HEM’s Questions & Answers – January-February 2010
We were told that our little girl, age 8, is suffering from ADD by her teacher and guidance counselor. They told us that a doctor can put her on drugs to help her concentrate. My neighbor is the teacher to her children at home and she tells me that we don’t have to use any drugs if we teach at home too. My wife and mother can take turns doing the teaching so that isn’t a problem but we want to know if it’s true that this way means our little girl won’t have ADD any more. -Charlie
About HEM’s Questions & Answers
(The deadline for answers which will appear in the print magazine is Nov. 25.)
Tags: ADD, homeschooling, medication
As a former classroom teacher, I would say that most
students diagnosed with ADD don’t really seem to have a
problem that taking them out of a classroom won’t cure.
Classrooms today want children who sit still quietly, can
do without recess, aren’t distracted by discipline problems
happening around them (that schools often avoid dealing with),
can survive without needed snacks and race through lunches
during the inadequate time allotted by schools full of kids,
and so on.
I’ve read enough articles in professional journals to know that
there is a lot of controversy about the number of children
being diagnosed with ADD. Many doctors say that most children
today diagnosed with ADD don’t really have a medical problem.
Rather they have a problem being normal kids in a school system
that’s set up to deal with children as though the children are
parts in a factory.
When teaching your child at home, your child can get up and run
around when she needs to work off some steam. She can yell out
answers or sing them or do other things without causing a problem.
She can get a snack when needed. She’ll have time to eat a healthy
lunch. She’ll be able to ask her myriad questions without a teacher
getting upset because she’s throwing the class off schedule. You can
make lessons work better for her by gearing them to her learning style
or by making them more hands-on (something classroom teachers would
love to do but find difficult to do with a full classroom of kids).
In short, it’s not that the ADD problem will go away. It is that most kids
don’t have a problem, but rather schools aren’t set up to deal with
normal, active kids. Taking her out of the environment that isn’t
set up for normal, active kids and teaching her in a way that
works for her will likely turn her back into an ordinary, active kid.