by BabyCenter Guest Blogger posted in Parenting

I need your help.
As the parent of a child with crippling, profound, life-altering ADHD, I want to tell you what it is like. This is a true handicap, if an invisible one. He is the best child. I believe in him with all the force of all my being, and into him I pour my soul. I know someday, somehow, he will come out on top. He is smart, and he is kind.
And yet his struggles cause him to be left out of almost everything. He stands off to the sides as weekend plans are formed. In an entire year, he has not once been invited to a birthday party for a kid from school. I dread Halloween beginning in mid-November, because I never know how we will handle the awkward proposition of trick-or-treating. His peers are lovely. So are their parents. It is not a reflection of their characters that they can't see invisible disabilities. They mean no unkindness. They are nice people -- and busy. Parents are strapped for cash, and time, and working so hard to get ahead -- to be enough. The wells run dry. (Mine do too).
But little gestures go a long way. They are enormous. There is a sweet boy who invites my son over from time to time. Another one from the neighborhood does too. An old friend weighs in when possible. These people mean more to us than they are likely to know.

So he has (and has had) friends, deep and true, but not many. He has switched schools so many times that staying in touch with old friends is hard.
Because of the constant...