My 8yo's take on ADHD

[springbabydays]

She wishes she had it so then she'd be allowed to take a toy into school.

She has multiple classmates with ADHD diagnosis.

I explained they have toys to help them focus and she's lucky to be able to focus without a toy (I assume) but she insists they can focus without them. I didn't know what to say tbh.

It left me feeling sad. I don't even know why really!

My six year old has a student in his class with a standing desk and a balance board to help him manage his ADHD wriggles. He’s perfectly able to understand that ‘Bertie has a desk that helps him concentrate, just like Lulu has glasses to help her read’…

its not difficult to parse it in age appropriate way.

as PPs have said, if the fidgets are a genuine distraction then mention it to the teacher.

She is detailing how she explained it to an 8 year old, you don't need to be so defensive.

I'm not trying to say anything. Just expressing how my child perceives it and I guess looking for advice on how to help her (and me) better understand.

Thank you to the posters offering useful advice!

She is 8 so she is still fairly egocentric and feels like other people have it better than her. I would have a look and see if there is newsround video or some thingnon AJ brain which explains what it means to ADHD to show her.

Why not? Why shouldn't we expect schools to teach about disability and inclusion?

I would most definitely expect a teacher to talk to other children in the class if there is any lack of understanding among them about how come there is one rule for some kids, and another rule for everybody else.

shes definitely got a future in politics !

Totally agree. I work in loads of different primary school classrooms and a huge amount of the time the frequently used fidget toys, wobble cushions and ear defenders are actually a source of distraction for the child they are supposedly helping, as well as all the children sitting near them. I can see their benefit in very limited situations but I believe this has got out of control to the point it is not beneficial.

Tell her she’s very lucky that she doesn’t have it. She might wished she had it because she can only see the ‘positives’ ie being allowed a toy but the negatives growing up will make life much more difficult.

A bit like a child seeing someone using an electric wheelchair and thinking how ‘fun’ it would be…

Mind you, the way grown adults are so ignorant of hidden disabilities in here and their attitudes toward these kids, no wonder kids think hidden disabilities aren’t real. Disgusting

IMO it’s ‘offensive’ that you clearly have zero empathy for how a child of only 8 might feel.

Adhd is complex, OP. It probably isn't possible to explain it in a short post on MN.

It isn't quite as simple as being easily distracted and struggling to concentrate, though that is certainly a part of it. Sometimes, people with adhd can hyperfocus on certain tasks, and it can then be very difficult for them to break away and do something else. This might be why your dd believes that people with adhd can concentrate well sometimes...we can, we just can't switch it on and off at will.

Then there is the other stuff. The brain racing at a billion miles an hour and never stopping...it's utterly exhausting. Like little explosions going off from every angle and you feel compelled to turn round and look at each one. Some of us have a lot of nervous energy that fiddle toys can help with...imagine having ants in your pants all the time and never feeling calm or still, even when you're trying to go to sleep at night.

Then there is the task paralysis... the complete inability to get started on certain tasks, even really simple ones. I will sometimes sit and freeze rather than getting up and putting a cardigan on, or delay going to the toilet until I'm really desperate, because the effort that would be required just seems completely overwhelming.

ADHD impacts on so many aspects of my life, and it's awful. I mask really well most of the time, though, so most people have no idea that I even have it. I have a good job, a functional family, I volunteer in the community etc. Only those closest to me really know how incredibly negatively it affects me.

I've acknowledged that she is only 8 and still very teachable. And I didn't actually say that I found the OP's dd offensive in the slightest. I don't.

What I did suggest is that the OP might want to teach her dd that dismissing other people's struggles as non-existent and/or saying that you would like to be disabled because of any perceived privileges that disability might bring is quite offensive. An 8yo might not know that without being taught, of course... she is 8. But shouldn't parents be teaching their kids this kind of thing when it crops up?

Why shouldn’t all children be allowed one toy?

where I work, everyone was treated the same independent of diagnosis- the adjustments for many problems were just adjustments that anyone could make use of if it helped them work effectively. Dogs had to be official guide / care dogs because of the difficulty if you get many dogs in a small space but other adjustments were open to anyone

🤣🤣🤣

Tell me you’ve never taught a class of 30 children without telling me you’ve never taught a class of 30 children

I have different songs in my head everyday when I wake up. It’s not so much an earworm
as it just plays constantly. I get some weird and wonderful hit-Aleshas Attic when I forgot they existed. My husband says ‘you don’t like music)as I don’t tend to listen to much and I always skip to another tune. I have constant music and noise so I don’t need to externally provide it too.

If the adhd childen are allowed toys because it helps them you are implying they are then easier to teach and control yet other childen would not be ?

i can totally see how distracting it is for ALL the kids if one kid has a toy and is allowed to play with it in class.

also, in another thread: over diagnosis

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, sorry. Could you elaborate?

Don't think of it as a toy, it's a concentration aid. If it is helping the child then it's part of reasonable adjustment processes.

As for over diagnosis, there is no robust evidence in support of this but it is the current dog-whistle word for the type of people who think disability is a trend and disabled people should simply try harder.

To add to this great description, no sense of priority so every single one of those tabs is just as urgent and as pressing as all other tabs. It can be so overwhelming that competely freezing and doing absolutely nothing is the only option.

More distracting if like the child in my dd art class with adhd they self harm when can’t access a fidget toy. I know what’s the better option ! Dd and her friends (9) understand completely that it’s needed and they aren’t jealous ! Otherwise the poor boy punctures him self with pencils or they have to put the scissors away. There’s also a boy with diabetes who needs to have jelly beans sometimes for low blood sugar again they all know it’s not something to envy !

This is me. People tell me I can't possibly have ADHD because I never bloody do anything. But that's because I am completely paralysed by everything I need to do whirling around in my head, screaming for attention.