7.4 C ATEGORIES DISCLOSING THE CHARACTERISTICS OF BEING THE PARENT OF AN
7.4.3 ADHD and the school experience
7.4.3.5 Feelings when interacting with school personnel
Although parents appear to experience predominantly negative emotions when interacting with school personnel, some parents did report positive emotions such as a feeling of satisfaction, of trust and of respect.
Frustration
The primary emotion expressed by parents, related to their interactions with school personnel, is frustration. Parents find it frustrating and tiring to continually advocate for their child’s needs to school staff. Often, on a yearly basis, they have to explain their child’s disability to school personnel – doesn’t anyone ever read the file? As Carrie says: “Apparently it goes up on the ed-lab, and if the teachers do their work they can actually see it.” Meetings with school personnel regarding their child often take a significant amount of emotional stamina, and dealing with teachers about homework assignments can be just as frustrating.
Brenda has asked the teachers to watch what Conor eats and drinks at school, because of Ritalin suppressing his appetite. Brenda packs Conor a full lunch with cool drinks and often gets the whole lot back when she collects him. She is especially worried about him not getting in enough fluids. She has “written numerous letters” about this and gone in to see the teachers. To Brenda’s frustration “they were not understanding”. Brenda feels that the teachers have “no empathy”. “There’s not even sympathy, but there’s just no empathy either.” Brenda believes that the teachers, especially as it is an assisted learning school, “should have more input to these children and understand them more and be more supportive of the parents”.
Marie wishes there had been “more understanding” from the school, and was particularly frustrated by the lack of understanding of the headmaster who refused to retain Johan. He “threw” her “totally off balance for such a long time”. In a time when nobody had an answer, he was the person she “looked up to”; the person that she
“thought could give you the answer”. And yet he just said no: “And that was that. No explanation; nothing further.”
Belinda is frustrated by the lack of consistency of Evan’s high school. She feels that the school “gets their act together”, but then “it fizzles”.
Samantha got frustrated to the point where she felt she needed to move Claudia from her school. She didn’t feel the school was actually helping Claudia in class and she thought: “No, this is rubbish.” Samantha felt the school could help by not insisting that Claudia hand in her projects on a set day, and by being more lenient with spelling:
“And things like that.” A private tutor is now teaching Claudia, and there are only five pupils in her class. Samantha is still frustrated. She feels they haven’t really “seen the results yet from her new school”. Samantha was “thinking it would be nice to put
her back into a normal school environment”. They have recently had Claudia assessed again, and the results of the assessment were not encouraging. Samantha also gets “frustrated with the teacher because she lets us know yesterday that there was a test today”. Samantha gets “freaked out” because she knows that her son is an A-student because he starts learning well in advance.
Zelda is frustrated that the attitude at Karl’s school seems to be: “You know this is not the norm, why should we?” She finds that strange because she believes there must be “a lot of ADHD kids” at Karl’s school. Zelda doesn’t feel that any of Karl’s teachers do “anything to help him”. She would like an attitude of: “Come after school for an extra lesson. Let’s go over that if you don’t understand.” She doesn’t believe it would “take that much effort either”. The teachers could even have the homework written out for Karl and give it to him. Zelda believes the teachers don’t understand why Karl can’t do it himself and she feels they think he is lazy. Zelda knows it is not laziness: “Some things they can do and some things they can’t and, until they can do them, just help them. “
Even though Eve enjoys her current school, Beth is not as happy. She feels that that there “could be tighter boundaries and consequences at the school at this stage” and that the “kids run wild a bit there”. It frustrates Beth that Eve is not “being pushed enough to produce her best and she’s producing actually pretty sub-standard work, I think, for what she’s capable of doing and what should be expected of her”. Beth feels that Eve did work “two years ago when she was at that little cottage school that is far superior to anything that she produces now”. Beth feels she can’t “nag and perform and carry on and whatever if the teachers aren’t requiring that from her (Eve)”.
Michelle makes a real effort to educate her children’s teachers, but she is frustrated when the teachers don’t “really pay attention”.
“Honestly, I sometimes feel like a real pest. Adults don’t like being told what to do. A lot of them are unteachable and unapproachable.”
Carrie would go in every year to discuss Luke’s ADHD. She feels, however, that it was a wasted effort: “They will listen to you and that is the last they actually think about it”. It takes a significant amount of emotional stamina for Carrie to attend meetings at school. Carrie and her husband go to parent’s evenings and they “very
seldom get any positive feedback”. They have been going to parent’s evenings for eleven years now “and it hasn’t helped a thing”.
“The teachers all sit there and they make little notes: ADHD, on medication, battles with this, battles with that. And they all sit there and smile and say:
‘Yes, we’ll do this and that.’ And the minute I turn my back… It’s a waste of time to go and stand in those queues, to have 5 minutes with the teacher, to be told just how bad your child is. I as a parent have actually taken a tranquilliser before every parent’s evening that I’ve ever been to. By the time I get to the teacher, my mouth is so dry that I can hardly talk.”
