Sending ADHD Kid Back to School

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He's been out since the early 2nd grade. He's starting 5th and has requested to go back because he's lonely. His symptoms are under control with medication and he's far ahead in academics. So we said okay.

The school is doing very poorly and I have heard the kids are ruffians. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on the whole affair. I hope he will be alright. He does not do well when people pick on him. He is too socially aware and too self conscious. I often wish I could give him some of my assertiveness. We would probably both be better off. :/

I'm replying to my own thread with an update in case anyone was interested.

He mostly loves being there. He loves being around other kids again. Now that he is heavily medicated with stimulants and blood pressure medication for his anxiety he seems to be able to focus on the teacher and routine pretty well. The teacher is a kind lady and the curriculum is surprisingly thoughtful. He has asked if he can be removed from special education because he does not need it. So far I agree. I will look into it when it is time for the meeting.

He has made friends, but he has not accepted that the things he is into are not normal for a kid his age (coding, virtual reality, space/time). I am hoping he will become interested in some new things that the other kids like. It will be a little while before I can get him evaluated and see if he can take some advanced subjects. His confidence has improved a great deal. He has realized that he is a good friend, that he is smart, that he is "not ugly" (sigh- this is an improvement in his self image). It's been surprising and positive all around.

I’m glad that things are going so well! I worry every year about how things will go with my own kid who is on the spectrum and has ADHD, but so far, so good.

We homeschooled our three kids. If he is interested in social contact school is not the only options. Outside activities such as martial arts class, library groups for kids, or even more adult things like amateur radio are possibilities.

You may want to consider a social group such a Mensa. They do not offer testing for kids younger than 14 (if I remember correctly), however, they do accept an IQ assessment made by a psychologist (upper 2%). He might enjoy that sort of socialization as well.

Thank you, Tim and Twilight. We will keep seeing how it goes. I do want to put him in some extra activities no matter what he decides to do.

I wanted to put in an update here again, because things have been a bit odd and maybe it might help someone else going through similar issues.

My son has ADHD but is also abnormally large, as in super tall but also like his head is bigger than mine, his voice is deep, and I am currently wearing his hand me down clothes, although I am a full sized woman and he is 10. We found out this year that he has a medical issue and needs to be on a special diet. This was shocking to us and him. We are still adjusting to his new lifestyle of basically having to think about fitness and health all the time.

I went in for the first IEP meeting recently. I brought an educational advocate who is a retired Special Ed teacher. When the school heard that, they brought in higher ups from the school district. My son's home room teacher was out that day. So it was just me, the advocate, the new Special Ed lady (who is 200 lbs overweight), and a roomful of strangers. They told me that my son is using "negative self talk" at school and they want him to be psychologically tested. He is talking about his weight and health too much, they say, and saying things about being stupid. I know how he talks, and he is likely muttering "This is stupid" and is unaware he is saying it out loud. They are probably only hearing the word "stupid." He is also painfully polite and I find it hard to believe that he is saying anything out of bounds about health or weight. He may be awkwardly polite. But awkwardness doesn't require intervention.

If I had not had that advocate with me, they would have railroaded me into more unnecessary testing so they could keep him in Special Ed and concentrate more time on his "self esteem". They actually make him more anxious when they try to raise his spirits because it makes him question himself. Like, why are they making such a big deal out of it, as if he were a baby? This is how he takes it. So the advocate is having them do a 504 for his ADHD symptoms and she had them pull him out of Special Ed and put him with the rest of the kids for general education. He still gets to test in a room away from other kids since he talks to himself.

The district person happened to also be the person in charge of gifted education, so I made sure to send him my son's test scores for the past few years. Hopefully he can get better classes in middle school next year. If not, I will try to do something else for him to keep him challenged. I still have him doing his home school curriculum when he gets home in the afternoon, in exchange for $2/day. That has been working very well.

But it bothered me a great deal. What I want to get across is that the schools in my state get extra funding for kids in special education and who have English as a Second Language. There is no benefit for a kid improving OUT of these services. If a kid does NOT NEED an accommodation, they should NOT be getting it! There is a very real reason for this. It will weaken them like a veal calf and when they become older they will have a harder time adjusting to independence. Disability accommodations should be used appropriately, and we as parents need to make sure WE are in the driver's seat here, not someone else who may have an ulterior motive, such as extra funding.

