How Can the Teacher Help My Child With ADHD?

Answer:

It's great that you are thinking about how your son's teacher can best work with him in school. The effective treatment of ADHD requires collaboration among parents, teachers and doctors. Medication is an important component of this treatment, but behavioral interventions at home and school are equally important.

There are a number of suggestions you can make to the teacher that will help your son succeed in the classroom. Before doing so, however, it is important to develop a partnership with your son's teacher by sharing your son's diagnosis with her and telling her that you appreciate her willingness to work with you. Once you have developed this partnership, you can offer the teacher information about ADHD and make suggestions about how she can help your son. Since teachers have limited time, it is often helpful to schedule a meeting instead of trying to catch them before or after school.

There are a number of specific ways the teacher can help:

• Seat him near the front of the class
• Use attention-getting devices like secret signals or color codes to redirect him when he loses focus
• Post daily rules, schedules and assignments
• Reward appropriate behavior
• Provide regularly scheduled breaks

In addition, it may be helpful to use a daily report card that identifies three to five skills for your son to work on (e.g., staying in his seat, raising hand before calling out an answer, etc.) and ask the teacher to indicate how your child did on each skill each day. Your son can bring the report card home each day so you can see how he is doing and you can then reward him appropriately. For more information about how to use a daily report card and collaborate with your son's teacher, I highly recommend reading Making the System Work for Your Child with ADHD by Peter S. Jensen, MD.