Anger
Parents feel anger in their interactions with school personnel for a number of reasons. Parents feel anger over teachers trying to blame them for their child’s behaviour. Parents feel anger over the type of comments teachers or other school personnel make about their children. Parents also feel angry over specific events that occur at school, or the behaviour of specific teachers.
In high school – once Tina was back living with Angela - she was seeing the school guidance counsellor virtually daily. Angela was phoned by the guidance counsellor and told that she (Angela) was “dysfunctional”. Being blamed for Tina’s behaviour angered Angela. Angela’s son had been through the same school, had full colours, and did eight subjects. He is at university now – he qualifies this year. Angela said to the counsellor: “You know I have another child who went through your school, and I was never accused of being dysfunctional with him, and he didn’t have a problem.
Now that there’s a problem I’m dysfunctional. If there’s anybody who is dysfunctional it’s Tina, not me.”
Marie believes teachers “were never understanding” of Johan. The comments that teachers would make about Johan angered her. Teachers would call him a difficult child, a disruptive child, a child who can’t do anything, a child who never does his homework, a child who never listens. No one “ever wanted to see the good in this child”.
Brenda was angered by a specific teacher’s behaviour toward Conor. Conor got a new teacher at the end of Grade 1 who would shout at him to the point where “he never wanted to go to school”. Brenda addressed the teacher about it and the teacher responded that he doesn’t concentrate. Brenda’s response:
“That’s why he’s on Ritalin. That’s why he’s in a class of 12. That’s why he’s in a small class and I’m paying so much money for you to teach him.”
Kim’s Grade 1 teacher angered Mia. Lynn had had the same teacher in Grade 0, so the teacher “knew the family history” and how much Mia had “battled”. Mia kept checking in with the teacher and the teacher kept assuring her that everything was
“fine”: “There was never, ever mention of a problem”. By the end of the second term of Grade 1, Kim came home with a “shocking, absolutely frightening” school report.
Kim was “failing on every level, and the teacher had never said anything”. Mia feels the teacher knew nothing about Kim: “other than the fact that she knew the child was in class, I don’t think she knew anything about her. She just forgot about her.”
Carrie gave every teacher in the primary school a book on ADHD. It angered Carrie that when she was having problems with one of the teachers, she asked the teacher:
“Have you even bothered to read the book?” The teacher had not and Carrie responded: “Then I don’t think we actually have anything to discuss”.
Zelda was angered by a specific event at school. She had a call from the principal last year because Karl swore at the after-care teacher. When Zelda got to the school, the principal, in front of her, “attacked” Karl: “Karl must do this and he can’t do that”.
Only later Zelda asked Karl what happened and he told her another child actually hurt him and kicked him on his knee that was already sore. Karl had tried to tell the teacher, but she “didn’t listen” and “she didn’t understand or anything”. “And so there was this whole lot of steps and at the end he swore. And that happens all the time.”
Feeling discounted
School staff often sees themselves as the experts and discount parents’ observations and skills. Belinda experienced this when she wanted to put Cathy on Ritalin. The teachers at Cathy’s school “were very anti her going on anything”. Belinda was
“open” to her going on Ritalin, because she has “known the success with Evan”. To Cathy’s frustration, the psychiatrist, in consultation with the teachers, decided that Ritalin “wasn’t the right way to deal with it”. Belinda’s opinion meant nothing.
Samantha felt her opinion was discounted at the private school Claudia attended.
The teacher in Grade 2 insisted that Claudia be put on Ritalin or Samantha would have to take her out of her class. Samantha refused because of the side-effects that Claudia had experienced. The principal believed that she knew better. Samantha
was called in and the principal told her “that she had worked in special classes and that none of her children that were on Ritalin ever had the side effects that I was saying that my daughter had”.
Intimidated
Belinda initially felt intimidated when dealing with Evan’s school. It has “got much better, but it was, it was terribly hard. I mean when I got called in for Evan, I would feel, uh, I would feel like they were going to attack me”.
Concerned
At present, Sandy’s primary emotion when dealing with the school is concern. Sandy has always been told that Aidan has so much potential, but she sees no results.
Sandy is concerned about Grade 4: “because they grow up next year and it’s a very different environment. And the teachers don’t have patience for children with ADHD, you know”. Aidan’s teacher has also voiced her concern about possible emotional difficulties that he’s experiencing.
Satisfied
Linda and Gill and Dylan experience a feeling of satisfaction in their interactions with the school. Linda feels that for the moment, Ruth “is in the best school she could be in”. Doug is in a special needs school and Gill and Dylan feel “the best thing” they could have done is put him where he is.
Trust
Evan was moved to a new school after his diagnosis. For Belinda, the major benefit of Evan’s new school was that the school staff “didn’t see him as a horrible child;
they actually could see that he was a child who did not know how to help himself.”
Belinda trusted the school: “I knew that he was in good hands.” And she went with their recommendations because she felt “they knew what they were doing”.
Respect
Pat has the “greatest respect in the world” for the principal at John’s school and believes “they’re very good there”.
7.4.3.6 Beliefs about school personnel