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Balancing School and Life

Last week, I told you about what’s been going on at our house. Recent events included theatre, usual homework, high expectations, and Lesley’s panic attack. One part of our solution has been to simplify Lesley’s routine and not allow her to be over scheduled.

This week, I’d like to fill you in on the role of Lesley’s ADHD medicine.

I don’t want to portray ADHD medicine as a necessary evil or the root of every health problem. I also don’t want to go to the other extreme and say the medicine was all we needed to fix ADHD. Neither extreme opinion is verifiable.

Interestingly enough, last week was parent/teacher conference week here, and Lesley gave a presentation on her goals and what she’s doing to meet them. She talked about challenges, and how she overcame them. Naturally, the issue of ADHD came up. In one of her reflections, she asked the question “Would I take ADHD medicine if I had to do it again?”

And her answer was a resounding “yes.”

Medicine to control ADHD tendencies is no panacea, but I’ve watched my daughter greatly improve in time management. Specifically, when she comes home from school, she’s already prioritized her tasks. Is this a habit or did the medicine give her the focus to form the habit?

Another area of improvement is her confidence in the classroom. She doesn’t hesitate to raise her hand and contribute to class discussions. She’s nervous for presentations, but she consistently does well with them. Her grades are very good, and she wants them to stay that way. Can I attribute her motivation to medicine or maturity or both?

That said, what are the concerns I have about my daughter taking the medicine?

By lunchtime, I can ascertain if Lesley’s taken her medicine or not. My insight isn’t all that complicated. If she eats half a sandwich and a couple carrot sticks, she remembered. If she has 2 sandwiches, popcorn, veggies with peanut butter and a cup of tea, she forgot. The medicine suppresses appetite, and that’s always been a concern for a growing willowy kid.

One of the worst feelings I have as Lesley’s mom is waking up in the morning and discovering her asleep with a reading light shining directly on her face. How could that possibly be restful? The medicine affects her sleep cycle, and the next morning brings a difficult wake up call.

Since the panic attack, we’ve added a new rule: lights out by 10 p.m. If she doesn’t have the discipline to get to bed before then, she can’t read in bed. It’s a boundary she seems content with.

Another concern we’ve had at our house – does ADHD meds make a kid a better or poorer performer on stage? It seems logical that a kid who’s naturally inclined to sit still and be quiet may not be the next star in the school play, and that’s okay. We all have our own gifts. Consequently medicine that helps a kid focus and be quiet may not be conducive for risk taking on stage.

A little compulsivity makes a great actor.

It’s possible that the medication itself played a role in Lesley’s panic attack, but it can’t be proven.

As I see it, here are my priorities:

1. Make sure my daughter eats and rests well and feels loved.

2. Simplify her life as much as I can so that she can meet the challenges of school and the school play.

3. Encourage her to be a bit impulsive and loud and willing to take risks on stage.

4. Go without or lessen the medicine until the play’s done.

On the weekend right after the attack, we took Lesley off the medicine completely. Her usual routine was to stop the medicine on one day of the entire week, not two. Although we didn’t feel we could afford to chuck the meds completely for the next couple weeks, we agreed that taking 18 mg instead of 36 mg was a reasonable solution. This decision wasn’t made without our doctor’s advice. During our last visit, he prescribed her medicine in 18 mg units because we had talked about her trying a lower dosage of her medicine. If Lesley has an intensely academic day and feels she needs 36 mg, she can take two 18 mg pills.

So far, the reduced dosage has worked. We’ve been running lines in the evenings and at lunchtime as the big performance inches closer. Homework has been manageable. She’s tired in the evenings and goes to bed at a reasonable time (just before 10 p.m.) Her appetite is more balanced.
On to the theatre!!

Here’s what I learned over the last couple weeks:

1. Be vigilant observing your child. Watch for signs of stress or over-involvement – interrupted sleep patterns or changes in appetite for example.
2. Keep talking about how the medicine makes him feel and how it helps his focus. The dosage that has worked for the past six months may not suit your growing child.

3. Keep lines of communication open with teachers and counselors and anyone else at your child’s school who’s a potential advocate. They may observe what you haven’t and vice versa.

