Can you imagine the most difficult environment for a child who has trouble sitting still, has trouble paying attention, and loves talking to other kids? Imagine that this child had to go to this environment every day, and he was expected to perform successfully in this environment.
When you think about it, the classroom setting is such a difficult setup for these kids. There are a lot of distractions, yet they are told to sit still, not move, not talk, take care of boring work papers, and stay on task until the work is done. None of these things come easily to children with ADHD. But they go to school day after day.
Many children with ADHD “hit a wall” at school as the school year progresses. Each week they get a little ahead and a little behind, until they fall too far behind to catch up. They miss homework, even after they’ve spent hours working on it. They study hard for tests only to perform poorly the next day. They just slide farther and farther away with each passing week.
The disorder is most often recognized and referred for treatment in the third grade. This is the time when children most often hit the “academic wall”. In the third grade, they are expected to do more and more work on their own, and they are given more homework to do as well. We also see many referrals in seventh grade, or when a child leaves elementary school for middle school, with several classes and many teachers. Many kids with ADHD who found ways to catch up in elementary school were completely lost in middle school.
How can we help these children be more successful in school? Start learning more about ADHD from our collection of ADHD information websites. Here’s one of our featured websites with over 500 classroom interventions to help your ADD ADHD student succeed.