine tasks. As his parent’s we want to do what is best for him and help him in any way that we can, however, we are terrified of medicating our six year old child and the possible side effects that can have not only right now but potentially the lifelong consequences that we don’t want to put our child through. Despite the fact that for some parents medicating has been the best option for their child or perhaps the go to medical recommendation, we believe medication will be detrimental to Kymani because it won’t actually be addressing the problem, but rather, it will provide a temporary fix to something that is not going to go away. The long term effects of drugs are not something that we want in Kymani’s future. We don’t want our child to be dependent on drugs for the rest of his life. We want to explore and try to help our son in other ways and do everything we possibly can without having to resort to medication. For us as Kymani’s parents, medicating our child would be the easy way out. The easiest way to just “solve” the problem and not have to deal with what a parent of an ADHD child has to deal with on a daily basis. By no means are we placing judgement on any parent who chooses to medicate because we understand that is a choice that only a parent can make in the best interest of their child. And if that decision is to medicate, then we are no one to judge or say that is the wrong thing to do. But for our child, it is not what our gut instinct as parents is telling us to do. Once we medicate our child, there is no going back and there is no way to know the extent of the negative effects it could have on him. We don’t want to go our entire lives wishing we would have tried something different but saying to ourselves we just couldn’t afford it. This is what we believe is the best option for Kymani and are hopeful to receive the help that we need.  The money we are in need of is to place Kymani in a program called Brain Balance, which would treat his diagnosis without the need for medication. The Brain Balance Program is a non-medical approach to overcoming the challenges of ADHD by working with Kymani to overcome his developmental deficits. The program focuses on addressing his sensory motor, cognitive, and even nutritional components which are all factors in his brain development and contributing to his diagnosis. We believe that Brain Balance is an approach that can actually cure the root of the problem not just mask it, by actually working with Kymani and helping him overcome those brain deficits and imbalances. We’re hopeful that the programs past successes are an indicator that by getting this help, Kymani can be successful too. As a family of four with only one income it is not something that we have the money for and is why we are asking for any help we can get. We are hoping to reach our goal soon so that we may place Kymani in this program as soon as we possibly can and get him the help he desperately needs.