Warning – the timing of my leaving the community this represents leaves this story without a happy ending. I trust in God that there is one by now, but the family would not know how to find me to tell me about how God redeemed this –
Reggie, meaning counsel, a fourth grade student, had a personality as big as all outdoors, had academics that were under performing in all areas, but his cognition tested as completely typical for age and grade. People thought he had ADHD as he was wiggly and struggled to pay attention in classes. His teachers wanted him to try a stimulant drug, but his parents wanted to try anything and everything else first. After lunch his, like all the other elementary classes the schools where I have worked, left the lunchroom to line up in a line along the hallway walls. His class waited quietly for the teacher to direct them to go back to class. Reggie followed these directions and was not disruptive unless and until he also found himself shocked and unintentionally entertaining his classmates. He would suddenly pee on himself with such force that urine sprayed out all around, dousing him from head to toe, wetting anyone standing close by and creating a puddle on the hallway floor. He was never uncovered. Every time it happened, it took him completely by surprise. The kids perceived this as a show and laughed at him. I think the peers assumed that he did this on purpose, since it is a rare fourth grade student who struggles with continence. He was humiliated!
The Missing Piece – Why did he have ADHD
Reggie’s parents met with our team at the school and with his pediatrician. They learned that Reggie was allergic to many things in the school lunches (eggs, corn, wheat, milk, nuts…). They began to send him to school with a lunchbox, packed with things he could relax and eat and he was able to wait until it was an appropriate time to let his bladder empty. He also was better able to focus his attention in classes and began to learn with his classmates after his allergies were resolved.
However, because kids can be really mean! One or two bullies in the group figured out that he was allergic to things and if he ate them, he would pee again in the hallway. They would slip him food off of their trays and taunt him until he ate it. Eventually, in his defense, his parents put him in an alternative school, designed for students with high end emotional/social disabilities. This was totally an inappropriate placement, but the district didn’t offer to move him to another general education setting. I remember the meeting being a super intimidating time with a number of professionals I didn’t know and the parents had never met… His parents would have been right not to consent to the placement, and I am confident they totally disagreed with the team about the plan, but in the end they said okay and there it stayed. I don’t know why, but this is where it remained when I left the area. I learned a lot from the experience. I spent a good deal of time with Reggie’s family. I remember them all with great fondness.
Homeschooling a Safer Choice!
If I were in a similar situation today, I would insist that no placement was a permanent decision until a meeting could be held with an advocate or close friend of the family to strengthen the parents ability to ponder the placement, and decide together without so much pressure to take the school’s preferred arrangement. Sometimes just pausing a meeting and letting parents talk together, or having them talk with another person they trust (even calling someone on the cell phone) to bounce the arrangement off of… gives them enough courage to push a district to find a better place for their student. Or perhaps this family might have chosen to home school their son where no one could push him to eat things that set off his attention and bladder. If you are a homeschooling family reading this, I hope you can see that there are definite advantages to schooling your student at home – no bullies!
Homeschooling is almost always a better setting for student success!
Also, if you happen to home educate a student with ADHD symptoms, you can take them to as many medical professionals as you need to, in order to figure out how to help them. I am going to suggest that you try a naturopathic doctor or someone who can suggest food as medicine or removing a food sensitivity before one would try medication. I have read a good deal about ADHD, and learned that only about 1/16th or so of the people who are diagnosed with ADHD respond well to the medication most commonly prescribed for this malady. More frequently, the trouble is sensory differences. Some things to check before trying a pharmaceutical would be:
- Can they hear instruction?
- Can they see the work clearly?
- Are they getting adequate sleep?
- Are they getting enough fresh air and sunshine?
- If you give them a physical activity break every 10 or 20 minutes, can they focus on work?
- Do they know how to choose to focus on activities that they don’t prefer? You might check this on household chores, or simple, but not preferred family activities rather than academics?
- Most Americans don’t realize that food allergies are a common cause of fidgety behavior and lack of focus.
- Also, as a parent you are almost certainly limiting your child’s screen time to what you feel is reasonable, but if they show signs of a specific learning disability or an attention problem, to take an additional 20 minutes of screen time away daily might be a good intervention to try. The kinds of flashing light given off by our screens do not make either of these issues better. Screens are the enemy of the brain development required for learning to read, write and do initial math calculations for memory.
- I’m happy to talk with you about this, I have some recommended reading as well.