4. Keep talking to your doctor. Adjusting medication levels isn’t a decision you make in a vacuum. Make notes of your concerns so that you don’t forget something important during your appointment.

Notebook Checks and ADHD

I’m not sure there is anything worse for our kids than the dreaded notebook check. In case you’re not familiar with them, brace yourselves. They’re headed your way. Many teachers, starting in Middle School but especially in High School, require kids to keep all papers associated with their class in an organized notebook. There are usually sections for warm-ups (the work kids do as they enter class), homework, tests and quizzes, classroom notes, and classwork.

At an announced – or un-announced – time, the children are supposed to show their neat and orderly file of papers to the teacher. For a grade.

Here are are some of the notebook check items on one of Joe’s quizzes:

1. In chapter 8 notes, what is the definition of a deletion?
2. On prefix (quiz) 11, what is the answer to number 7?
3. In page 180 homework, what is the answer to number 12?

Joe made a 40.

Years later, Ron’s Geometry teacher tells me she has never seen a notebook like the one my oldest child presented. Actually, he gave her two floppy binders full of papers. All kinds of papers. She laughed about it, and graciously helped him to sort out his mess, but she’s an exceptional teacher. Most teachers, and some parents (like me, I must admit) cannot understand the difficulty involved in finishing a paper, and immediately filing it. After many years of nagging, I realize that it just isn’t that easy.

So what is the answer? There’s not a perfect one, but here are some suggestions to help your child not feel checkmated by a notebook check.

SET UP ~ First off, a notebook should be organized correctly, and you’ll probably have to do this for your child. Don’t use a cheap 77 cent binder, which tend to have fatal gaps in the rings. Invest in a more expensive model; we prefer the thin, floppy folders. If a spiral notebook is also used in the class, I make sure they are the same color. Gray for Biology (dead things.) Green for Algebra (money).

Clear plastic page protectors are great for some sections – like the syllabus or a homework guide. (Make a copy of the syllabus for yourself the first day of class. Trust me on this…)

DIVISION ~ Inside the notebook, I put heavy duty section binders, labeled as the teacher requires. I also add a pocket folder, which is useful for when I say “This is your homework for tomorrow that you’ve worked on for two hours. DON’T forget to turn it in!” It’s ideal for homework worksheets and notes to come home in this folder, but we have to be realistic. In my house it rarely happens.

PRE-LABELING ~ Sometimes it helps to pre-label the pages in your child’s notebook. In the warm-up section, for example, put in a stack of dated pages – one for each warm-up. Or, if the assignments are numbered, go ahead and put numbers on the pages. (If you can convince your teacher to let you use a different color paper in each section, you’re even better off.)

EXEMPTION ~ Quite frankly, I think the best solution is to exempt some children from the notebook check ordeal, whether through a teacher’s kindness, an IEP or a 504. Learning to file isn’t really that inherent to learning. Of course, thousands of teachers across America vehemently disagree with me.

DOING IT FOR THEM ~ Each day, go through your kid’s bookbag and notebooks (and schoolbooks and pants pockets) and file everything where it belongs. It takes about 10 minutes per day, but saves hours of frustration. I email teachers for a list of items they expect in the notebook. Some teachers post assignments on websites, others post them in the classroom. All of these can help your child to at least get a passing notebook check grade.

BUDDY SYSTEM ~ Drew’s mother told me of her son’s distress before a scheduled notebook check, and I encouraged her to contact the teacher. The teacher’s response was to allow the entire class time to work together to assemble their notebooks. Working with a partner saved Drew’s skin. If your child’s teacher doesn’t give this option, try to find another child in the class that will help your child.

GIVING NOTICE ~ If your child’s teacher is the random check kind, appeal to him to let you know a day or so before the check takes place.

Probably the most difficult thing about notebook checks is that ordinarily, the maintenance takes place at the beginning and the end of class. These are the noisiest, busiest, most distracting times of the class period. Add a double dose of inattentiveness and you have to understand Joe’s heartfelt lament. “Mom, you don’t understand, it just isn’t that easy.”

It’s not easy, and we’ve failed a few, passed a few, and (wonder of wonders) gotten A’s on a very few. But with a lot of assistance and even more patience, life will not end with the notebook check. But high school will, and when the kids get big, they can hire a secretary to do their filing!

