School, hurray! NOT.

First published in ADDvance Magazine Online, Feb. 05

I do not know of one parent with whom I have spoken who is even close to satisfied with how things are going at school. In the last week I have heard parents say (not in books – in real life) the following:

• Teachers don’t ask questions, they just tell us what’s what.
• My daughter has spent the last four weeks at home because the stress of school was making all of us sick.
• My child has more self-discipline in her pinky than a teacher who won’t read about ADD or XYZ or whatever it is they won’t open their minds to.
• Why do teachers think they know my child better than I do?
• I would be glad to “trust the school” if the school would show evidence of being trustworthy.
• My kid works hard, and is then told she needs to “work harder” at things like organization.
• Never tell a teacher anything. Teachers know things, that’s all.

Now that is the haul from but one week. The parents who uttered these statements were all involved, interested, knowledgeable – and worried.

While it seems to the adults with AD/HD that things have gotten better since we were children, and with early diagnosis and treatment, understanding all around, children can be expected to do much better than in the past. I am wondering about this.

When the adults of today were going through school, there may have been ignorance (much of it remains, according to my informants); but there were also smaller classes, less pressure to excel early on, teachers were allowed to put an arm around a student (think of it!) for encouragement, and more.

Parents I see now describe busy teachers, beleaguered specialists, anxious children and sleepless nights.

Public schools are required to provide, but often what is provided falls short, by a mile, of what is needed. Or what is offered is not going to help, much; or the child will not be able to make use of it.

More than a few parents have told me they were rudely awakened at private schools to learn that though they had thought the attention would be more plentiful for their child, there were no accommodations made, and no public laws to count on.

“I thought since it was a small, private school,” one mother told me last year, “we’d have more ‘say’ in how things went there. Not so. The message we get is, ’It’s our school, we can do whatever we want to, and you can’t make us do anything.’ This has been an especially painful shock because it feels personal.”

Other parents have told me their children come home crying every day, but have held it together so well all day (anyone recognize herself in this?) the teachers do not believe them when they describe the child’s reactions to the stress of school. “They think we’re nuts,” one father told me. “They see her all day long and since they don’t see what we see, they don’t believe it.” Yet, parents like this find plausible the descriptions teachers offer, even when widely different from their own. How is it that so many people cannot acknowledge more than one perspective?

Someone I know told me the doctor who was evaluating her seven-year-old daughter mentioned that the teacher, in filling out the Conners form, had written in that the child “doesn’t always tell the truth.” The mother says she at first felt stung, then angry. “There it is again,” she said. “A child perceives the world very differently than an adult. An ADD child may be even more divergent in perceptions and conclusions. How is that a kid's problem? Or a moral problem?”

It is terrible to write these things, but more terrible not to. The sooner we know what we are dealing with, the better off we and our kids will be. Nothing like a big fakeout to waste a crucial few months' time.

What to do? I have no idea. This is a call to Pay Attention! The world needs these youngsters to grow up strong and able and feeling good. They are sometimes our best people, aren’t they? Weren’t we?

I wish you luck, and I invite you to comment here about your experiences as mothers of AD/HD children in school.