Make Your Child Smarter

Helping the Student with ADHD in the Classroom

Q: I have a a 6 year old son who has just been said to have ADHD. They have offered to give him medication to help him focus more in school, but I refuse to give these pills to him. He is academically doing very well in school and has no problem with math, reading or any other subject. The only problem the teacher has is that he does not listen or focus and if he does will repeat the same mistake again later. He disrupts the class and won't sit still in his chair for a long period of time.

Please help as I am very worried about him ....

A: I cannot make any specific recommendations regarding medication, but here are some quick fixes to try to address the teacher's complaints.

1) Before school give him a chance to run around outside. Usually a child will be happy to have this time and you can use it as an incentive to get him out of the house during that difficult morning time. For example, you can say, "If we get out of the house early we can go outside and race for 20 minutes."

2) Limit screen time to no more than 2 hours a day. This means both TV, computer and games.

3) Ask your teacher to make an accommodation for his need to physically move. In one case a teacher let a child walk out of the classroom when he got too hyper and return in a few minutes and the child was able to settle down without disrupting the class. Consider as many possible creative solutions for allowing your child to honor his need for physical movement without disrupting the class.

4) remember that nature is medicine and activity is medicine. Work with the teacher to make sure he gets healthy doses of each throughout the day and ensure that recess is never taken away as punishment for poor behavior.

5) These small changes should yield some improvement, I have written two books that address the matter more in depth, The Gift of ADHD and The Gift of ADHD Activity Book: 101 Activities for Transforming problems into strengths.

I hope this help. Best wishes.

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