ADHD Medicine Melodrama

I would like to tell you that medicines to correct ADHD-Inattentive are great, and that once our daughter started meds that she immediately began feeling focused, organized, confident, and successful. Yet if that’s all I told you, it wouldn’t be the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Although Lesley was initially diagnosed in fourth grade, we survived without medicine until she was in sixth grade. Because Lesley’s my third child and not the first, I wasn’t overly concerned. I just knew that she would outgrow her ADHD tendencies soon enough. Unfortunately, the outgrowing didn’t happen by sixth grade, and it was obvious that the next step would be prescribed medication.

At this point in her budding middle school career, Lesley’s self-esteem was lagging. She felt stupid, she felt embarrassed and she hated school. A new 6-day schedule added to the confusion. Lesley often went to school without required assignments, not because she didn’t do it but because she didn’t realize that she would have that particular class that day.

After consulting our doctor, we were given a prescription for Lesley. The results at our house were almost immediate. She could focus. She could finish her homework without being nagged. Her grades improved drastically.

Yet it wasn’t all good. She wasn’t sleeping well. She wasn’t eating well, and she was already a tall, lanky kid. Bedtime went as late as midnight, and her classes would start by 7:30 a.m. She might eat a half sandwich at lunch and a couple carrot sticks.

Although she started her menstrual period in the summer after 7th grade, once she started the medication in the fall, she didn’t have another period until she stopped the medicine for summer. Was it related to the medicine? Or was it related to the fact that she was in the 19th percentile for her weight?

Her doctor wanted her to gain 10 pounds. I felt she was as likely to flap her wings and fly to the moon. When she was off the medicine on the weekend, she would eat everything in sight – and being a teenager with a fast metabolism, she didn’t gain weight. Even after being off the medicine for the entire summer, she grew an inch and gained exactly one pound. One pound!

I don’t have a tidy ending for this because we’re still living this one! We’re experimenting with cutting her medicine in half to see if that’s strong enough to keep her focused yet weak enough to not affect her appetite.
She likes to choose certain school days and not take her medicine. When she knows the material, she has no problem taking a test without taking the medicine. The days that she really wants to have a full dose is when she knows new material will be covered in the classroom.

So far, this is what I’m learning about these medicines:

1) The same medicine may not always work the same way for Lesley. Talk to your doctor about making changes to the prescription medicine or simply to the dosage of the medicine.

2) It’s best for us, at least one day a week, to make sure we have a medicine-free day. Note that this will NOT work for all meds; Straterra and SRI’s must be taken consistently. Consult your doctor!
3) I need to become familiar with the possible side effects of the meds Lesley was on – things the doctor didn’t tell me or that I didn’t process when he told me.
4) A journal of how the medicine affects Lesley has been invaluable. When you have a doctor’s appointment, it’s very helpful to pinpoint what happened when.
5) Meds are only one tool in the arsenal that has helped Lesley.

There’s more to this story – that I’ll mention next week.

Timing’s Everything for an ADHD Child

Kayla may have shared with you about how she almost kept Mike out of kindergarten for a year to let him start a year later. She and I have been discussing this issue lately because many kids (ADHD or not) benefit from maturing a bit before they start their school careers. What Mike ended up doing was taking a gap year after his first year of college. It looks like Kayla’s instincts about holding him back a year were accurate – he just ended up taking the time a little later than anticipated.

We have our own timing story. When Lesley was 4, she started kindergarten in Maryland. It wasn’t my original intention, but it happened due to a series of events involving an almost-move to California – and eventually moving right back into the same house we left. While our furniture was trucked across the country and back, our family camped in West Virginia and North Carolina. Meanwhile, the pre-school that Lesley had attended for the past year filled up, and there was a long waiting list.

We couldn’t afford a different pre-school, so kindergarten seemed logical. At that time in our neighborhood, a child had to be 5 by the end of the year, so Lesley was within their rules to attend. (Interestingly enough, that school district changed their kindergarten age requirements rule to an earlier deadline a couple years later.)