Collectives like schools and prisons are monolithic and process people as if they were components in a machine. Sadly, people are not monolithic. As a result, those children that are not easily processed are identified as defective. In the 1960s when "minimal brain dysfunction" was identified (the precursor to ADHD). It was assumed that whatever physiological defect existed that resulted in difficult processing would eventually be discovered and corrected. No one considered that humans have variations in neurology and that monolithic processing is perhaps the problem.

That you can recognize the financial incentive the school has in shunting your child aside, is to your credit. You will have to decide if keeping your child in school is going to be as helpful as you hoped or if it is better to withdraw him.

Yup. They sent a letter saying that he was no longer protected by the ADA, since I withdrew the IEP. Even though the same letter says that we asked for a 504 so he has his physical differences accommodated. He came home from a math test where we got 4/10 correct even though they were "baby questions" according to him. He said he might rather withdraw and be lonely rather than "fail." I reminded him that he is still enrolled in his home school curriculum and continues to take independent Iowa tests, so it doesn't matter what his Virginia public school grades say. I guess it matters to him.

He told his ADHD counselor and I that he was not taken into a quiet room for his math test as was agreed upon in the meeting, and he was unable to not speak aloud during the test. He said a little girl next to him told him to be quiet and he said I'm sorry I can't. So the school ruined his test and this girl's test. Out of meanness. And I'm sorry, but a neighborhood school cannot override the Americans with Disabilities act, or his doctor's diagnosis of ADHD. It amazes me how unfair and petty people manage to be, even to children.

He still happily goes in every morning. It's kind of up to him at this point. They have sat him between a bunch of girls now and he likes that. He has switched allegiances with his little man friends. Maybe the kids he is hanging around now will help him be less anxious. His counselor upped his ADHD medicine and he seems to be more open to my advice about studying.

It's hard for me to watch. I just want to go in a punch the lot of them, really. I hate meanness and sloppiness.

John Taylor Gatto wrote a book called "The Underground History of Education" that you might find interesting.

Progressives often see humanity as evolving to a higher plane of consciousness that they anticipate will bring in a social utopia. As a Christian I take an alternative view that we re all flawed in our basic nature. No amount of education will stop bullying. Collectivized systems of control cannot change the human heart.

I wish your son well and the biggest advantage he has is a mother that is watching out for him.

I just ordered that book. Thank you. I also ordered a Neil Postman book I hadn't heard of called The End of Education. I'm currently reading Thomas Sowell's Inside American Education.

I went in and talked to the principal yesterday. I asked what to look at for the curriculum so I could help my son study. It turns out that there is no curriculum as I would define it. Only nebulous vague knowledge of "one would use this kind of math in this situation" and "this social group had this opinion about this other one." The attribution of thoughts and feelings to social groups, without teaching about specific historical figures, deeply disturbs me. We do not have collective thoughts and feelings. The absence of a preferred method by which to learn math or conduct science also disturbs me. According to the principal, this way of teaching will be continued until college.

I asked her: "Wouldn't this cause anxiety in the students, since they would have no way to check their knowledge?"
She answered: "They know nothing else. We haven't had a textbook in the classroom in over 15 years."

I came home and spoke to my husband, and then my son. We decided that if our son wants to keep going, and we agreed he should, he will need to disregard his grades. He will keep taking Iowa tests at home and stay in his online curriculum (Acellus) and we will privately prepare him for the CogAt and the SATs.

I don't find it acceptable remove logical facts, documentated history, or proven methods.

I just came out of the 504 meeting at my son's elementary school. It was very long. My kid's classroom teacher was engaged and helpful. A couple things became clear to me from "reading between the lines" and social cues:

• They do not care how the children are academically performing; it is more about adult convenience
• The adults with tenure can do what they want, the others have to do what the tenured adults say
• They believe in what they say
• They believe that parents are there to make trouble for them
• Their level of prejudice runs deep, even in the kind ones. They suppose the black and brown ones are poor/abused, the differently abled ones are unable, the ones who do not behave as expected are criminals or stupid

I am deeply disturbed by the world view of these people. My son is happy overall going there and so I need to make sure he keeps going, but it is such a trainwreck. I asked for a simple accommodation for his classroom teacher to get to pick who proctors his exams, because he can be distracted not just by certain environments but by certain people. This idea got tremendous pushback. Tremendous. I even asked at one point, "What is the big deal, do you want him to take tests with people he does NOT like?"

I'm waiting to hear back from the division head about this specific accommodation. I am just flabbergasted.