I am a Kindergarten teacher and I am currently taking a class about ADHD in the classroom. I have had parents in the past ask me if they think their child is ADHD. I always tell them that I think it is too soon to tell in such a young age group. I do not want to see a child labeled as ADHD just because he/she is fidgety. I definitely don’t want to see a child dependent on medication for such behavior. I’ve seen many children who have no structure whatsoever at home struggle with behavior at school when they are in a structured environment. Does anyone have any thoughts on this or suggestions?
You make your profession proud and more teachers should strive to be more like you in their aproach and reasoning.
ADHD, has not even been proven to exist on any organic level what so ever. There are suggestive studies all of which have later been pretty much proven to be documenting the effect of the medication on the ADHD brain, which is in point of fact the same effect they have on the non ADHD brain or (normal brain) Many studies that were not biast in favor of this lucrative pharmaceutical cotton industry, have shown, that the margins of difference int he brains of the with ADHD and those without suggest there is no difference at all. I would point you to a book called Talking Back to Ritalin by a Dr. Breggin. And also to Dr. Boughman. And to groups such as The Wildest Colts or Able Child.
Studies show Ritalin (the most common ADHD drug) actually effects the brain the same way as cocaine. Studies prove the only difference between the effect of ritalin and the effect of cocaine on the brain is that the ritalin effect is more enhanced than that of Cocaine and both effect the dopamine system if i am not mistaken. When one is happier one tends to be calmer. When one is stoned beyond comprehension…. One tends to relax yes?
Today, infants are being labled with ADHD (this is fun part, because they cry due to physical pain.) *INFANTS* I am sorry that isn’t a brain defect, that is statement to the bad parenting of their parent and nothing else. After all what other behavior has an infant to express itself? Yeh, riddiculous. I personally have some thoughts about it as a person who has been labled and unlabled more times than i can count with it. I think it has to do with high intelligenge. Some think at very fast paces but our society is designed for a person that thinks alot slower. Not more reasonable or less impulisve but more slow… And so those who think faster seem implusive and when you think so fast, you tired faster and focus is lost. I think many of the behaviors are learned. Children are sponges. They learn what they are taught. And they learn from the behavior they are presented with. Hyper parents asking about ADHD are more likely to have kids who alledgedly exhibit the symptoms because their parent’s hyperness is internalized.
The claim that it is genetic is total bullox. It doesn’t even reach reasonable or based in any sort of sub reality. The vast majority of americans trace their lineage to Europe. But it is America with the serious ADHD problem. Europeans don’t have even likely a third of the population exhibiting the symptoms. The usa uses over 90% of the worlds supply of Ritalin each year. Even the UN has issued statements about how we are using pharmaceuticals to parent our kids and as a weapon for far too many under payed and/or lazy teachers. One like you therefore is truly exceptional and should be rewarded for asking the questions.
I would try a reward system with young kids. At kindigarten age they are right around the age of attaining basic reasoning. Give or take about a yearish… or 2… So, hold up a carrot. Bribery is a beautiful thing and one children tend to understand.
You might want to hold a couple of after hours parenting lectures or something where you adress parents on this subject and teach them that it is their job to teach their kidws to structure and organize and maybe even give them a couple simple lessons in it.
I forget where but, there was a school or a class i read about recently where they chucked desks so students could stand up or sit as they chose with no denigration for choosing to stand or even walk around the classroom a bit. So long as they weren’t chatting (this was also i think a third or 4th grade class) and they found it to be very beneficial if the students listened and watched stood or sat aas they felt inclined to and changed positions when they needed for comfort. They found it made a drastic difference.
Then recently a study at Harvard showed, that the ratio of ADHD kids, goes down by on average more than 30% per a class that has atleast 45 minutes of recess a day. It seems the amount of recess outside directly correlates to the rate of children being diagnosed with ADHD. So you might want to take your kids outside more or give them more frequent breaks (though i dunno how that really applies to a kindergarten class. I am an archaeologist not a teacher.) Plus your students are in kindergarten
behaving properly within a structured environment is NOT a genetic skill we are all born with. Sorry. We are simply not born knowing how to do this. It is a slow process of socialization and education through which we learn this skill. Which is another reason ADHD is everywhere lately. Schools and educators want to skip that step and have american 4 year olds able to focus on and read Mein Kampf in German, before they can even form a coherent sentence in their own native language. Learning is a process one that is a slow step by step thing…. The more we rush it, the more our kids will react badly to education and will act out. Because we don’t teach them how to first interact properly with the structure and we do not use a structure that provides them time to be exhuberant healthy children. ADHD, is a disease of the education machine not of children.
Also, i don’t know what time your class starts, but you might want to look at that too. Because children need far more sleep than adults. In that schools tend to start at like 7:45 but adults typically work 9-5. This doesn’t make sense as children need more sleep than adults do by significant degree and the ADHD behaviors can simply be a tired child reacting to exhaustion.
Then there is the food issue. Do your kids eat breakfast every morning, or atleast the ones who’s parents think they might have ADHD? If not, that can also be a contributing factor in poor behavior in school. Then there is lunch, do they have time in the structure of the school day to really stop and eat properly? After allchild bodies need more nutrition than adult ones. But i know most adults have atleast an hour for lunch and the average school lunch period is 15 minutes. That is to nboth get and eat lunch. Riddiculous! No wonder our students are acting out left and right….
Then, there are the expectations of the parents. Someone has to tell them that parenting is a JOB a CARREER. You don’t just give birth to a perfect being who grows intoa perfect adult with no help or raising. You don’t push them out the birth canal and then your job is done. American parents, are more selfish than any others in the world i have ever observed. I have spent time in Finland, Sweden, UK, Canada, Korea, Austria, Holland (a bit anyway), and Jamaica. So when i say that, it isn’t coming out my bumm. It is not researched it is observable to the lay person. A couple ytears ago a study was done, that showed through a wide variety of different factors as testing points, that dutch children are the happiest int he world. Finnish children and i do believe swedish children were in the top 5. It’s interesting to point out another fairly recent study also shows that Finnish children are also the brightest and most well educated. Yet, they *NEVER* even in highschool, get more than 30-45 minutes of homework total a night. They are the top in the world. 2rds of their teachers are trained as LD teachers, and almost all of them incorporate that training into their normal classes as the vast majority of these teachers do not teach in special ed class rooms. Its just interesting to note…
But again as i was saying parental expectation needs to be inline with rational standards of childhood development like i was saying you don’t push it out the birth canal along with its PHD from Harvard or Oxford. The skills necesary to get such degrees are taught. Many parents who are busy over acheivers just expect their children to raise themselves by being perfect because they want them to somehow be even better than they are when they grow up. That is also why the highest ratio children seems to be white males. Society’s expectations, visited upon children. It is a bit too much for many in highschool so to start worrying about it when your kid is in kindergarten strikes me as past ludicrous. Which causes me another point. You might want to have a short reading list for parents, infact i wish *ALL* teachers would have such a thing. Required reading for parents 1 or 2 books each semester on child development. IE 6-7ish, the age of basic reason beginning, terrible 2s=initial and earliest development of personal identity and a recognition that self even exists…. I think more parents need to adjust their expectations to fit within the parameters of the facts of child development than children need to be medicated and abused by the system for having ADHD, when no one can even prove it exists. (Just ask NIMH.
I don’t think this post was entirely what you were looking for. Perhaps not at all. But i was trying to help and maybe there is something in this jumbled mess you can use. Good luck! And never doubt, that you are truly an exceptional teacher and your kids are a few of the luckiest in the usa. You should be proud.