Sons ADHD and remembering to do things

If you are open to recommendations here is a list of things we do that helps significantly: 1. Parent group class for Unstuck and on Target (child’s psychologist can help you with this) 2. Child group class for Unstuck and on Target (child’s psychologist can help you with this) 3. Working with his ADHD is significantly more successful vs against it 4. Change parenting strategies more in line with Unstuck and on Target. Essentially, a huge benefit of this strategy is to move away from “punishment” and more into skills based approach (realistic, healthy, respectful, communicative, listening, positive mental health, etc). 5. This is honestly my biggest tip: Removing him from the traditional public school system switching to either a virtual school (like k12) or homeschool. As traditional public schools are failing all types of kiddos especially kids whom need more support. Per education laws your son qualifies for an IEP/504, but most schools refuse or decrease needs.

6. With doing a virtual or homeschool method that opens doors for flexible scheduling. Which means you can get him the medical support he needs like ABA, therapy, intervention services, etc. Schools aren’t equipped to provide this. The school system essentially forces child medical and educational neglect. Schools are not a replacement to appropriate medical care, but often this falls through the cracks. Leaving children and parents without access to the resources and medical care. This isn’t the fault of the parents. 7. Then with the flexible schedule he can get into extracurricular activities and/or clubs/groups.

If you're in a public school I suggest pushing for a 504 that includes movement and have your kid work with an ADHD therapist who can help teach skills. If he starts hating school now it's going to be a long hard road but with support for your family and skill building it can be easier.

My daughter also has ADHD and it has been a difficult road. Mostly because I quickly realized I was telling her to do things I couldn’t even do myself when it comes to regulating emotions. I feel your pain because it can be SO trying at times, especially morning when you are trying to get them up and going for school. Give yourself grace!! It’s hard, and I will agree with previous poster that working with the ADHD is the most successful. As in, accept it and lower your expectations for him. One thing that helped me was when her doc said, you have to remember when she is off her medication she essentially reverts to about 3 yrs younger in maturity… which helped me to stop comparing her actions to her sister (2 yrs younger). Also, all kids need more outside time and not behind a desk… boy or girl. KIDS need more activity. I also got a tip to take her outside more and that has helped a TON on the days she’s driving me crazy, I just take them to a park.

Another suggestion, one on one days. I know it sounds totally unrelated, but I started realizing the more I did Mommy/Daughter days, the less I got attitude. In a weird way, the attitude can be a way to get your attention subconsciously. Highly suggest those!! And my husband switches and does Daddy/Daughter too. Depending on what we can afford that time, sometimes it’s a smoothie date and walk in the park, sometimes it’s the trampoline gym.

Another thing that a lot of us parents may or may not know about is understanding the capacity that adults and children have for successful learning. There has been multiple studies showing that adults have a very limited capacity of time per day, week, and even month that their brain is functioning to successfully learn something. This amount of time will vary from person to person. When an adult goes over that successful capacity they will tend to not master lessons, forget content, burn out, not be able to soak in information, struggle with mental health, etc. On average most adults have the ability to do four hours per day of successful learning. When we apply this to children people tend to ignore these facts. So if an adult successful learning capacity is only four hours per day on average. We need to remember that when it comes to children that time frame is less. Right now with the traditional school system they are expecting children to handle 8 to 12 hours per day.

That’s a great point too! I am not a fan of the traditional school system… I can tell my high energy daughter is SO curious naturally and very quick to put patterns together and learn. But when you put her in a desk for 8 hrs she gets bored, stops listening and doesn’t even finish assignments… yet if I pop quiz her while driving “what’s 7x6?” She loves it! She also retains the things I tell her “mom why is the sky blue?” Then later tells her sister all about it… I also know how strong self fulfilling prophecies are and tell her she’s great at things like math and science because then I see her want to do them more. If school makes you feel bad about yourself then you naturally avoid it.

This is honestly one significant reason on a list of many reasons on why I will never support traditional public schools anymore. Especially for kiddos with special needs. After playing tug-of-war with traditional public school I have been able to see a side of the school system that is not pretty. I even had to hire an IEP advocate and (multiple) education specialist/developmental. Even with all of this the school still refused to provide him an adequate IEP and 504 plan. Then they became unprofessionally upset about me removing him from their school. That is a whole other mess. So I have the unique situation of having one kid in traditional public school (oldest) and the other 100% homeschool/virtual public school (youngest). It is a literal night and day situation. My youngest has higher scores, quicker mastery, happier, significantly better mental health than my oldest, etc.

I personally have had a lot of success with virtual public schools like K12. For young kids I personally like preschool prep company starting as young as 1 years old. I even personally used both of these together at one point as well and it significantly improved skills in numbers, math, letter, phonics, sight words, etc.