ADHD and Lying

This is a biggie, and a real problem for many parents when it comes to ADHD and schoolwork. 

“Have you done that science project?”

“Yep, and handed it in.”

“Have you finished your English paper?”

“Yep, and handed it in.”

Note from teacher (usually by the time it’s really too late to make them up) - I’m missing these assignments...........

Follow-up results in some more disassembling - “I put it right on the desk, she must have lost it.”  OR  “I emailed it, his email must not be working.”  All attempts at finding the missing work are unsuccessful.

ARGGHHHH!!!

Some of you may be laughing or crying right now, because you know exactly what I’m talking about. 

So why does this happen?  In short, it’s a mal-adaptive way of dealing with being overwhelmed, and it’s a phenomena that is created by all whole host of executive functions coming up short.  First of all, we have the personal disorganization that results in the assignment being forgotten, or the rubric being lost (which your child needs because they really didn’t hear the multi-step directions due to inability to attend), or not keeping up with the calendar (“what day is it, anyway?”) So the assignment doesn’t get done, completed, and/or handed in on the right day.  Now stuff is starting to back up, so poor sense of time and inability to manage emotion lead to feeling overwhelmed.  Personal disorganization comes up again with a lack of necessary skills to plan to “dig out”.  More work backs up and the cycle repeats.  In the meantime, parents and teachers are asking (nagging) about getting everything done.  Because your child values short-term gain over long term reward (which requires perseverance), the illogical conclusion is to just tell everyone what they want to hear and hope that somehow it all works out / the next assignment has a better grade to make up for the zero / they will really get organized tomorrow / they will study really hard for the next test and get a 100 / or other sorts of magical thinking. 

This can get to be habitual and really devastating, so it’s important to address in a really practical, consistent way.  Some suggestions:

1.   Don’t condone or excuse the lying, but don’t focus on it as a character flaw.  People who feel that they are inherently “bad” don’t see a reason to try and improve.  A better approach is talk about how you will work together to end the need for lying because it damages relationships.

2.  When your child volunteers that they have assignments that are missing or incomplete, thank them for telling you. You want to encourage this.  It’s yet another way they have to admit they messed up which is difficult for all of us.  People with ADHD need to learn how to ask for appropriate help when they need it, and you are reinforcing that skill.

3.  Assume that stuff is sometimes going to get lost and that not all assignments are likely to get turned in on time.  It’s your reality, and your child’s reality, especially in middle school and high school.  Work to mitigate the problem as much as possible rather than deny that it’s ever going to happen.

4. If nobody else is doing it, keep track of back assignments and calendar their completion in a public place.  Follow up with the teacher immediately on the day they are supposed to be turned in to make sure they got there.  This often needs to happen into high school, and despite hearing from teachers that your child needs to be independent, your child needs that extra accommodation and it’s fine. 

5.  If you have a copier or scanner, ask your child everyday if they have a rubric, form, directions, or a completed assignment that they would like to copy.  Put the copy in a designated location and give them back the original.  Sometimes those assignments really do get lost and it’s good habit to have a back-up.  Scan or copy all important documents.

6. Talk to your children about ways to repair relationships that have been damaged by lying including teachers, friends, and you.  Often an apology note to the teacher with some steps your child is taking to avoid the problem in the future can go a long way.  Emphasize that relationships can be repaired.

It takes time to learn new habits.  If your child has started lying about schoolwork, it’s not going to stop overnight.  Your continuing positive approach can help turn the habit around and teach you how to live with your child and teach your child how to live with themselves.

Follow me on Twitter @pam327 - FB at Pamela Mecca Seymour, LPC

Montessori and ADHD

 “The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy."

“To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control is to betray the idea of freedom.”

Maria Montessori 

The relationship between ADHD and the Montessori classroom is a tricky one.  Montessori is neither a panacea for children with ADHD, nor an environment that they should avoid altogether.  ADHD is not caused nor cured by diet, the frenetic pace of our culture, television, or poor parenting.  (See my comment about the first article below, and the author's repsonse)  Those issues can certainly affect the severity of ADHD symptoms and a child's ability to develop coping mechanisms, but ADHD stems from structural differences in the brain, is highly heritable, and was first identified in this country before the Civil War.  I am sure that Dr. Montessori met and observed some children who might have been identified as "mentally defective," but may actually have been living with ADHD.

The traditional Montessori classroom, when properly designed and maintained, can be beneficial to a child with ADHD.  Particularly in Children's House, the environment is structured to develop control and concentration.  (I have used some traditional Montessori activities, such as "walking the line" with some of my younger non-Montessori ADHD clients to a good effect) The child has freedom within the structure of the classroom, and can spend a long period of time on activities of choice.  The child learns how to remember and apply multi-step directions when they choose a work, take it off the shelf and carry it to a work area, complete the work, pick it up, and put it away - all of which must be done in a specific fashion.  All of those skills are important for children with ADHD to learn and practice.  Some children with ADHD require years of practice before those skills are mastered.   Children with ADHD will be done a disservice in the classroom when the teacher does not recognize that the child may not be capable of fully implementing these skills without the help of the teacher or a classmate.  Likewise, it will not help the child if the requirements to operated within the defined behavioral parameters of the classroom are ignored.  For the ADHD child to be successful, both the teacher and the parents must be willing to ask the child to perform at the highest level of capability, while providing assistance so that the child will still be successful.  In some schools this balance may be difficult.  More on that in a minute.