Lesley handled kindergarten okay. In the middle of her first grade year, our family moved overseas to an American community in the Middle East with different age requirements. After a bit of testing, the first grade and kindergarten teachers decided that Lesley belonged in kindergarten instead of first grade. I was grateful that Lesley was in a new community with a fresh slate. No one had to know that she’d already done a year of kindergarten and half a year of first grade.

When I consider Lesley’s circumstances and her somewhat delayed diagnosis of ADHD, I shudder to think how much worse her situation could’ve been without the extra time. I believe that she would have struggled to catch up with the others in her grade (who would’ve mostly been older than she.)

In the past few years, gap years for students are more widely accepted in the United States. A senior in high school can apply to college, and once accepted, can choose to defer enrollment to the following year. Gap years can be used for travel, volunteer work, or just plain work. Given the economy, some students need that time to help the family save for soaring university costs. From the contact I’ve had with college students who chose a gap year, I believe they’ve benefited greatly. I love to hear their success stories.

One of my son’s classmates at the University of Hawaii stayed in California after he graduated from high school and worked various part-time jobs to save for tuition. By the time he started school, he had not only been disciplined to save, he had learned valuable job skills. One of his jobs was making balloon animals for children visiting Disneyland, and that experience inspired him to have business cards printed up to offer his services for birthday parties and other functions in Honolulu. It sounds like a perfect part-time and weekend job.

Other students may choose to volunteer in a third world country – talk about a life-changing experience! Check out this link for gap year opportunities: GapYear.com

Although gap years may not be for everyone, many kids gain perspective that only travel, work and time can provide.

Do you have a timing story – gap years, repeating a grade, or holding a child back (redshirting)? If so, tell us about it in the comments below!

Three Tips For Managing Homework Headaches

After the post about Ron and his college homework, you’re probably ready for some positive hints on homework…and thanks to Alana Morales – here they are: Three Tips For Managing Homework Headaches!

In my neck of the woods (or desert, as it is), we are gearing up for the second quarter of school. This semester, I have experienced teacher battles, homework nightmares and medication debacles. All in all, a pretty normal school year for an ADHD family, wouldn’t you say?

One of the things that I have found myself doing is reevaluating my homework processes and making changes based on the day, the subject and the kids. A large part of the homework battle with ADHD kiddos is getting the homework home and then back to school. Part of this is finding out if they even have homework. As frustrating as this is, it is an essential skill to work on, because without the homework, there can be no grades. Here are some strategies that you can employ to make sure the homework makes it home:

1. From School To Home. – Use some sort of daily agenda. Have your student write down their class agenda and homework daily and if they have trouble doing this, ask the teacher to check it and initial off on it every day before your student leaves school. If they are having additional trouble with this step, ask the teacher if you can show up and write down the assignments for a few days or once a week and continue this until your student gets on track. (Kayla’s note: Check out the PAC-kit for this!)

– Make a homework folder. Sometimes homework gets lost in what I like to refer to as “The Abyss.” You may also know it by it’s more common name – the backpack. If your student has some organizational issues, make them a homework folder. Then, ANY work that is to come home can be put in this folder. My recommendation is to make the folder as difficult as possible to lose – make it a bright color or even a character folder. And plan on having several backups for the inevitable time it gets lost, ripped or otherwise unusable.

– Pick a study buddy. This is a person in the class who is responsible and can be called on the phone if your student ever misses an assignment or has a question about an activity.

2. At Home. – Make sure you have a designated homework area with supplies. After battling over spelling words or math problems, the last thing you want to do is have a kid lose their motivation just because you lack the proper materials.

– Schedule breaks. It’s tough to stay on task after trying to stay on task all day. Set a timer and let your kiddo take a break every time it goes off, provided they are working effectively while it is ticking away.

– Offer incentives. Offer some incentive based on their homework performance. Give Nerds, Smarties, or Sweet Tarts for each math problem completed or spelling word written correctly. It really helps with the immediate gratification issue.

3. Getting the Homework Back To School. Yes, kids need to be responsible, but let’s face it, our little darlings need a little more support in these areas.

– Make sure when an assignment is done, it immediately goes into the homework folder. Not on the table. Not on top of the backpack. In the folder. Trust me on this one.

