To think son’s school should be making special allowances for his ADHD

[charl87x]

My son has ADHD and takes medication. He only has it on school days to help with his concentration. Some days he doesn’t want to take it so he doesn’t. On the days he doesn’t take it, it reflects on his school work, especially his hand writing. Twice he has had his pen license taken away, and this is on the days he hasn’t had his medication. I try to convince him to take his medication but he just refuses on some days. He’s still coming to terms with having ADHD, and although he knows the medication helps, still refuses some days. Am i wrong to be annoyed that he is having his pen license taken away? It just seems to me they are making no special allowances for his ADHD. He came home from
school on Friday really disheartened about it. What i find worse is his teacher is the school SENCO. I would have thought she had more understanding of his needs. Should i complain about this? I dont want him to think having ADHD allows him to get away with things but also think slight allowances should be made.

Hey give her a break. She's tried absolutely nothing and she's all out of ideas. Seriously, who's in charge here? Because it's not the mother.

This. My son is dysgraphic and when he was in juniors would resist using a keyboard but then his output was low & unreadable. We dealt with it nicely at first and then got tougher with him and laid down the law. I think one can pussyfoot round all of this - not down to the school to police his meds it’s down to you.

Why are you allowing a year 4 child a choice in whether he takes his medication or not?

I genuinely can't believe a young child is being given a choice over whether he takes his medication or not. My DS is 12 and it's never been optional for him.

I think he sounds very self aware in choosing not to take his medication. I would be tempted to tell him that on the days he doesn’t take his medication he will need to use a pencil and not wait for his license to be taken away. Let him come to terms with that rather than be upset about the loss of the license on a particular day.

Then this is something you need to work on because his diagnosis is not going to change. You need to be making sure he isn’t ashamed of his condition, that he understands that everyone’s brain works differently and that while his brain makes it harder for him to do some things unless he has had his medication, he can mitigate this by taking the medication to deal with times when it is important that he needs to be focussed eg school. At other times he probably can leave off the medication and let his creativity and ability to make different connections with the world be at the forefront.

How many SEN children do you have?

I think he does need to see that there's a

This. You need to explain to your son that his medication is no different to being prescribed glasses for reading. Without glasses a person will not be able to see properly and therefore do well at school. It doesn’t mean they are deficient, disabled, or less than. Glasses are prescribed to help them managed their short-sightedness, along with strategies such as changing font sizes, using audio texts etc.

Medication for ADHD is the same. It doesn’t imply a value judgment, it is not prescribed to take away their ADHD, it is prescribed to help them manage the inconvenience of the symptoms of their form of ADHD until, or in conjunction with, their finding other management strategies such as using stimming toys etc.

I’m interested in why he doesn’t like taking his medicine - does it make him feel less like himself? Maybe a doctor could explain the benefits to him in more detail so he appreciates he’s lucky to be getting it instead of seeing it as a burden?

It’s a simple thing to explain to him that the school has the right to make the rules around whether he gets his pen licence and he needs to respect this (it’s not helping him long term to be treated as though he’s a special case).

Clearly none! Both my kids are ASD/ADHD and neither have ever been a disruptive force in school. In fact, both are often referred to as ‘perfect’ students.

Comments like the one you replied to sadden me because it shows just how little understanding there is even today of the range of issues, difficulties, presentations of ND conditions.

How could the child's occasional poor handwriting possibly be affecting anyone else?

You're assuming he's disruptive purely on the basis of him having adhd, which is ableist.

Something sounds very strange about this, with ADHD seemingly a BIG DEAL in your household, as that’s how your child is reacting.

I have one with ADHD (and many other letters😁). It was never a big deal. It was explained, some people have blonde hair, some people have brown hair, some people have blue eyes, some people have brown eyes, some people have ADHD, some people don’t, some people have glasses, some people don’t, sone people are tall, some people are short, some are boys, some are girls. It’s really no more complex than that. If you approach it that way from the outset, it’s no different in their minds to having brown hair or blue eyes, or being a boy/girl just another standard difference between people in a really long list.

Same with medication. Doesn’t make you ‘special’. It doesn’t make you ‘different’. Most people need medication for something these days. I’ve always taken meds, DH always took meds, I’ve got another child that started on their first meds at 3 days old. In fact, not taking meds pretty much makes you the odd one out these days😁. Again, if you make it all a BIG DEAL, this is the sort of reaction you are going to get. Sitting down to watch wanky videos is only going to reinforce that it’s a BIG DEAL.

Mine loves their meds. Just as well as no way they’d be living here if they didn’t take them, utter nightmare, and it wasn’t just them, they lived in a household including siblings so there would not have been a ‘sure, don’t take them, and we’ll all suffer’ approach, that’s not fair to the others. When they were older - mid teens- they got their first pair of glasses and then were finally able to explain the meds, they said it was just like glasses but for their brain, and like the glasses made their eyes see clearly, the meds made their brain think clearly.

Insisting a child with adhd must be medicated is lazy. It means the child is being forced to take medication he doesn't want to take, in order to make himself appear more neurotypical and therefore more acceptable to the people around him.

The onus should be on society learning to accept people who are different, not medicating children so they can fit in.

Children with sen aren't animals.

What do you suggest she should do? Pin him down and force it down his throat?

OP has said he is fidgety.

As the parent of a child with ADHD who is fidgety when not medicated it is intensely annoying to be around.

DD's friends don't like to sit next to her in class when she's forgotten her meds. I don't like to sit next to her on the sofa at home as it drives me insane and I'm her mother and love her unconditionally.

DD has never been "disruptive", but there are consequences - we couldn't get her meds last month and there were 4 days without them. I had emails from teachers asking what had happened as she appeared to have lost all interest in their subject and was very unfocused.

That was time out of their day to contact me, time out of their day worrying about her. Not disruptive bouncing off the walls, but still disruptive to the normal order of things.

There is no such thing as NT. No typical brain exists.

And good luck with that.

Go for it if you want to make your life unnecessarily difficult.

Or maybe turn it on its head.

People with ND need to learn to accept that NT people are different and won't put up with their quirks just as much as NT people need to learn to put up with ND traits.

England - not the UK.

That's basically the same as "everyone's a little bit adhd" isn't it?

Which is patently nonsense.

Obviously some people are neurotypical, otherwise neurodivergent people wouldn't exist, and denying the existence and experience of disabled people is also ableist.

It's like ableist whack a mole in here.

All you can do is talk to him about how/if he thinks his medication affects him. Does he like being able to concentrate, write more neatly, not being told off for fidgeting? If he doesn't want his friends to know he has ADHD (although there is nothing shameful about it) what can he do to achieve that? Hopefully he decides the advantages of taking his medication are worth it, or he accepts the consequences of not taking it (hard lessons to learn at 9).

It depends on the NT person really doesn't it? Some people do "put up with" ND people and actually love and care about them, quirks and all. I'm sorry for you that you can't relate to that.