7.4 C ATEGORIES DISCLOSING THE CHARACTERISTICS OF BEING THE PARENT OF AN
7.4.3 ADHD and the school experience
7.4.3.6 Beliefs about school personnel
7.4.3.6 Beliefs about school personnel
wasn’t a problem when she started school. She was never disruptive or restless in class. However, Tina “wasn’t actually concentrating” and would spend her time in class “doing her own thing” – drawing, writing song lyrics or poetry. Angela believes Tina could get away with not concentrating because she is “very intelligent”.
“So, on the one hand, I didn’t have complaints from the school, but her problem remained untreated because she wasn’t a problem in class. She was likely just ignored by the teachers because she wasn’t a troublemaker.”
Angela feels “that something should have been picked up by the teacher when she was in their class every day”. Tina was only diagnosed as having ADHD at the age of 14. Barkley (1998) tells us that in a sizable minority of cases the child may have had their ADHD characteristics for some time, but they did not interfere with their academic or social functioning until later childhood. The latter seems to occur with very bright or gifted ADHD children whose superior intellect appears to allow them to pass through the early grades of school without difficulty, because they do not need to apply much effort to be successful.
Teachers also don’t understand the lack of organisation skills that these children have, and do not realise it is something they need help with throughout their school career. Carrie feels that teachers make no allowances for ADHD children and “do not take into consideration the disorganisation and distractibility of these kids”.
Teacher’s knowledge about medication is also very limited. Some teachers discourage its use because of this. When Luke went to high school, his grade tutor said to Carrie that, “under no circumstances should a boy in puberty be on Ritalin”.
Teachers can also be careless with the medication and parents don’t always feel they can be trusted to administer medication. When Conor was put on Ritalin, Brenda made an appointment to see his teacher. The first reaction from the teacher was: “You know Ritalin is bad.” Brenda also disliked the teacher’s careless attitude about Ritalin tablets: “You can pop them in his bag.” Brenda takes it very seriously that Ritalin is a scheduled drug and believes the teacher should be locking the tablets in a cupboard. Conor also ended up with tablets left over, which tells her “he wasn’t given them.” Michelle doesn’t trust the teachers to give her children their medication:
“they either forget or they give it too late”.
Teachers who do have sufficient knowledge about ADHD are appreciated. Mia hails Lynn’s Grade 2 teacher as “a fantastic lady”. This teacher is “educated more in the remedial side”. It was this teacher who asked if Lynn had ever been tested for ADHD, and the same teacher who persuaded Dave to consider Ritalin for Lynn. After the fight to get Cathy on Ritalin, her first trial of the drug took place at the end of her Grade 4 year. It didn’t “work well” though with an anti-Ritalin teacher. In Grade 5 Cathy was placed with another teacher, who is a remedial teacher who “understood ADHD; understood why we need to go on Ritalin”. Cathy went on Ritalin in her first term of Grade 5 and since then she’s been on a B-average.
Teacher characteristics
A number of participants discussed their perceptions of the teacher characteristics that significantly impact their child’s school success. Linda was advised by the educational psychologist to ensure that Ruth has a teacher “that she can relate to”.
Linda believes that Ruth is “very happy” at school this year and that has a lot to do with the teacher. Linda feels that it is important for your child “to be guided and taught by somebody that they are relaxed with”. Ruth’s teacher this year has done a course in teaching children with learning difficulties. In Grade 2, Karl had “a lovely teacher”.
The teacher had “a nice relationship with Karl and understood his needs”. She would deal with Karl by sending “him on errands and everything, so that he’d get a chance to walk around and not have to sit still so long”.
The teacher should also be someone who can see the ADHD child’s potential, instead of just the negative side of the disorder. This is the kind of teacher who will bolster the child’s self-esteem. At the Christian private school Claudia attended, she and her Grade 1 teacher “didn’t get along at all”. Claudia actually ended up repeating Grade 1 at another school. In Grade 2 at the private school, Samantha was told Claudia had to be put on Ritalin or taken out of the class – “not because she was being disruptive or anything”, but because the teacher could not “spend that extra attention with Claudia”. Claudia’s Grade 3 teacher, however, “was wonderful; I loved her”. Samantha feels she made a difference to Claudia’s life because she believed in Claudia and “could see potential in her”.
Johan had an English teacher in Grade 9 who was “a wonderful teacher, and she saw the potential in him”. Johan has “a very good ability to write poems and do literature”. The teacher got him to enter a poetry competition for which he won
second place. But everyone else “just saw this bad one, this one with an attitude, this one who just wants to challenge the disciplinary system”.
When Eve was in her home school she had a teacher who “could see who Eve was, and she got a charge out of Eve’s mind and challenged her”. The teacher challenged Eve in “many areas, challenges that don’t normally come out in schools - like home truth, writing poetry and just the area of her imagination and artistic stuff and that kind of thing, so that was good”.
The ADHD child also needs a teacher who cares. It is almost more important that the teacher be accepting and nurturing, than someone who knows everything about ADHD. It is possible to teach someone about ADHD, but you can’t just change their personality and make them more generous and accepting. Zelda believes the relationship the ADHD child has with the teacher is “very important” and she thinks
“that’s true for any kid”. Even her daughter who is a “straight A’s” student would only score B’s for a teacher she didn’t like. Zelda believes that if the teacher can “care about them and try and help them with everything, then of course the child is going to respond – it doesn’t matter whether they have ADHD or not”. Zelda believes a lot
“depends on the individual, if they care or not. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a government school, or a school in Soweto somewhere, or a private school. If they care enough they would do more.”
It is also not enough for teachers to just have knowledge of ADHD; they need to be open to actually trying techniques that would help them deal with a child with ADHD.
Teachers can know a lot and still be very impatient and intolerant. When Carrie was involved in the support group, schools would request courses to be run at their schools. “And the teachers would all sit there and make copious notes and buy all the books.” Carrie feels though that teachers are not prepared to implement what they learn. Carrie feels that teachers are not prepared to look “at alternative methods” of dealing with these children and consider the other 26 children in the class as more important than the three or four who have a problem.
The ADHD child also needs a structured teacher. In Grade 0 and Grade 1, Cathy did not appear to have any problems at school. She was, however, with “a very structured teacher” who “set limits” and “was very strict”. In Grade 2, Cathy had a teacher who was “very arty and free” and her “marks just dropped”. The Grade 3 teacher also had no concept of “putting in parameters” and, as Belinda says, “that
works, you know”. In Grade 4, Cathy was fortunate to get a teacher who is “very strict, but very empathic. And she was open to more.” When Eve was in the cottage school, Beth saw the effects of having an “unstructured” teacher. Eve had a teacher who was “very lovely”; however, there were “just no boundaries” and Eve just wasn’t achieving her best.
The teacher also needs to realise that the child with ADHD, might not conform to their standard. He or she should treat all children as individuals. Seeing the child as an individual means less pressure on the child to conform to the norm, the child’s uniqueness will be valued, and the teacher will take responsibility to make accommodations based on the child’s unique needs. Cathy is fortunate enough this year to have a teacher who treats her as an individual. She also knows not to pressurise or “bombard” Cathy, because then she goes: “Can’t do it”.
7.4.3.7 Parent strategies when interacting with the school