– Use the agenda. Ask the teacher to sign the agenda to show that the nightly homework was turned in. It may seem like a lot of checks and balances, but until ADHD kids can use these skills consistently, it’s a good idea to make it as difficult as possible for them to forget.

Using these tips may seem like a lot of work and they are. But, in the end, if your student is able to get better grades, be less frustrated and build more self confidence, isn’t that worth the extra work?

———-Alana Morales is the author of Domestically Challenged: A Working Mom’s Survival Guide to Becoming a Stay at Home Mom. You can follow her on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/alanamorales for mom and ADHD tips.

PS If you’ve not read Waking Up from the Homework Nightmare, you really owe it to yourself to grab a copy before your next homework nightmare begins!

A Homework Nightmare

Last week in the newsletter, I mentioned that all of our kids had come home for the weekend – Ron with college homework in tow. While he was taking a break, I read him an article I wrote back when he was in the tenth grade. Read, it, multiply it by four, and you’ll understand why I’m able to write stuff like Waking Up from the Homework Nightmare and Focus Pocus!

“Did you wash jeans? My Algebra assignments were in my pocket.”

Sure enough, crumpled up in the trash was a freshly laundered yellow sticky note, with penciled assignments too faded to read. So he pored through the Algebra II text, hoping for clues. No luck. My suggestions to call a friend were rebuffed, but finally, he gave in.

He asked if I had Ryan’s number, then went leafing through the phonebook to find it. He needed her dad’s name, which I supplied, but she wasn’t home. So he went through three more absentee friends. He even called his youth pastor for another friend’s number. Nothing. An hour had passed in vain. “Change subjects. Do something else.” His Physical Science assignment was on a piece of paper in his Geometry book, which he couldn’t find. I had seen it in the car, and sure enough, it was there, soaked through, lying in a puddle of water that had leaked from another brother’s water bottle. The assignment still wasn’t to be found.

An hour and a half are now lost. “Go clean your room. You can call your friends later tonight.” So he goes upstairs, only to be distracted by an errant yellow jacket. He comes back down, insisting he shouldn’t be upstairs cleaning. After I warn him that my sting is more lethal than that of any bee, he comes back to get a flyswatter, but wastes more minutes describing the insect to me.

After much banging about, the insect is dead. It’s not a yellow jacket, but a large hornet. He proudly shows the creature to me, then threatens his brothers with it. After talking to the bird (the one who can burp), he heads back upstairs to work. His room, to his credit, gets done.

But he doesn’t mention he has any homework besides the mystery assignments. Since I don’t know he has more to do, he somehow figures he doesn’t have to complete it until Sunday.

So, Sunday afternoon rolls around. I have a meeting at 2:30, so after church we go out to eat, then the rest of the family waits for me. Of course, the homework is left at home. After I remind him, and then insist, he calls his friends to get his assignments. His friends are still gone. (I’ll bet their homework was finished.)

At home, he finally makes contact with one friend, who gives him the Algebra homework. He also discovers that at some point he has lost his Geometry sheet, which is makeup for work he should have completed last week, and work he could have done on Saturday.

So I pore through his bookbag, and discover Latin papers wadded up in the History notebook, which is also full of Geometry notes. I’m overwhelmed by the disorganization. I discover a sheet that lists Tuesday as the due date for his Geometry notebook check, although he insists his teacher says it is due Thursday. I also go through all the drawers in his room. While he finishes his Algebra, I sort all his papers into subjects. I haven’t helped him all year, so I feel like I can help him in this without being an enabler.

It is now 11:30 pm on Sunday night. His Algebra is finished, almost. He has lost …..Oh, my gosh. I couldn’t have timed this better. As I am typing the above paragraph, he walks in. “Hey mom, you know that Geometry worksheet?” He doesn’t mention that it’s the one I just spent two hours looking for. “The reason I couldn’t find it was that it wasn’t a worksheet. It was a problem in the book. Can you come help me with it?”

So what do you think? Should I boil him in oil or feed him to the sharks?

PS If this story sounds WAY too familiar – sort of like a nightmare – then you need to read Waking Up from the Homework Nightmare. It’s our story of how the madness ended – and we woke up!

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