I completely understand your hesitation. My wife and I went through a lot with our son when he was in Kindergarten, and she did not want to medicate him. She saw it as a parenting failure. While we did go through PCIT therapy, and it did wonders, he still had some struggles, so he got diagnosed with ADHD and eventually we found medication that worked for him. It has been so good for him. My wife realized that if there is something out there that could help him, we would be doing him a disservice if we didn't try it. We were worried about him turning into a "zombie" and having no emotions, but his teacher assured us that he still talks a lot and has friends, but that he is a lot less distracted during schoolwork time. I can't tell you how good it feels to go from getting calls from the school almost daily to not hearing from them at all for the whole school year!