“He was born so I could return to God”: He thought his son was a nuisance till he discovered his child had ADHD

When Keith Wang’s wife, Joey, was pregnant with their firstborn, the couple was overjoyed. It was an easy pregnancy, the water birth went smoothly and their son was born at a healthy 3kg.

“My wife was very blessed from the beginning. From the time she felt the contractions to Ethan being born was just five hours,” said Keith, 43.

But within an hour, the Wangs received a call no parent ever wants to get.

Baby Ethan had a health scare just hours after birth but was healed within three days.

“They told us that he needed to go into ICU. The doctor said that he had traces of pneumonia and contaminated fluids in his lungs and airways for unknown reasons,” said Keith.

“I saw him in that box (in the neonatal ICU) with a dozen tubes, like a typical scene that you see on the television except I was living it.”

That was when Keith prayed to God.

“I said, ‘If You heal him, I will do anything You ask.’”

For two days, Baby Ethan remained in the neonatal ICU. On the third day, his condition stabilised.

“Like Christ on the third day. I thought: It is definitely God.”

Ethan was discharged and the Wangs returned home to their lives.

Said Keith: “I remembered that promise but the first three years, I didn’t live it.”

“Why isn’t He speaking to me?”

At the time, Keith was what he called an “agnostic free-thinker”. He thought that there was a God but “didn’t know how God would look like”.

“I felt there must have been a Creator. How else could everything around me be created.? But I decided that religion wasn’t important, it didn’t work for me.”  

Keith had grown up with parents who had a ritualistic understanding of religion. Though they practiced their faith, they did not force their beliefs on their son. When Keith was 21, he ended up at City Harvest Church because he “wanted to make new friends”. He joined a cell group and, within six months, was baptised.

Keith was 21 when he got baptised in church.

“I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus. I got baptised because I thought it was part of the ritual. If you want to worship in a church, you had to be baptised.

“It was a transactional relationship with God, if there was any. I was just going through the motions.”

Then Keith decided to “pray for a direction in life”. He was living a comfortable, middle-class life but he had always wanted more. Since he had learnt to pray at cell group, he decided to seek God.

“I was looking for a signal – are there things You want me to do after college, job opportunities. But I didn’t get an answer. I still didn’t know what to do. Did God hear me? Why isn’t He speaking to me?

“I talked to the CG and it wasn’t clear as well. Even the people who were worshipping with me every Sunday weren’t very clear. Maybe God wasn’t that interested. So I became disillusioned.”

A year after going to church regularly, Keith left.

More excitable than the rest

Keith would go on to meet Joey through a mutual friend, and get married when he was 35 and she was 32. Ethan came along three years later.

(Left to right) Joey, Ethan and Keith. The couple has discovered that limiting Ethan’s sugar intake helps him regulate his behaviour.

At first, things seemed fine. Ethan hit every development milestone. In terms of height and weight, he was, at times, even in the top percentile. He was also generally healthy. But there was one thing that puzzled Keith and Joey.

“It was his energy level. We look at other kids in Nursery. We know that toddlers are mostly energetic but this was something else. He was very excitable, very talkative, a lot more mobile.”

By the time Ethan was four, it became very obvious that “there was something very different about his brain”. One episode stood out starkly for Keith.

They had signed Ethan up for group piano lessons at Yamaha. He was in a class of nine children his age.

“I didn’t have much expectations. I already knew he would be energetic, cannot sit still. I knew it would be challenging. But I didn’t know it was going to be that challenging.”

While the other children tried to pay attention, Ethan was “in a world of his own”. At one point, he “tried to be funny, becoming like the class clown”.

The situation became so stressful and embarrassing for Joey that she walked out of the class and asked Keith to sit in instead.

“We thought he was just more naughty. At one point in time – God forbid – I thought: Gosh, he is such a nuisance.”

Keith became “an angry dad”, resorting to punishments in the hopes of reining Ethan in.

The search for answers  

While all this was going on, Keith decided to do some research to better understand his child. He read extensively about hyperactive and energetic children. He also joined support groups for those caring for neurodivergent children and those with special needs, and spoke to many parents.

After seven months, he amassed a wealth of information and became quite certain his son has ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).

Ethan as a toddler.

“ADHD is diagnosed earliest at six years old. Ethan is five. When he is six, we will get him diagnosed.”

But there would be more that would come out of this.

While Keith was searching for an answer about his son at home, as the Head of Digital Diagnostics at Roche Diagnostics, he was also looking for a solution to detect certain health conditions, even mental ones, among adults.

As the work on both sides progressed, a desire began stirring within him to develop something to help children as well.

“I believe it was God’s calling. I didn’t know Him, but He knew me,” said Keith.

