• Having an ADHD child is very challenging and we need all the help we can get. Teachers play a vital role in the way that our child feels about himself and we hope that you will do whatever you can to help our child learn and maintain his self-esteem.
• Just like a blind person needs to learn coping strategies so that he can lead an independent life, our goal for our ADHD child is that together with his teachers and his medical professionals, we will help him to learn the special ways that he can be successful in all areas of his life. These special strategies include things like developing ways to keep organized, be on time, control behaviour, plan and complete work, make and keep friends. This requires consistent effort on the part of his support team, of which you are vital part.
• All current research emphatically shows that ADHD is not caused by bad parenting. Please be assured that we are doing everything we can to learn and use effective strategies for managing ADHD at home. Research also shows that the more consistent we are in the ways we manage ADHD in the home and school environment, the greater chances for success.
• Children with ADHD have many talents and strengths: creative minds, curiosity, boundless energy, humour, courage, leadership abilities, physical abilities, stamina and often show amazing gifts in specialized areas like computers, math, music, etc. Sometimes as parents and teachers we tend to focus on the weaknesses rather than the strengths in our aim to change behaviours. As parents and teachers we need to seek out these strengths and utilize them to help this child be successful in their own way.
• Unfortunately, our highly structured, standardized education system which requires all students to sit quietly at a desk, listen and do independent work for several hours a day can be the worst possible environment for ADHD children. Although, we understand that we cannot change the system, from or own experiences we recognize the value of learning to understand this condition and how it effects these children. We would be more than willing to work with you to develop strategies, reward systems and any other problem-solving that is required.
• Please feel free to contact us as frequently and as often as you need to and don’t wait until issues get to a crisis stage. And remember that we would love to hear about positive developments and not just the negative stuff.
• In turn,we may need to contact you frequently, but rest assured that we will not take advantage of the situation. Please help us by giving us a way to do that. Email could be very helpful for this.
• Because ADHD children often misunderstand social interactions, they quite regularly report events inaccurately. It’s important for you and us to remember that what he tells us about what happened at school or at home may need to be verified to make sure that it is correct before we take any action.
• A daily communication tool is often helpful but we need it to record progress towards desired behaviours and not report on negative behaviours. Our children will work very hard for much-needed positive reinforcement but will shut down cooperation and effort if they only receive negative feedback. They will not cooperate with either of us if they feel we are only joining forces to share negative information on their behaviour.
• ADHD is not an excuse for poor behaviour – but it is an explanation. Our child is expected to act appropriately but will need your help and encouragement to learn and practice it. Immediate feedback is important – positive and constructive. Our child needs specific instruction and modeling in this area. If he acts inappropriately, take him aside and tell him that his behaviour was not appropriate, explain why (tell him how it effected the person it was directed at) and show him what he should do instead. Then make sure that you praise him whenever you notice improvement.
• Homework is an enormous challenge for our child and also for us because he has challenges with organization. Please work with us to develop strategies to help him learn better organization skills. We expect him to work on improving his organization skills and will not accept his ADHD as an excuse for not doing his homework.
• Short term memory deficits can be an inherent problem of ADHD. Insisting that the student needs to take responsibility for remembering things without giving him strategies and tools to do this only sets him up for failure and frustrates all of us.
• When our children arrive home without the necessary books and materials to complete homework, it causes enormous stress for our child and us. Please help him to develop a strategy which ensures that he has everything he needs before he leaves school. Having a second set of books at home is helpful.
• Our child has trouble remembering multiple instructions. Please provide written instructions so that we can ensure that assignments are being done correctly and completely. Unfortunately, without assistance, our child may then forget the instructions at school. Emailing instructions home or providing the phone number of a classmate would be helpful.
• We will do our best to ensure that our child completes all homework on time but we may need your help with deadline extensions if our child legitimately needs more time. We will help our child to plan out larger assignments by breaking them into smaller pieces and setting deadlines and then ensuring that the deadlines are met, but any assistance that you can give him at school would be most helpful.
• We will not do our child’s homework for him. It is important that he do the work and earn the marks himself. Doing his work for him will only rob him of his self-confidence and self-esteem and will not give you an accurate picture of his progress.
• We will develop and maintain a system to ensure that all assignments come back to school. Please create a consistent routine and place for him to hand his work in. If any assignments are missed, please contact us immediately.
• When our child has a teacher who understands how extremely difficult and frustrating it is to have ADHD, he has the potential of having a wonderful school experience where he can grow, learn and feel proud and successful. However, when his ADHD is not understood, he often feels like a failure and we run the risk that he will give up on school and himself and turn his fantastic energy and gifts to unproductive and possibly destructive activities. I hope that we can work together to to nurture the wonderful qualities of our special child.

