What’s really going on?

[pleasedonotjudgeme]

My son (13) has been seeing a therapist for the last 2 months. Part of the reason that we started therapy was because he has exhibited behavior whereas he would get hyper fixated on something and be obsessed with it. He would research it, he would plan for obtaining it, abs then he would save his money and they buy it.

For example, recently he was obsessed with getting a Nintendo N64. He drove his dad and I crazy, asking everyday if we could take him to a second hand shop to buy one. He was incessant. He asked if he could “take out a loan” to his allowance so he could buy it. When he finally bought it, he played it for one day and hasn’t touched it since. The day after he lost interest, he became hyper fixated on buying a new iPhone 15. When that research proved that it would be a while to save the funds to get one, he switched his focus to a new Xbox.

The therapist has stated this is ADHD, but this seems extreme for ADHD, has anyone else had a similar experience and was it diagnosed as ADHD or something else?

 

[fangel75657]

@pleasedonotjudgeme Hyper focus is ADHD

 

[fengyuwei]

@pleasedonotjudgeme People with ADHD are actively seeking out dopamine fixes.

When he finds something new, the dopamine hits, and he is trying to hold on to that feeling. So this is why he is so fixated on his new interest. Once the interest no longer creates this, he will be in search of a new dopamine fix.

Obviously, there is more to it than this. Hyper focus and changing interests (seemingly on a whim) is a super common sign of ADHD.

May I ask what you think is going on?

 

[harko]

@pleasedonotjudgeme The best thing you can really do is seek out a neuropsychologist and have a full diagnostic evaluation done. There are many, many benefits to this. The least of which is that it will give the therapist a bigger picture of what is going on and how she can help. Therapists cannot diagnose. They can help with issues that parents are seeing but without a diagnostic evaluation, they’re guessing to be honest. After a few months of therapy, a really good therapist will actually suggest you have this done. It’s easy for a school to start the process for an ADHD diagnosis with surveyed done by parents and teachers that is then taken to a pediatrician but sometimes this isn’t good enough bc it doesn’t take into consideration everything going on in a child’s head and there can be a lot. It is also becoming more common for high functioning autism to be diagnosed around this age as well. I just had a friend whose son was diagnosed at age 14 (in addition to ADHD) when it was never in anyone’s radar before. The very best reason to do a full diagnostic evaluation is so your child can learn how their brain works differently than other people and how he can manage.