Remember?

You know you do.... The time in your late teens and early young adult years when you knew it all? When you would say, " When I get maried I will NEVER..." Maybe it was, " When I am a parent my kids will NEVER...." Oh, "never say never" holds a lot of value in a lot of peoples lives. I think it goes hand in hand with not judging others. I was, and still am a very opinionated person. I have learned to keep my opinions to myself  more though as I have matured. Smart move, wouldn't you agree? I remember having a lot of strong opinions about things I clearly knew nothing about. Yikes, I must have been a social mess! One of my strong uneducated opinions was that ADD/ADHD were labels put on kids with bad home lives, therefore bad behavior. What a fool I was. Do you know one of the leading causes of ADD/ADHD  is a Mother who smoked while pregnant. Not even the kids fault. Now I am a Mother of 8 and  my kids have more labels than a single grocery isle of can goods. Ok, I may be stretching it a little, but there are definately a lot of acronyms floating around my house. I had no control over my childrens time in utero. Could not make choices at that time to protect them. Mr. M. and I have chosen to be the ones to pick up the pieces.The pieces of drug abuse, domestic violence, child abuse,  memories of being homeless, seeing a birth parents arrested, and so many more things. It's hard!! It's not at all what I thought my parenting days would include. I didn't have any grandiose ideas that it would be easy street, but I never dreamed I would face what I face each day. I stress, and I worry, and my heart breaks daily for my kids who suffer with these issues. The things they suffer through are not fun and acceptance is hard. You know you always hear about how mean kids are these days. I find the adults are actually the cruel ones, most of the time. No tolerance for others, or an understanding that so many of the things these innocent children face are and were not of their making, yet they are the ones who have to fight to overcome. They litterally fight to hold still, to stop impulsivity's, to concentrate, to learn that even though they did not ask for this, it is real and they must still own up to their choices and take the consequences  knowing that they can not lay the blame elsewhere their entire lives.When some one has an epileptic seizure we may stare and even feel sorry for them.I think it is common knowledge that a lack of connections in the brain cause the seizures. It is not much different for a child who lives with ADD/ADHD. Certain connections in the brain are malfunctioning and the result of this is largely out of the childs control. I have watched my own children struggle and wish I could take it away. Mr M. and I have seen first hand how real these issues are and sometimes I want to keep hidden the fact that we fight these things daily. I do not want to give any one ammo to use on one of my kids. You know "that kids has ADD he's just a bad egg." At the same time though, I have read and studied and researched the causes and the things that help. I want to educate those who were just like me. Those who judge with out enough facts or information to form an educated opinion. My kids really are good kids and have every chance at a normal life just like any body else and deserve the same respect that any human being does.We are all children of God. I have a saying on one of my walls, "It doesn't matter what some one is born, it matters what they grow up to be." Underneath that saying hangs a picture of each of my kids. The savior was born in a stable in the most humbling of circumstances. What mattered most though was who he was, and who he became. What he gave, the greatest gift we could ever recieve!! I can not run from the hard times all these issues bring. I can not bury my head and pretend they do not exist. Let me tell you, it is tempting..... I have to face them head on. I choose to treat my children according to their potential, and not according to their past. The past they experienced is real, and must be recognized for what it is, but it is in no way a life sentence or the basis on which any person should be judged for the rest of their lives. In the last six weeks between just two of my kids  we have one more acronym, 3 sensory issues, and a anxiety disorder. Some easily dealt with and some that will take a while to resolve. At times I have been so grateful to finally understand where my child is coming from, and at other times I want to bury my head in denial knowing that the road ahead is going to be a long one. Wondering if I have it in me to fight the good fight. I don't have a choice, I chose to be a Mother and when I did I chose to take what came with it. I am not putting this out there for sympathy. I am putting this out there in hopes that people will stop and think. Will  choose to slow down, to learn, to give people that second chance. Do not judge so harshly or quickly the persons shoes we have never walked in.