My daughter is 10 and in fourth class. Her teacher has reported that she is having difficulty with class work – task initiation and completion, lack of focus and so on. She often doesn’t complete class work, and gets emotionally overwhelmed in class because she has zoned out while instructions were being given to the class.
A classroom strategy has been devised and implemented, but I think she needs more help.
I know her abilities very well and I would understand her to be neurodivergent. She has never been formally assessed, but she shows classic signs of inattentive ADHD (she isn’t hyperactive) and/or dyspraxia. She expresses frustration that her handwriting speed is not as quick as she would like, and she can’t get her many ideas and thoughts on paper. She is also very sensitive to background noise. She finds it difficult to maintain concentration/focus in a noisy environment.
She is highly imaginative and creative, but she says her head is full of thoughts and they can distract her from what is happening in class – particularly if she lacks interest in the subject being taught. She has strong literacy and verbal reasoning skills. Her vocabulary and oral expression are very good. But standardised test results don’t seem to me to reflect her ability or potential, because she hasn’t acquired the skills to complete them in the time frame required.
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‘I am worried teachers won’t look beyond test results to see the potential in my 10-year-old’
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I am worried she will lose out in school if future teachers don’t look beyond the test results to see the potential in the child. My immediate concern is to help her to improve her executive functioning skills. I think if she can get help in this area, that might make a big difference to her.
Where do I go to access a tutor or other professional to help her?
It is understandable to worry when you feel your child is underperforming in school and when you think her potential might not be recognised by the teachers. In your question, you clearly have a detailed knowledge of your child’s abilities. Being tuned into your child’s needs and understanding where she is strong and where she has challenges will be really helpful in understanding how to support her.
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Reading your question, I would say the priority is to help her feel better in school and for the teacher to find an effective way to support her learning. You don’t say too much about the “classroom strategy” that has been devised but I would suggest closely collaborating and supporting the teacher to make this work. At the age of 10, the key is to ensure school is a fun learning and holistic experience.
Executive function skills
Executive function consists of a broad range of skills such as prioritising tasks, getting started, sustaining attention, emotion control, problem solving and so on. Many children have executive function challenges that cause them to underperform according to their ability – this is especially the case for ADHD children. The good news is that there is a lot you can do as a parent to support your child’s executive function. The first step is to get a good sense of where your child is strong and which skills they need more support with.
Then you can design ways to help them learn that build on their strengths and that “scaffold” and support their areas of weakness. For example, for a child who finds it hard to break down tasks – a good support strategy might be a chart that visually displays all the task steps in sequence. Or for a child who gets easily distracted you might create a sensory environment to help them sustain their attention such as noise-cancelling headphones or background music or a balance board rather than a seat.
There is a good book, The Smart but Scattered Child, that outlines many practical and positive ways to support your child’s executive function. The important thing is to not repeat unhelpful patterns that are happening in school or elsewhere. For example, if a child is struggling in school it might seem like a good idea to “try harder” and do more homework when this might simply be more of the same stress that is experienced at school.
Instead, it might be better to do less formal homework and instead focus on learning experiences that build on your child’s strengths such as debates and quizzes (that use her oral skills) or creative learning projects (that channel her imagination) or physical learning that involves movement and so on. Discover what works for your daughter.
Getting extra support
You can also consider getting extra support for your daughter either now or at some point in the future. A broad psychological assessment that looks at her cognitive ability, her attention, as well as her learning strengths and weaknesses, should give you additional insights.
Such an assessment and report might also help your daughter access additional educational resources if she needs them and help the teacher design the right as classroom strategies to meet her needs. In addition, there are many study coaches and tutors advertising online who specialise in supporting ADHD children with executive function.
You could contact one of the charities that support ADHD families (such as ADHD Ireland) for specific recommendations. In introducing a tutor, I would suggest you present this as a “tryout” to your daughter and monitor it carefully to ensure it is a positive experience for her.
You want to make sure it is enjoyable and genuinely enhancing her learning – if she finds it stressful then it might be counterproductive and better to change the approach or wait until she is older and more open to the experience.
- John Sharry is clinical director of the Parents Plus Charity and an adjunct professor at the UCD School of Psychology. He is delivering an online workshop on Motivating your Children on Wednesday, April 9th. See solutiontalk.ie