Reprinted from this source document under Creative Commons License.

Also, this week is the book fair, so we’re dealing with THAT money also. Oh, did I also mention that TONIGHT was open house and we had the book fair open and we are pre-selling fall festival armbands.

Oh yeah, and this week was grandparents week, so the grandparents of a lot of the kids came to have lunch with their grandkids and get pictures taken with them. Guess where they were taking the pictures…yep, in the PTA room. And, the PTA room adjoins the library, where the book fair is being held. So, it’s been absolute CHAOS this week.

Tomorrow is the first day of the case lot sale at the Commissary and I’m heading there first thing in the morning to get the good stuff before it’s picked over.

But, there is great news…the Nintendo DS that Brianna lost last month when I told her not to bring it to the library and she did it anyway…I found it today. It was jammed under Delaney’s car seat. Brianna doesn’t know I found it yet and we probably won’t tell her for a while.

Delaney said her first “I love you” a couple of weeks ago. She didn’t say it to me or to JR, she said it to Brianna. No big surprise since she loves her sissy so much. Brianna missed the bus one morning, so we had to take her to school. As she was getting out of the truck, I said “Be good today. I love you.” So, Delaney said, “Love you.” She said it a couple of days later to. She has only ever said it to Brianna…not me or JR yet.

She’s also doing pretty well at potty training. Most days she stays dry all day. The past two nights she’s had an accident, but prior to that she was dry for a couple of weeks. She’s even gone #2 by herself a time or two. She’s only had two pee accidents during the day in the past few weeks.

Brianna’s been back to school for 2 weeks. Her classroom job is “book critic”. She has to do a book review every week. Every kid in the class has a job and they get paid for it in class cash. They also get class cash for bringing back their reading log signed and homework, etc. They get to go shopping once a week in the class store with their class cash, but only if their “check register” is balanced. They get to change jobs every 9 week period. She put her application in for computer technician also. She’s hoping to get that one next. She’s also got her eye on the librarian job.

Soccer practice started this past week. So, I get to schlep her back and forth to Camden 1-2 times per week for the next few months.

JR’s due back from Ohio tomorrow. He’s been up there this week. His dad got out of the hospital this week after his heart valve replacement surgery several weeks ago.

I’ve been keeping super busy with client work and PTA stuff. With the new school year, switching from a PTO to a PTA, Fall Festival Committee and the fall fundraiser, I’ve got my hands full!

I spent all afternoon today cleaning the shower and stripping out old caulk. I even took the doors off and took them outside to use the high pressure hose to get down into the nooks and crannies of everything. I’m not looking forward to doing that again anytime soon.

Of course, I knew this morning’s early (7 AM) wake-up would go over like a lead balloon. After multiple attempts to wake Brianna, she FINALLY got out of bed at 7:30. It took her about 2 hours to finally eat breakfast, get on clean clothes and I’m still not sure if she brushed her hair before we left the house!

We’ll see how tomorrow goes and if bedtime tonight is any easier since the girls had to get up “sooo early”.

Delaney’s refused having the potty seat sitting on the “big potty”, preferring to balance herself on the big seat by herself. She’s also has been trying to go potty by herself the past couple of days. We also had a poop in the potty again yesterday! (Unfortunately not so for today.) She’s still having pee accidents every so often, but that’s usually when I’m not paying a lot of attention. She had an accident this morning, but it was in the bathroom floor when she was trying to get to the potty by herself. At least that’s easy to clean up!

School registration is in 2 weeks. I’ll be at the school all day, volunteering at the PTA booth. 34 days until school starts and some resemblance to routine returns to the household. Unfortunately for me that also means I’ll be getting up early again. No more sleeping until 8:30!

Brianna read the first Harry Potter book this past week. She really enjoyed it and is looking forward to reading the next book. We let her watch the first movie the other day. I wasn’t upstairs when she was watching it, but JR was. He said she was talking about the book the whole time…”that happened in Chapter 2″ “that happened in Chapter 5″, etc. There was a lot of stuff that was left out of the movie, but thankfully we explained to her ahead of time about how they would have to leave stuff out, otherwise the movie would be a mini-series.

JR bought some Steelers stickers and added them to his motorcycle. I’ll post some pictures when he gets back. He took Brianna to go for a ride and buy her some new shoes and himself a holster for his backup weapon.