Medication Free Summers

It used to be common practice for children with ADHD to go without medication for the summer, but now that kids spend summers everywhere but outside running free, that isn't so much the case anymore.   How can you tell if your child should stay on their medication for the summer?

Signs your child probably should stay on medication for the summer.
1.  Your child has to attend summer school or an academic program for the summer.
2.   Your child has to attend a program, such as day camp, which will entail participation in organized activities requiring a lot of sitting still and/or focusing.
3.  Your child has problems with social interactions off medication and will spend their summer with anyone but your family.
4.  Your child is impulsive off medication, especially if impulsive actions have been unsafe in the recent past.
5.  Your child is taking a long acting nonstimulant.  These medications usually have to build up in dose to be effective.  This can take up to 6 weeks, by which time, summer is half over.

Signs your child probably should take a medication break over the summer.
1.  Your child is losing or failing to gain enough weight on medication, or is having other minor side effects (wild rebound symptoms, mild twitchiness, etc.)  you or he/she wishes to avoid.
2.  Your child is a preteen or teen who does not want to take medication and needs a trial off medication to prove they need or do not need it.
3.  Your child will be able to run free over the summer break and you do not mind dealing with the symptoms when they are at home.

What about tolerance?
Some parents want their children to take a break from medications because of concerns about medication losing effectiveness.  Doctors do not know exactly why some certain medications stop working for some patients.  It may be the phenomenon of tolerance, where a drug stops working because the body adjusts itself to the presence of the drug, but some patients , especially adults, seem to be able to take the same dose of the same drug for years at a time.  Also, some patients notice that after taking a summer break, an effective medication is no longer effective.   This points to changes in body size, metabolism, and possibly changes at school, which may also be causing medications to become less effective.

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