Older children must also learn and practice the skills of moving from one work to another in a timely fashion so that they complete enough work each day to make adequate academic progress.  For children with the executive function issues around ADHD, that can be a daunting challenge.  Activation (starting a task - particularly one perceived as difficult), perserverance, and organization all take a hit in the ADHD brain.  Since children in Montessori school often see their worth in the amount of work they complete, continued failure in this area can lead to discouragement and even depression.  A child in a Montessori classroom who is either spending the day wandering around the room with no substantive tasks completed, or a child who is just sitting complacently without showing willingness to attempt anything independently are both illustrations of this problem.  A child who begins to exhibit behavior that seems angry or defiant may also have arrived at the same place.  Again, the teacher who understands how ADHD truly impacts issues around work completion will be able to identify a discouraged or anxious child and will modify the child's environment accordingly, without labeling the child as "lazy", "oppositional", or "unmotivated".  The parents will also need to do their part to listen to teacher concerns as soon as they are voiced, and provide their child with the appropriate assistance at home.  This assistance may need to go beyond medication to things such as creating a structured schedule to help continue the "Montessori Day" into the home, learning all that they can about ADHD and how it affects their child, and agreeing to participate in the extra help that might be offered at and outside of school.

The challenge for many Montessori schools at the present time - particularly public Montessori schools - involves the ability to accommodate children with ADHD within the parameters of shrinking staffs and increasing demands for children to meet benchmarks on a yearly basis.  Even with two adults, it is a challenge to meet the needs of 25+ children on a truly individual basis.  In addition, the degree to which the plan of work may be modified for a child when the school has target standards to meet is limited.  In a traditional Montessori environment, where learning takes place in a three year cycle, children can often take time to practice and master classroom skills that require growth of executive functions. I'm not speaking of skills doing math or writing a paragraph or answering comprehension questions; rather I'm speaking of the skills required to develop a plan of work, do the work completely and properly, ask for help when needed, and do it all in a timely fashion.  Often once they have developed some mastery of those executive functions, learning is accelerated in subsequent years. Children in many types of public schools no longer have the luxury of time to develop executive function skills according to their own developmental timetable, and teachers certainly do not have time to teach them.  Standards are expected to be met on a yearly basis.

So if your child has ADHD, or you suspect they do, you must consider the following things before enrolling your child in any particular Montessori school, whether it's public or private:

• How much bandwidth do you as a parent have for assisting your child at home?  Are you prepared to continue the "Montessori Day" with the appropriate amount of structure in your home to help your ADHD child?  Are you willing to use agencies and providers to help with ADHD outside of school if it becomes necessary?  
• Are you willing to adopt and support the philosophy and structure of the school, even when you child is not always successful meeting the school's expectations?
• Does your child become discouraged easily?  Learning how to behave independently can be difficult work for a Montessori child.  How much comfort do you have with your child trying and being unsuccessful?  Independence often results in "skinned knees."
• Does your child tend to misbehave or "shut down" in an environment with lots of choice and stimulation?
• How well to the teachers understand the Montessori theories of developing control and concentration and how do they apply those theories in their classrooms?
• How well does the staff at the school truly understand ADHD beyond a child's difficulty sitting still or paying attention?  Do they understand what executive functions are and how they impact a child in the classroom?  Do they know and use positive interventions for children with ADHD?
• What is the school's philosophy about grade-level benchmarks and testing?  What is your philosophy?  If your child shows a slow rate of gain academically in one particular year while they are developing skills for staying productively on task,  how will the school react?  How will you react?  
• Will there be continual pressure for your child to perform independently yet be "on grade level?"

If any of those things are concerns for you, your child might not thrive in that particular Montessori environment, or might not be a good fit for Montessori at all.  For two other perspectives, I offer the articles below.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-flores-shaw/after-ritalin-whats-next_b_1271750.html

http://tracylynnconway.hubpages.com/hub/adhdandmontessori

What a 5-year-old Thinks You Might Like to Know.......

I spent a lot of time in my office today which means I was unofficially on bathroom patrol.  At my Montessori school, children use the restrooms in pairs, with one sitting in a chair holding a paper towel while the other uses the facilities.  Recently we have started responding and acknowledging the correct behavior outside the bathroom, using posters that have photos of children behaving the proper way.  When children are doing what they are supposed to, they see a "thumbs up" from an adult or an older child.  When things get noisy, an adult is supposed to reference the poster to remind the child how they should behave.

Today a young man was sitting outside the bathroom who often has a hard time remembering to look at the poster and model the behavior.  He's five.  It got a bit noisy out there, so I went out to see if I could help.  I came around the corner and he sort-of scrambled sideways onto a chair.  I pointed to the appropriate picture on the poster with a smile.

"But it's so BORING to sit still in a chair," he said.  (eye roll and frown)

"Yes, I know," I said.  "But it's important to know how to sit still because sometimes it's useful."

"I can't do that," he said.

"Yes you can.  Have you tried something to keep your mind busy?" I asked.  "Try counting backwards from 50."  ("Or even A HUNDRED!" said an interested party behind me.)  "Let's do it together."

So we counted backward to about 35 together.  I smiled and went back to my office.  It got noisy again out there.  I was ready to head back out, but then it suddenly got quiet.  I heard someone whispering "82, 83, 84, 85........".  He was sitting still and counting.  I gave him a thumbs up.  He smiled and kept counting.  A minute later he moseyed into my office.

"I counted all the way to 130!"  (Hmmm, his partner sure is taking a long time.........)

"That's great," I said.  "Did it help?"

"Sort-of.  But it's still boring."

"I know.  Come here, I want to tell you a secret."  He came closer.  I whispered to him, "Some people have a hard time sitting still and that's OK.  It gets better if you practice.  You just did a great job practicing."

He looked at me and whispered back, "I don't think that should be a secret.  I think its something that everybody should know if they are bored."

So he went back to his classroom to tell his classmates, and I'm telling you.