What is the best school for a child with mild ADHD?
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Re: What is the best school for a child with mild ADHD?
Our son has 14 of the 18 symptoms on that ADHD page including every single one of the Impulsiveness and Inattention symptoms but he certainly doesn't have ADHD. Environment has a lot to do with how he behaves, and I've come to believe that whatever behavioural issues he has are the consequence of low self esteem, not the cause of it.
mystery, you make some good points.
Mike
mystery, you make some good points.
Mike
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Waiting_For_Godot
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Re: What is the best school for a child with mild ADHD?
Well, just because some symptoms can be noted in all our personalities, it does not mean that DS is struggling or does not have ADHD. I have known for years that something was not quite right and he has been to three ed psychs with only one on my recommendation. The last one said he couldn't diagnose him so I should decide if he had Aspergers or not! 
Yes he did learn to read at 4 but ADHD does not mean a child cannot have high abilities in some areas. At 4 he was an absolute nightmare and I was always called into the nursery because he was hitting, biting and running everywhere. But the moment they were doing a play he would focus and learn lots of lines, even at the tender age of 4.
Hopefully there will be more posts from people facing a similar situation. I appreciate all comments thus far.
Yes he did learn to read at 4 but ADHD does not mean a child cannot have high abilities in some areas. At 4 he was an absolute nightmare and I was always called into the nursery because he was hitting, biting and running everywhere. But the moment they were doing a play he would focus and learn lots of lines, even at the tender age of 4.
Hopefully there will be more posts from people facing a similar situation. I appreciate all comments thus far.
Re: What is the best school for a child with mild ADHD?
I hesitate to throw this one into the ring and I am certainly not trivialising your concerns at all. But, deep breath, have you considered his diet? I know from experience that diet can certainly aggravate some behaviours. The behaviour/concentration etc of one of my DS's was hugely hugely affected by what he ate when he was younger. I am not the food police, I wouldn't spend half my time on the Big Diet thread if I was, but I feel quite strongly that, for some youngsters, what they eat can have a detrimental affect on behaviour/concentration etc.
Please don't think I am dismissing your worries or anything like that but it may be that an underlying problem is being aggravated by something like diet.
Please don't think I am dismissing your worries or anything like that but it may be that an underlying problem is being aggravated by something like diet.
Re: What is the best school for a child with mild ADHD?
Waiting_For_Godot wrote:
The last one said he couldn't diagnose him so I should decide if he had Aspergers or not!
Wow, I really don't know what to say to that, except it's shocking, truly shocking! That ed psych wants reporting, the very least he/she could have done was offer another psych for a second opinion.
Keep at it Tips, get him sorted, then you can go forward from there.
Re: What is the best school for a child with mild ADHD?
aspergers is developmental, you would need to see a paediatrician for a proper diagnosis
Re: What is the best school for a child with mild ADHD?
I wasn't suggesting that someone could not have ADHD and high abilities - quite the contrary. But likewise just because he was hitting and biting and running round at nursery age 4 does not prove anything either. It sounds like he is highly intelligent, and maybe a frustrated fish out of water in the environments he has been in so far, for some reason. If the nursery school called you when he was hitting and biting, and Mum arrived, that's a result. I hated nursery school and if I had been clever enough to think of that one, I'd have done it too.
These conditions are not clear-cut. The psychologist who told you to decide for yourself whether he was Asperger's or not is probably the most honest of them all. It's not like sending off a toe nail scraping to see what fungus can be identified on the agar jelly.
I think there a lot of children who come away from Ed Psych assessments with a report saying that child does not have Asperger's, ADHD etc etc but has some tendencies along those lines but doesn't tick quite enough boxes for them to label it as such.
I'm not sure that having a diagnosis would result in a "cure" either, unless it was such severe ADD that Ritalin etc might be a good idea, but it really does not sound as though you would be in that realm in a million years. The most constructive thing perhaps that parents could do in that situation is to find out as much as possible about how you would help a child who had one of those conditions, and apply the relevant areas of learning to your own child. I don't know that an Ed Psych is going to do that much for you beyond the report, even if you got the positive diagnosis. And you are always going to be left with the feeling that another psychologist could give you a different answer. Obviously this is not the case if the condition is extreme.
