Freeing the Mind
Freeing the Mind
Teaching ADHD Children
Growing up with ADHD-c I knew that
my children would have to deal with the same thing that formal education in
public school had done to me. At the young
age of around five, my parents placed me on Ritalin acting on the advice of
so-called informed doctors in 1975 treated ADHD as a mental condition and
behavioral disorder and continue to educate educators to do so today in the
classroom.[1]
The content of the diagnosis in the 1994
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American
Psychiatric Association concentrates on classifying and suppressing unwanted
behaviors in the classroom. The
diagnosis classifies three types of ADHD: hyperactivity, impulsivity, and
inattention. Under hyperactivity, the
first two (and most powerful) criteria are "often fidgets with hands or
feet or squirms in seat" and "often leaves seat in classroom or in
other situations in which remaining seated is expected." Under
impulsivity, the first criterion is "often blurts out answers before
questions have been completed" and under inattention, the first criterion
is "often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless
mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities."[2]
Growing up it became clear to me that these two
"symptoms" were nothing more or less than the behaviors most likely
to cause disruptions in a large, structured classroom. Furthermore, the diagnosis itself was formulated
over several decades with the purpose: of redefining disruptive classroom
behavior into a disease in which the ultimate aim is to justify the use of
medication to suppress or control the behaviors.[3]
In my own observations, I have concluded that our
public schools and our families are failing to meet the needs of children in a
variety of ways. Focusing on public schools,
many teachers feel stressed by classroom conditions and are incompetent to deal
with emotional problems in the children.
The classrooms themselves are often too large, there are too few teaching
assistants and volunteers to help out, and the instructional materials are
often outdated and boring in comparison to the modern technologies that appeal
to children. This leads to the false
diagnosis of ADHD by a school psychologist who has no background in neurology
and is only diagnosing and drugging our children, they shift the blame for the
problem from our social institutions and us as adults to the relatively
powerless children in our care. [4]
Theses well
meaning educators harm our children by failing to identify and to meet their
real educational needs for better-prepared teachers, more teacher- and
child-friendly classrooms, more inspiring curricula, and more engaging
classroom technologies. In addition to they
avoid critical issues about educational
reform by effectively drugging the children who are signaling the need for
reform, and forcing all children into conformity with our bureaucratic systems.
As parents when we allow educators to diagnose ADHD and school
psychologists demand, we drug our children to satisfy their own academic formality
in the classroom we disempower ourselves as parents and adults. While we
may gain momentary relief from guilt by imagining that, the fault lies in the
brains of our children and the medication is not harming them. However, ultimately we undermine our ability
to make the necessary adult interventions that our children need education-wise.
We literally become bystanders in the lives of our children and create a
dependency on drugs that leads to obsessive-compulsive disorders and addictive
behaviors later in life to fill the void where the drugs were.
By freeing or children’s mind from harmful drugs and addressing the
educational needs of our children, we help the child learn valuable tools they
can use later in life. We start by
teaching our educators to how to reform classrooms and how to address the cognitive
needs of ADHD children by Adding different skills such as, self-talk,
biofeedback training, meditation and visualization to the learning process.
Redesigning classrooms to provide
learning spaces that use music and art to calm or stimulate. Educators and parents should utilize the
understanding that each child has times where he or she is more alert and
working to find those times utilizing them to accomplish harder tasks then.
Schools and parents should provide
a balanced breakfast and create programs that provide nutrition for families
that require assistance. Develop and/or
work with the physical education instructor to include martial arts training, proper
appropriate physical touch and appropriate movement, physical relaxation
techniques, as well as, outdoor activities, noncompetitive sports and
games. Teachers and parents build
self-esteem by being a positive role model, providing positive images of the
future, offering individual psychotherapy and identifying talents, strengths
and abilities.
Educators and parents use personal contracts
to help develop each child's learning, consistent rules, routines, and
transitions, involve the child in selecting strategies and provide immediate
feedback. Incorporate stress effective communication
skills, class meetings, peer and cross-age tutoring and cooperative learning. Develop classes that use hands-on learning,
computers, high stimulating learning resources, creative development; withhold
language and attention-grabbing activities.
At home, parents need to limit television and video games. [5]
In closing, the changes in classroom, academics, diagnosing and
treatment of ADHD children allows for their integration into the social system
of the school without any adverse affects of utilizing drugs as a quick fix
substitute to educating our children in a proper way.
- American Psychiatric
Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental
disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV).
- http://www.breggin.com/classactionmore.html
- Armstrong, Thomas. A Holistic
Approach to Attention Deficit Disorder. Educational Leadership, February
1996. pp34-36.
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