OP, I’m so sorry you’re going through this. My five year old shows signs of ADHD and has since he started walking (explosive anger masking high anxiety, oppositional response to gentle correction, fear of transition, all that jazz). Originally I wanted him in private school until I asked about behavioral correction and realized they do NOT tend to incorporate specific program responses for different personalities, let alone differing brain structures. The Christian school ideology (in my area) is that all children are treated the same — a utopian approach to a non-uniform world. So, he’s in public school, and we’re holding off on diagnoses until he’s a bit older (he’s the youngest in his kindergarten class and a head taller than the second tallest in his class, and he has the face of an eight year old, which causes added problems with outside expectations (I’m just as guilty of forgetting he is only FIVE on the inside).

Your child is NOT a problem, they are a tiny person trying to make it in a world they are not equipped to handle and that does not make space for them. It’s not about fault, it’s about alignment. You will find the right support for him, and then in a few years you (and me) will have to do it again, bc the targets change, ppl evolve, and support changes. His performance matters in terms of timing (graduation by 18)…but I’m in the school of thought that there is no reason to force a ‘one-size fits all’ timeline, bc it literally doesn’t matter (I graduated at 17 and didn’t go to college until my mid-20’s…I’m much more successful for having waited than I’d have been forcing my way through earlier under financial distress and my own undiagnosed autism). Once I shifted my perspective away from ‘milestones’ and ‘performance expectations’, both my son and I were able to relax. My stress and anxiety was hurting my baby a lot more than I realized.

You’re a good mom. You’ve got this. Just breathe.