Alternatives to Time Out in School-ADHD

[pearpickingporky84]

DS is almost 8 and has ADHD. One of his schools main punishments for bad behaviour is giving time out at break and/or lunch the following day. This causes DS problems for two reasons, one is that he dreads the time out from the day before and often loses sleep over it.
The second problem is that time out of the classroom to move and run around is important for him to manage his ADHD symptoms, if he has a time out there is often a knock in effect where he is more impulsive and hyperactive for the rest of the day (potentially leading to more time outs..).
Does anyone have experience of or ideas for alternative ADHD friendly sanctions as the current strategy seems counterproductive.

Hi, I struggle with this as well...
instead I have asked that my son could be asked to do a job with the caretaker or in the dining hall (the school doesnt do this though)

• we have a behaviour book that is linked to rewards and consequences
• i know in some schools, students are asked to take their shoes off until they are ready to behave again (somehow i dont like that idea)

Sorry i cant help more... it is such a difficult question...

We've had this problem in the past, luckily our DS's teacher understood the need for him to have his breaks so tend now not to do this.

Our DS's school are now more proactive with him, when they can see he's struggling they'll give him movement breaks (handing out books, taking things to other classrooms etc..) he's given colouring to do in the afternoon when he finds its most difficult, this keeps him seated in class when they are listening to teacher, being read to etc. They'll also do whole class activities that benefit all the children not just him. Star jumps, running in the spot, theraband stretches etc

The biggest issue we had was with incidents at playtime, our DS was reactive rather than seeking help from the teacher. He had an amazing teacher last year, she spent lots of time encouraging him to find her (one point of contact) if something happened so that she could help understand and resolve it with him. It took a while but now works brilliantly and he now knows who to find before things escalate.

I'd be speaking with them, explaining how important it is for your child not to be missing breaks and asking them what strategies they are using to help prevent it happening in the first place. Good luck!

tostaky- thank-you. That’s interesting DH had suggested giving him a job to do as at least he would still be active but I wasn’t sure how school would react to the suggestion. Being allowed to take your shoes off is actually a reward that DS’s class can choose for good behaviour
Thank-you SleepyPaws. School have definitely been helpful with movement breaks etc and are a lot better about preventing things than they were a couple of years ago when time outs were constant (but he didn’t have his diagnosis). He’s had far fewer time outs so far this year but unfortunately had a couple in the last few weeks, I think mostly due to school wanting to be seen as tough on certain behaviours that are a problem in his class, and I don’t want it to become a viscous circle of time outs leading to more time outs for ‘bad’ behaviour!
I will definitely approach school about it, I just wanted to have alternatives to suggest rather than going in only negatives!