504 plan for ADHD

Book Review: Getting Schooled: 102 Practical Tips for Parents, Teachers, Counselors and Students about Living and Learning with ADHD

getting schooled So often books about ADHD are just full of fluffy, pie in the sky suggestions that remind me of an episode of The Brady Bunch – all conflicts can be easily solved in 30 minutes. Parents and educators aren’t given any practical solutions.

The book Getting Schooled: 102 Practical Tips for Parents, Teachers, Counselors and Students about Living and Learning with ADHD, isn’t like that. Written by Margrit Crane, it’s a down to earth, you can do this today sort of guide that is easy to read and absolutely do-able.

Quotes from the book:

• Parent’s section: “In this metaphor, the child is the CEO, and you are the executive assistant.” (I’d love to think the author had read my Sabrina analogy!)

• Teacher’s section: “self-advocating – a buzz word in education today – is very difficult for people with ADHD.”

• Counselor’s section: “Long projects need to be broken down…teachers need to be in charge of this.”

• Student’s section: “Your parents or teachers may tell you that you spend too much time texting. Do you know how you can tell if this is true? Three ways…”

Note that there is a section for counselors, the ones who help write the 504/IEP’s. That’s unusual, and it’s particularly helpful. One piece of advice to counselors is that they make sure they pick the brains of teachers and parents of ADHD children.

Getting Schooled is available in hard copy and for Kindle at Amazon. As of the publication, it’s available for free through Amazon Unlimited. I highly recommend that you grab your copy today!

Getting Schooled: 102 Practical Tips for Parents, Teachers, Counselors and Students about Living and Learning with ADHD

High School and ADHD Meds: Our Story

The high school secretary and I had a special friendship. If Joe or I discovered that he had forgotten to take his Strattera, he could go to the office and she would give him the missed dose. Over several months, it became increasingly obvious that Joe wasn’t taking his meds, and it wasn’t because he forgot. He didn’t want to.

So why didn’t he want the medication? The bottom line was that they made him feel ‘weird’. We’d tried several types, combinations, dosages, and they would work for a while, but Joe felt that they all altered the way he felt. They altered his personality, his appetite, and he hated the whole hassle. Yes, we could have forced him to keep taking them. But we didn’t.

My husband and I discussed this at length, and realized that the moment that Joe left home, he was going to quit taking ADHD meds. At that point, although we did have a 504 in place, we were really leaning heavily on the medicine to help Joe focus.

For us – and that’s just for us – we decided that we would take him off the medication totally, and try to teach him to focus and pay attention and remember his homework and track shoes and bus stop without the help of anything else. Our rationale was that if he wasn’t going to continue to take medication, we were doing him a disservice by not teaching him to manage his symptoms in other ways.

As a side note, we had already gone through the same thing with Ron, but Ron’s ADHD symptoms weren’t so pronounced. And interestingly enough, Ron went back on medication in college. So did Mike, for that matter.

In any event, our last years in high school for all the boys were spent without the tool of medication. (And that’s when I finally wrote Focus, Pocus.) Is that right for you? Only you can decide.

Be SuperParent for Your Child’s School

Sometimes parents can champion a cause that helps the school and earns them superhero status. ..using parental muscle. Step into the phone booth, and I’ll tell you the story.

At the beginning of the school year, one of our readers was concerned that the school wasn’t providing Occupational Therapy for her daughter as was written into her IEP. They asked the teacher about it, and discovered the problem – the district hadn’t hired a OT for the school. The school was every bit as concerned about it as the parents.

Tugging on Superman’s Cape. So at the fall IEP meeting, the parents used their legal leverage as parents to bring pressure onto the representatives from the central office to make the hire. “You do realize that this is in the IEP. It is legally mandated that Sally have this therapy. It’s not an option.”

Up, Up, and Away! Although no threat was made, the phrase ‘legally mandated’ meant that the battle was already won. The school district knew that it truly had no choice but to provide the OT that was needed. And…the Occupational Therapist was indeed hired – a huge win for all the children involved as well as the school.

My Hero. An additional win was that the parent/school alliance was strengthened. The parents did the nagging; they were the bad guy. This was one less thing that the school had to fight central office for. They were grateful that someone else fought this battle for them.

As the parents and the school worked as a team – as allies – to get what was needed for the child, it set the stage for better in-school teamwork later on.

Makes for a good movie plot, too – don’t you think?

Prepping for a 504 Review

It’s that time of year again. The weather’s heating up, and the end of the school year is in sight. For many schools, this is the time when the 504* or IEP is up for review. Seemingly obvious questions like “What worked?” and “What didn’t work?” need to be answered.

As a parent, it helps to have an arsenal of new ideas to try. New accommodations or modifications don’t have to be complicated. Here are some ideas that may jumpstart your child’s productivity and your own creativity:

Home to school:

1. Keep one copy of textbooks at home.
2. Mandate that the school use a homework planner – or the school website if that’s in use at your school.
3. Build in a weekly communication between each teacher and you. Email is probably easier for each of you.

