Teacher Notes

I’ve been thinking about this post for awhile, and whether or not I should write it.  I always write as a means of processing, and so I think it would be helpful to me.  However, I also know that people who know my kids read it, people who don’t know my kids, and perhaps someday, my kids will read it.  Maybe their future employers will read it.  I want to be careful with my words so that they will always communicate what I’m intending.  Since I’m often wordy when I’m trying to be clear, feel free to skip this post if you don’t have the time.  Otherwise, settle in for the story.

We had an issue with David this week.  Another one.  From the beginning, Tuesday was a bad day for all the kids.  Silje and David were bickering, Solveig had a really tough time napping so I had to take more time laying her down than usual so I wasn’t able to referee.  Of course she has a tough time napping on mornings when we’re doing activities all afternoon and she can’t then.

We went to homeschool group which went pretty well other than the fact that I caught Silje on several occasions be mean to David, as big sisters often do.  Words were said in front of others that made David cry, and I removed her and we had a serious conversation.  David had been having a really difficult time listening and obeying earlier that day and this was certainly not going to help out.

In hindsight, I should have just gone home from there.  In fact, I shouldn’t have even gone to town with the kids behaving how they were that day.  The week before had so much running around that perhaps we all just needed some serious normalcy.

I wasn’t going to let David go to choir practice because he was not listening to me at all.  He begged and pleaded.  So we stopped by one store before choir and I said if he did a good job at that stop, and obeyed perfectly, then I’d give him a chance.  He did good for the 15-20 minutes we were in there, and I hesitatingly dropped him off at choir practice.

30 minutes later when I picked him up and dropped off Silje, his choir director pulled me aside and kindly let me know that David had hit another little boy. This was not the first conversation I’ve had with this director.  Last fall, I had seen through the window David act out terribly in the class, and before I had a chance to bolt in the room, she handled it like a pro.  She got down to his level.  She put her hand on his shoulder.  Those 2 things are so key in “dealing with” David and you could tell this was not her first antsy little boy.  Seeing how she handled David in that situation won my respect.

After that class last fall I had apologized to her for David’s disruption and asked if she thought David was ready for choir yet.  I assured her I would not let him disrupt her class again, even if it meant pulling him.  She was very understanding, and I urged her to let me know if there were any future problems.  We talked with David, practiced with David, worked with him, and we haven’t had any problems these last few months at choir that I have known about.

This conversation was a bit more frustrated.  I could see she was upset, and that really upset me.  What she described I knew all too well.  I was kicking myself for letting him go.  This good women did not deserve to deal with him like this.  She asked me if he’d ever been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD.

All I could say was “we’ve never had him tested.” and in her eyes, she gave me an understanding, kind look.  I couldn’t bring myself to say “yes” or “no”. 

It was not the first time someone has asked me this, and definitely not the first time I asked myself this.  Now you know why I’m so touchy about this post.  ADD/ADHD diagnosis and treatment is about as controversial a topic in parenting as spanking, crying it out, homeschooling, etc.  I’m not meaning to make any sort of statement.  I just want to document how we’re processing it.

First, we don’t know if he has ADD/ADHD and we plan to keep it that way at this time.  The main reason is that we don’t want him labeled.  Labeling is helpful when medication is needed.  Labeling is helpful when a school’s infrastructure needs to change to get the child the help he/she needs.  It gets the ball rolling and help comes flooding in.  When you homeschool, it’s a bit different.  I’ll talk more about this in a minute.

I don’t want a label for David, and I don’t want medication either, even though some days are tough.  First, I never want him to have an excuse for misbehaving.  We live in a label filled society and we cling to them so!  I firmly believe that every single human being has something they really struggle with, and it’s those things that make us strong.  Second, although I’m not anti-medication I don’t honestly think it’s needed in this case.  He is not expected to preform in a classroom and sit still for hours on end.  He’s allowed to focus on a subject fully without interruption of bells to move onto the next subject which is a big obstacle to learning in depth for ADD/ADHD kids in traditional classrooms.

To me, medication of any kind is a last resort especially in the case of a child where his mind and body is still growing and developing.  I can handle him, and I’ve spent hours and hours over the last year or so studying writings from moms who homeschool ADD/ADHD kids.  There are some great resources out there.

After the frustrating news from his choir teacher, I called a good friend who homeschools to vent about the fact that my kid was ‘that kid’ since Knut was unavailable right then to vent to.  Plus, I was a moment when I really doubted myself and the decisions we’ve made for David.  My kid hit another kid and I’m guessing there are a few mothers out there who understand how horrifying that is.

Was he just not ready?  Do we just need to wait until he’s older to put him in group settings like this, or was it that I wasn’t putting him in group setting enough and he just doesn’t have the experience?  Was it that I had not prepared him for group settings like this?  Did he just need more time and maturity?  I’ve adjusted our school at home so that he learns better, but am I doing him any favors by catering to him like that?  Would it always be like this?  I can handle him, but it’s taken years to figure out how to do so, and very few people outside Knut and I seem to be able to handle him.

I’m so grateful that I had a list of friends I could have called to ask a million questions at once in a frustrated mommy sort of way. 

The friend I called offered some help.  First, she pointed me to the homeschooling website www.hslda.org.  It’s a well known organization which is basically an advocate for homeschooling.  It helps people figure out laws in their states, as well as other resources to homeschooling families.  My friend said their site had some great information on dealing with kids like David.

It was filed in their section on learning disabilities, which actually surprised me.  I suppose I never really considered it a learning disability.  It actually makes a bunch of sense, though.  I read though some checklists, and most especially their section on how ADD/ADHD kids learn to read.  David is a good reader.  He reads above grade level and enjoys it.  However, our struggles to improve were spot on what this website talked about.  He’s a good reader, but he has to work…so…hard to do it.

