This will increase his anxiety so even less input comes in, causing decision-making to become reactive. Now imagine this is a child, and he can’t tell which is which. He will wait until the hawk has passed before going for his breakfast. Which will he focus on? Not the food, but the threat. He knows the trees and grasses around him, but the hawk overhead and the mouse nearby are new. Say a fox emerges from his den and looks around. What’s more, the brain selects what comes in based on survival value. Unfortunately, when it’s filled with birds, fans, wet coats, and shadows, what the teacher wants you to pay attention to gets squeezed out. That sounds like a lot, but it isn’t because only a little can get through. The brain can only take in about 2,000 bits of information per second. They want to know, they tried to know, but it didn’t stick. As a result, your child doesn’t know what the teacher just told them to do. The sensory inputs all go in, and because they don’t get put into your child’s long-term memory, most of them go right back out. They hear the hum of the overhead lights, the birds outside, the truck driving by, the teacher talking, and their classmate kicking their chair, and they can’t drown any of it out. Unfortunately, children with ADHD haven’t learned how to filter out unnecessary sensory inputs, so their attention is drawn to every single sight and sound around them. The ability to filter out sensory input is both innate and learned. I’m going to tell you a little bit about what it’s like for ADHD kids at school, what to do when your child zones out or panics, and also give you real strategies and tips for helping them find greater success at school. Getting teachers to agree to change their classroom or teaching style is often challenging.Īs a public school based advocate for kids with behavioral and learning disabilities, I know how hard ADHD issues can be for kids, families, and teachers. While each child is unique and should have an individualized approach to treatment and management of their ADHD, there are some universal elements that make school hard to navigate. If your child or teen has a diagnosis of ADHD or a learning disability, then you already know that school is difficult for unique thinkers, and it gets more challenging each year. It’s also a lot of potential for behavioral challenges, conflicts, and concerns, creating a perfect storm of issues for kids with ADHD and ADD-and the teachers responsible for educating them. That’s a lot of impulsivity, distractibility, hyperactivity, and organizational/planning issues in one room. Nearly one in ten kids has ADHD, which means practically every classroom in America will have one to three kids with the disorder. Think about how that number impacts schools. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that between 20, an average of nine percent of children between the ages of five and seventeen were diagnosed with the disorder. When it’s a child with ADD or ADHD, the pain can create lifelong wounds.ĭaniel has ADHD, and he is not alone. When a child is struggling at school, it hurts. “If he keeps getting sent to the principal’s office, how will he learn to read and write?” “If he can’t turn in his homework now, in third grade, how will he ever keep a job?” Now that knot is in your throat as you think, “What did he do now?” The big fears run through your mind: “Daniel’s behavior in class and on the playground is very concerning.” “I wanted to talk to you, too,” the teacher says. “He’s starting to say that he hates school and it’s stupid.” “Can we talk about Daniel,” you say to your child’s teacher, a knot of fear in your belly.
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