You mentioned he currently is apparently friendless at school. Of course this may not really be the case, but if it is, that is very distressing. I worry greatly about one of my children's social skills particularly in the making friends arena. A book I found very helpful is "The friendship factor - helping our children navigate their social world and why it matters for their success and happiness" - published by Penguin. It's not a quick fix magic answer book - it's a thought provoking one containing a lot of research. I found it reassuring. Finally about five years after my initial concerns she seems to have in some way worked out what she needs to do, in her own weird way, to get noticed and rub along well with others and start to cultivate some closer friendships.
These conditions are not clear-cut. The psychologist who told you to decide for yourself whether he was Asperger's or not is probably the most honest of them all. It's not like sending off a toe nail scraping to see what fungus can be identified on the agar jelly.
I think there a lot of children who come away from Ed Psych assessments with a report saying that child does not have Asperger's, ADHD etc etc but has some tendencies along those lines but doesn't tick quite enough boxes for them to label it as such.
I'm not sure that having a diagnosis would result in a "cure" either, unless it was such severe ADD that Ritalin etc might be a good idea, but it really does not sound as though you would be in that realm in a million years. The most constructive thing perhaps that parents could do in that situation is to find out as much as possible about how you would help a child who had one of those conditions, and apply the relevant areas of learning to your own child. I don't know that an Ed Psych is going to do that much for you beyond the report, even if you got the positive diagnosis. And you are always going to be left with the feeling that another psychologist could give you a different answer. Obviously this is not the case if the condition is extreme.
You mentioned he currently is apparently friendless at school. Of course this may not really be the case, but if it is, that is very distressing. I worry greatly about one of my children's social skills particularly in the making friends arena. A book I found very helpful is "The friendship factor - helping our children navigate their social world and why it matters for their success and happiness" - published by Penguin. It's not a quick fix magic answer book - it's a thought provoking one containing a lot of research. I found it reassuring. Finally about five years after my initial concerns she seems to have in some way worked out what she needs to do, in her own weird way, to get noticed and rub along well with others and start to cultivate some closer friendships.
Re: What is the best school for a child with mild ADHD?
mystery wrote:
These conditions are not clear-cut. The psychologist who told you to decide for yourself whether he was Asperger's or not is probably the most honest of them all. It's not like sending off a toe nail scraping to see what fungus can be identified on the agar jelly.
Whilst I don't doubt what you say is true, Mystery, it's still a poor practitioner who tells a parent to 'decide for themselves' and offers no other information and/or support, and I'm still shocked by it.
When you are in a situation like this (and believe me, I know all about situations like this, my daughter underwent 2 full days of testing in many, many areas and still they couldn't properly diagnose her) you need answers. If you can't get answers you need information. You need pointing in the right direction. You need to be told the truth and not be left feeling you've been fobbed off because someone doesn't know the answer. If someone doesn't know the answer, they need to tell you plainly why they don't know and what you need to do next.
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Waiting_For_Godot
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Re: What is the best school for a child with mild ADHD?
Thank you for your replies, advice on the book and diet suggestions. I did have him on fish oils for a while and I think I should restart that. I do know my son though and this is not a boredom or understimulation at school. As yoyo suggests, it is probably an overstimulation. My biggest concern is his lack of friendships and low self-esteem. A parent is only as happy as there unhappiest child and boy do I feel deeply depressed over this. 
Re: What is the best school for a child with mild ADHD?
I spent many hours over the last few years trying to understand how best to help one of my children make friends and keep them. I don't claim to have any answers. I can only say that I think we are round the corner now, and that the ups and downs from now on I will try to welcome as part of the learning process.
The main point I took away from the book I mentioned earlier is that children are taking a good part of their childhood learning how to make social relationships, and a lot of that process can involve failure. It can look awful to the onlooker, and of course a million times worse to the parent who, like you and me do, feels every little bit of the pain along the way. Many parents don't feel this - they just shrug their shoulders and say to themselves that eventually the child will learn to be liked if he wants to be liked. One plus point is that your son might not be feeling it as keenly as you - it is just part of the childhood path of learning.
The other significant message that I took out of the book to take heart from was that children learn from other people's social relationships, not just their own. Just because you see your son make a mess of relationships with others (I don't know what he does - avoidance, or physical or verbal nastiness, lack of skills in joining in, blending in, too loud, too quiet, whatever) it doesn't mean that underneath he is not still learning from seeing good adult relationships and other successful social interactions around him.