In School:

1. Seat the student at the front of the class. In the front row, fewer distractions come between a student’s line of vision and the black board.
2. Give priority access to after-school tutoring sessions or learning programs.
3. Allow different tools to accomplish goals. For example, if copying the assignment from the blackboard is tedious, take a picture instead. (Many cell phones have camera apps.) If note taking is a challenge, tape the lecture, or use the Livescribe Smartpen
4. Have tests administered orally.
5. Allow typewritten assignments.
6. Cue a child to stay on task (This could be as simple as making eye contact. )
7. Limit a student’s copying assignments from the board.
8. Monitor student’s homework planner.
9. Allow exemption from notebook checks.
10. Assign an individual to daily help with organization.
11. Provide copies of homework assignments and notes.

Of course, our favorite list of resources is Focus Pocus – 100 Ways to Help Your Child Pay Attention. Take your copy to your 504 or IEP meeting. And if you and your child’s teachers have something we’ve left out – let us know! We’d love to hear from you.

*504 – what’s that? Before I had children, I thought 504 referred to a type of button-fly jeans. It wasn’t until Leslie was in 6th grade that I learned that a 504 refers to a law mandating that children with disabilities receive “accommodations” to help them learn, even if they don’t qualify for special education.

The 504 is for children with physical – non-learning disability disorders like ADHD, physical impairments, chronic illnesses such as asthma and sometimes for temporary conditions like broken limbs. To qualify, a student must have “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities…caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and working.”*

*See Eric Digest

What We Did Wrong…the Tip of the Iceburg

After I posted ADHD – What We Did Right yesterday, it showed up on my Facebook page. I got the most glowing comments – all of which would have gone to my head had I not know that – today was coming. So here it is…my tip of the iceburg list of all the things that I did WRONG.

Trust me, this post would be way too long if I listed them all. Yelling, inconsistency, throwing a tomato (yes I did), not taking supplements, talking about it too much…Sigh. I’ll depress myself if I think about it. So here are three of our TOP mistakes.

Not Learning Together – Since at some point Ron did assume responsibility for his schoolwork, we took a pretty hands off approach to his education all through high school. My big regret, however, is that I didn’t keep up with what he was studying. (Maybe because I was too busy with the other boys…) I know that there were times he could have learned more if we had discussed what he was reading, or related what he learned in science or history to what we saw on the news. He has struggles now because he doesn’t know how to do things I could have taught him. I must add, however, that he resisted our every attempt to help. But that doesn’t keep me from feeling guilty about it…

Not Reading Aloud – If I had it to do over again, I’d read textbook chapters out loud to my boys. Not only does this help to ensure the material is read, it helps to gauge attention and understanding. Reading aloud also gives a chance to model how to preview and review. It offers opportunity to relate what is being read to experiences and knowledge unique to your family or child. When your child doesn’t understand a concept, reading aloud gives you the chance to rephrase and explain until the idea is mastered. And (see above!) it helps you to be aware of what your child is studying.

Not Getting 504’s Joe had a 504. Ron and Mike did not. We tried to get them one in high school, but the process was so complicated by then that we didn’t. Since we had great support from teachers, it didn’t change much. But it would have been nice if they would have had extra time on state tests, an accommodation they may have been allowed. In hindsight, we should have asked that they be given 504’s as soon as they were diagnosed. Our rationale then was that we wanted to avoid the label. In hindsight, it was a mistake. Read more about 504 plans.

And now we’re here. Our journey with ADHD is not finished. Our boys didn’t outgrow it, and will always have it. Then (hopefully!!) they’ll have their own children, and odds are that we’ll revisit the same path. Ten years in, I’m grateful for the help I’ve had along the way, the friends I’ve made.

I’m grateful to and humbled by you, the readers, for sticking with me through my ramblings and ranting, my hope and my despair. Thank you for sharing your stories, trading your hints, understanding each other’s frustrations.

And now – for all of us – here’s to the next ten!

PS Go back to yesterday’s post, scroll down to the comments and tell what you did right!

Modification for Classwork – Helping Kids Stay Focused

$third grade math adhd$ “With math homework we modify doing odds or evens if there are more than 10 questions. Also we just implemented a “dot” system. When she is doing classwork, she has to check in after doing X amount of problems and if she stays on track and finishes it in class she gets Dots. This encourages her to keep focused and helps the teacher know when she is struggling and needs help. The Dots are then sent home for us to use on assignments. We then use the dot’s on homework. One dot for one question she doesn’t have to do. For example, if she has ten math questions, but earns five Dots in class, she only has five problems to do.”

Even without the Dot rewards, this is a great system. For many children, the dots themselves are reward enough. Another good idea for this is to mark the intervals on the paper. If, for example, five questions are a Dot set, put a highlighted mark after question number five. The mark makes a goal, and reaching that goal gives a sense of accomplishment.