“I saw many families struggling, middle class people like me when I was growing up who couldn’t afford private specialists and had to wait a long time in the public health system just to get a first appointment.

“There was so much pain going on. I needed to do something. At that point, God was tugging me closer.”

The pull to do something

Since he started working, Keith had always wanted to strike out on his own. But he had “no good reason, no emotional anchor and no calling”. This time, he felt he had all three.

“For some reason, I just couldn’t walk away from what I knew. I thought it would be so wrong to go through what I had and to know what I did and with my skills, and not do anything about it.

“I felt that pull to do something. So I thought: This must be the time.”

That was how, in July 2024, Keith decided to start his own company to support families with neurodivergent children, especially ADHD. Offering screening, diagnosis, intervention and ongoing education, Nightingale, is a parenting and child well-being platform with a network of child psychologists and therapists across Asia.  

Keith (second from left) with his Nightingale team.

“We focused a lot on ADHD. Then we started to see other neurotypical children with anxiety, depression, teens who are suicidal.”

The call to return

While Keith pursued a solution for Ethan and other children like him, God pursued him.

“God placed Christians in my life. Ever since my son was born, I began to meet more Christians. People I worked with whom I didn’t know were Christians, I later found out they were Christians.

“In my research, I found that there are a good number of Christians in the field of mental health and medicine. Some of them are very missions driven.”

Each believer Keith met lit a path that directed him back to God. One of them was Dr Munidasa Winslow, CEO and Senior Consultant Psychiatrist at Promises Healthcare.

“When I met Dr Winslow, somehow he started to talk about God casually and I started to know he is a Christian.

“I could feel the Holy Spirit working in him at that point. I didn’t have a strong relationship with God then, but I could feel his passion for work and God co-existing at the same time.”

Another Christian that Keith encountered was Dr Low Lee Yong who founded MHC Asia Group, a healthcare technology company.  

“I asked to meet him to ask his advice on how to run a business. The first thing he asked me was, ‘Do you read the Bible?’

“I said, ‘No.’ And he said: ‘How can you call yourself a Christian when you don’t read the Bible?’”

By then, the combination of raising Ethan and starting his own company had brought Keith to his knees.

“I realised there was so much I didn’t know, so much that I was struggling with as well both as a founder and a dad. So I started to pray every day.”

Dr Low’s admonishment late last year got Keith to turn to God’s Word as well. Since then, he has been “reading the Bible every night”.

At the start of this year, he decided to go back to church, picking Wesley Methodist Church because it was closest to his office.

“I want to be a disciple. What does it mean? It means serving the church and eventually outside.”

Keith is currently attending membership classes and hopes to be part of a cell group soon.

All for God

Nearly two years since Keith began his journey to understand his son, his life and perspectives have been totally transformed.

“As we started to open Nightingale to more families, I started to see Ethan in almost every boy and girl I saw. I thought: That’s my son.

“It was a gradual revelation that my son is different. But that doesn’t mean he can’t thrive. He can still be an amazing child and an amazing learner. He is built in the image of God.

“And I began to gradually see that he is not a nuisance anymore, He is a blessing. He was born so  I could return to God.”

With what they learnt about ADHD, Keith and Joey began putting into practice strategies to help Ethan cope. These days, the five-year-old can appreciate routine, something difficult for those with ADHD, and is independent enough to shower, go to the bathroom and even make his formula milk on his own.

Ethan is now five years old. When he is six, he can be formally tested for ADHD.

“I sense the Holy Spirit working in my family, turning things around, helping us to understand him, helping my wife to accept that Ethan’s brain is different.

“Ever since I started returning to church and becoming a disciple, I have become kinder and l am slower to anger. I shifted from punishment to love and understanding while still drawing boundaries.”

The man who used to need to control many things have also learnt to surrender it all to God.

“Learning to surrender taught me to empathise better with people. Instead of ‘my way or the highway’, it is His way and how other people are thinking of work and life.

“I became less selfish and self-centred, more dependent on God and other people.”

At 21, Keith had sought God for a life of greater means. Now, he is learning to seek God and “surrender my worldly desires and the pursuit of self”.

“That means surrendering the pull of greed,” said Keith who admits that that is difficult to achieve when running a startup.

Nightingale now works with corporates as well in an effort to reach families who need help for their neurodivergent children.

A sermon he heard on Ezekiel 47:1-12 has gone a long way to helping him frame his goals for Nightingale.

“The sermon struck me. I know this is what God called me to do – to bring the river that flows with healing to many families and to deliver systemic impact.

“There is a huge gap between what families need and what the system is capable of providing. One way is to work with corporates. Then we can deliver impact to more employees and their families

“I am very convinced that the work we are doing is not just good for society. It is sacred work healing families.”

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