We want him to work hard, but being the younger brother of a girl who hardly has to work at all to read makes it that much harder.  This website had some great ideas on how to make it a little easier for him.  It had some great dietary suggestions on there, but honestly we follow most of what it says already with one main exception.  Part of the diet they discuss is heavier on raw fruits and vegis and we normally serve cooked ones, and probably not enough of them either.  David hates most things that are raw.  We’ve already started working on that, and more vegis isn’t going to hurt any of us.

I do intend to look into diet more, but I don’t want to put all the weight of finding a solution on diet anymore then I would put medication front and center.  I think preservatives and food dyes and etc. etc. aren’t healthy for anyone, and that’s why I cook from scratch as often as I do.

I don’t doubt for a second that diet effects our brains just as it effects our hearts and muscles and fat.

I hesitate because I think sometimes we’re so eager for a quick fix that we overlook the daily work of discipline (and I mean structure, not punishment) and matching up teaching techniques with learning needs.  Diet is good, but so is “exercise”.  I think it may be unwise to trust overall health in only one of those two.

The discussion on diet brought me back to our week of fast food last week, and the possible/probable impact that had on our most recent crazy Tuesday.

This quote from the website were my thoughts exactly:
“In a homeschool setting we do not have to focus on labels, or official diagnoses most of the time. We just need to see if the child we are working with exhibits enough symptoms to warrant further exploration on this topic. In homeschooling we can focus on the solution, rather than a label. Since learning is all about energy output, we ask ourselves why a child has to expend more energy to remain focused on a task than his or her siblings. Once this question is answered, then the action becomes clear.“

What I’m saying is, it became every more clear to me that David needs to learn differently than the other kids.  I’ve known he’d have to learn differently for awhile.  When he was just over 3 we took him to the county health preschool screening just like we had done with Silje to get them all set up for public school.  (You know, back in the good ol’ days.)  The evaluator shook her head and said [my paraphrase] “He’s very bright, there’s no question there.  However, he’s intense.  Some of his answers almost seem like they’re on the autism spectrum, but I don’t believe he’s autistic because of factors x, y, and z.  Other things in the testing shows some possible ADD diagnosis in the future, but I can’t be certain about that either.  All we know for sure, is that when he goes to school, he’ll either do extremely well with his intensity, or cause a lot of problems, but there’s not going to be a lot of middle ground for him.”

She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

This is both good news and bad “news”.  Good news because whatever you read about ADD/ADHD for homeschooling or public/private schooling is that these kinds of kids need a lot of one on one attention.  That’s why they’re often given para aides in school.  This will not be necessary in our school.  I don’t have paperwork to fill out or administrators to hassle or any special meetings. 

He already gets mostly one on one attention at school, although sometimes is taught alongside his sister.  We’re not dealing with a large classroom, and will not hit the public school classroom size unless we are aiming to catch up with the Duggar family, which we’re not.  We have 15 less kids than they do, and we have over 20 less kids in our classroom than “traditional” classrooms.  In other words, he’s in the best situation possible to learn, and that’s probably why he is working ahead grade level, and doing so well.

I want to give David tools, not labels.  I’m of the belief, and somewhat controversial one, that David’s intensity is a gift that God has given him.  I do not want to take away that gift because he will need it to do what God has laid out for him to do.  However, he needs tools to learn to control his gifts, and he needs wisdom and knowledge.

It was later in the week when I watched Elias sitting at our school table.  He was coloring quietly as the other kids were working on spelling.  It dawned on me “David was never like that.  It’s not just ‘being a boy with energy.'”  He never ever just sat and colored.  He still doesn’t.  He’ll sit and make a paper airplane, but even then he’s on the chair, off the chair, on the chair, off the chair.  He runs and shows me, runs back to the table.  He asks for help.  He shows me what he’s done.  He wants my constant interaction.  He just functions differently. 

That brings me to the bad news.  I can see that the more David has been in school, the less happy Silje has been with school.  It’s not just that there’s another student, it’s that there’s another student that needs more attention than she ever needed.  I’d ask for prayer for us in that situation.  I don’t want her to feel lonely or isolated, or left out.  I’m pretty sure that this is part of the reason she’s been lashing out at David so often lately.  However, as Knut often says (and he got this from someone else) “Fair is not equal.  Just because something is fair doesn’t mean it’s the same.”

I need to be sure that she’s getting the attention she needs, but it’s not necessary, and would be unfair to me to try to spend equal alone time with each of them during school time.  I’m not in the business of giving my kids identical childhoods.  That would not be fair to any of them.  I think God has called us to look at what each child needs and see their unique gifts and train them to use their unique gifts and challenges for His glory.

So it has been, and will continue to be: “Yes, I did spend 45 minutes on David’s reading and only 10 minutes on yours.  Look on the bright side, we’ve got more time leftover to make some banana bread this afternoon.  Do you want to help me?”  See?  Fair isn’t equal.  It’s loving each child through their unique “love language” as they call it.

If any of you sweet readers have anything to add, or helpful reads, I’d be glad and grateful to look into them.  This is not the beginning of me studying how differently my kids learn, and how different each one of them is.

There’s a few things that I’ll warn you will bring out the mother bear in me.  David is not worse than the other kids, he’s different.  He isn’t a burden and I don’t have it hard.  I’m blessed to be his mom and I will take no other view.  I could easily write a post twice as long talking about how big his heart is and how much he blesses each of us in this home.  He’s not dumb or disabled he’s smart and very able.  It’s not a matter of being politically correct, it’s a matter of being just plain correct.  Lastly, I’m pretty sure I will never buy into any quick fix illusions on the table because life is messy and complex, and this is no different.