My youngest child graduated from High School last week.
It’s just two years since my oldest son graduated. It’s a mixed bag of emotions. It feels thrilling that my children are officially adults now with that part of their life behind them. It’s daunting as they head into adult life with all the challenges it brings them. I’m feeling reasonable optimistic that they have got many of the skills they need to lead a successful life, what ever that might look like for them. The best bit is no more lunch boxes!
I’m very conscious I’m coming from a very privileged place. One of my core values is education (which means continuous education and learning is especially important for me) so being informed and involved with my children’s education journey is of deep meaning and interest for me. I also had the privilege of choice – the choice to choose a school which I believed would suit my child best. Many, many parents do not have this choice, especially in rural communities. I also had an engaged Dad which meant I never had to attend any challenging meeting alone.
I had the privilege of knowledge of parenting ADHD when my oldest son was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD. For those of you who do not know me, this was the drive for me to do a Master of Education to learn how to support my son. This master degree gave me the combination of relevant deep knowledge about support my son’s education journey with ADHD but also, it gave me authority. I was able to use this degree to have a voice in the schools and speak from authority. When my second son showed signs of anxiety, I was able to ask for the support he needed because I had learnt about anxiety during my studies as it’s such a common comorbidity with ADHD. I now use this knowledge, passion and education to teach parents about ADHD and how to advocate for your child.
I’ve learnt many lessons on how to support your ADHD child and I want to share them here as I use these lessons to support and inform my work with parents who are at various stages of raising a child with ADHD.
Lesson 1: Know your child and understand the challenges they are having at each stage of the school journey.
Being proactive and anticipating future challenges will help you to head off problems. There will be different challenges: social, academic or teacher related in each school year. If you know your child, you will have a better idea of what the potential challenges will be. Don’t wait for the school or teacher to flag something, trust your instincts.
Lesson 2: Work to develop a problem-solving approach.
If you go to a teacher with the approach that there is a solution to whatever is going on, you will get more buy in from both your teacher and your child. I included my son it these meetings from as early as I thought he could participate. By having your child there, it keeps the conversation positive and the language clear. Your child may also have a solution you have not thought of.
Lesson 3: Ask for support or you won’t get it.
If you have a child who is flying below the radar in the school system, you need to raise the visibility of what’s going on. If you have a child who is too visible and getting negative attention, by communicating with the school, you create a partnership approach with the teacher and school. A school or teacher will be much more accommodating with a family that is involved as they know the solutions they try will be supported.
Lesson 4: Involve yourself, as a parent in the education system and school.
The research shows that by schools involving you in the journey of our children, the most benefit comes to your children. This is because both your teacher and you are on the same page and there’s a joint understanding of what the objectives are. So ask yourself, how can you spare time to be more involved with the school? There are often more opportunities in the Primary School but even in High School, there will be opportunities to get involved. This involvement builds community with the school and teacher but also provides you with valuable information about the daily environment for your child.
Being involved in primary school will often mean you won’t need to be as involved in high school. There is a natural pullback when your child moves to high school so putting the time in when he is in primary school will provide the knowledge to be less involved in high school. I learnt by the end of primary school that my child’s perception of the teacher’s teaching style was always very accurate so was able to use this knowledge when advocating in high school.
Lesson 5: Recognise that all teachers are doing their best.
However, like you they have stuff going on! One of the most difficult years for my son was in early primary school. I learnt afterwards that in fact the teacher was going through a divorce while nursing an extremely ill parent. No wonder she had little capacity to be empathetic to my son that year! In this particular year, the lack of school support for the teacher was the problem but the lack of support for my son was a big challenge for us as a family and had an ongoing negative impact for years. I learnt that the capacity of teachers ebbs and flows, just like it does for us, as parents.
I talked about this at home a lot with my boys and taught my sons that it wasn’t their responsibility to learn but the teacher’s responsibility to figure out how to teach them. I believe it’s important to teach your child the context of their experience. So, ask questions – What do you think was going on for your teacher when she did that? What do you think the teacher was trying to achieve? Do you think they could have handled the situation better? Ask questions first, listen and only give potential solutions as a second option.
After all what’s the objective of our education system?
The department of education states that “A strong public education system is the cornerstone of every successful society”. The objectives state that “fostering well being & participation” and “reaching full potential” are student related objectives. I think it’s broader than that.
Some of the objectives that come to me are:
- Education and learning (well, the basics for sure).
- Learning the basics of socialising and working out who to be friends with.
- Learning how society works as our schools are a paired down version of society.
- Working out how to work with people.
- Learning about your personal strengths so you can figure out who you are.
- Figuring out your future path so you can have a fulfilled life.
I’m not so sure our education system has it all worked out yet. What I do know is that for our education system to deliver a “successful society”, more needs to be done to involve you, the parent in your child’s journey. You know what your child needs but it’s challenging to know how to ask.
My mission is to empower parents with ADHD parenting strategies so that you can advocate to problem solve and in turn support teachers so that your child can “reach full potential” and live independent, fulfilling lives.
If you would like to know more about how I can support you, please click to learn about my online ADHD parent coaching course.
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