I don't know whether your son is boarding or not. It's harder for you to do anything if he is boarding, except in the very long holidays of course. In the times when you have more "control" over his life he needs to be there while you have happy sociable times with others, your own friends, even if he is just sitting in the corner apparently ignoring you all or reading a book, or charging around ripping down the curtains, he is still seeing and learning from successful social interactions.
Also you need to make the opportunity for him to have his own successful social interactions, and avoid forcing him through too many unsuccessful ones. For whatever reason, school may always be a washout for him in this respect, and you will have to work on what goes on outside school to provide the necessary social learning. It doesn't really matter what it is - older or younger child, swinging in the trees, learning Latin, singing madrigals, writing and performing a play, whatever, if there's a recipe that works make the opportunity for these social encounters to happen frequently with this one person or small group with whom the recipe works. The learning that will take place in that situation provides skills that your son will use in other relationships. It may be with a child that deep down you consider unsuitable in some way. Never mind.
If you have the bad luck that I have, your son will finally make a close friend, they will then announce they are moving months before they leave, and your son will plunge into misery for months beforehand and months afterwards. And then he will get on with trying to make a good friend again as he really did value it, and deep down he knows that if he did it before he can do it again. This all seems so terribly painful and extreme for a young child, but one presumes there is a purpose to this experience. Also, children gain a lot of learning from the testing of boundaries in friendships that they do. Some, like ours, seem to make a dreadful mess of it all for years. But maybe ultimately their learning is greater than the ones who just seem to happily rub along with everyone, don't care who drifts in and out of the group. Maybe ours are doing rather early marriage preparation!!
The main point I took away from the book I mentioned earlier is that children are taking a good part of their childhood learning how to make social relationships, and a lot of that process can involve failure. It can look awful to the onlooker, and of course a million times worse to the parent who, like you and me do, feels every little bit of the pain along the way. Many parents don't feel this - they just shrug their shoulders and say to themselves that eventually the child will learn to be liked if he wants to be liked. One plus point is that your son might not be feeling it as keenly as you - it is just part of the childhood path of learning.
The other significant message that I took out of the book to take heart from was that children learn from other people's social relationships, not just their own. Just because you see your son make a mess of relationships with others (I don't know what he does - avoidance, or physical or verbal nastiness, lack of skills in joining in, blending in, too loud, too quiet, whatever) it doesn't mean that underneath he is not still learning from seeing good adult relationships and other successful social interactions around him.
I don't know whether your son is boarding or not. It's harder for you to do anything if he is boarding, except in the very long holidays of course. In the times when you have more "control" over his life he needs to be there while you have happy sociable times with others, your own friends, even if he is just sitting in the corner apparently ignoring you all or reading a book, or charging around ripping down the curtains, he is still seeing and learning from successful social interactions.
Also you need to make the opportunity for him to have his own successful social interactions, and avoid forcing him through too many unsuccessful ones. For whatever reason, school may always be a washout for him in this respect, and you will have to work on what goes on outside school to provide the necessary social learning. It doesn't really matter what it is - older or younger child, swinging in the trees, learning Latin, singing madrigals, writing and performing a play, whatever, if there's a recipe that works make the opportunity for these social encounters to happen frequently with this one person or small group with whom the recipe works. The learning that will take place in that situation provides skills that your son will use in other relationships. It may be with a child that deep down you consider unsuitable in some way. Never mind.
If you have the bad luck that I have, your son will finally make a close friend, they will then announce they are moving months before they leave, and your son will plunge into misery for months beforehand and months afterwards. And then he will get on with trying to make a good friend again as he really did value it, and deep down he knows that if he did it before he can do it again. This all seems so terribly painful and extreme for a young child, but one presumes there is a purpose to this experience. Also, children gain a lot of learning from the testing of boundaries in friendships that they do. Some, like ours, seem to make a dreadful mess of it all for years. But maybe ultimately their learning is greater than the ones who just seem to happily rub along with everyone, don't care who drifts in and out of the group. Maybe ours are doing rather early marriage preparation!!
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Waiting_For_Godot
- Posts: 1446
- Joined: Thu Aug 19, 2010 1:57 pm
Re: What is the best school for a child with mild ADHD?
Mystery, thank you for your long, helpful and thoughful post. Between OH and I we have produced extreme versions of a mini-OH (closed off, complient, reserved) and a mini-me (bubbly, tactless, effusive) but I was never like that as a child and was savvy enough to work out how to not offend or say the wrong thing. I think I'll send him to the air cadets - that should sort him out 
...sigh.
...sigh.