[senco-forum] ADHD and a 9 year old

I think it is very important that she underplays the ADHD
diagnosis when talking to her child. She should also in no
way lower her expectations of her child's behaviour and
clearly communicate these to her child. If he misbehaves the
consequences should be just the same as if he didn't have
ADHD. This needs to be clearly communicated to him. There is
a danger of the child deliberately behaving badly and then
blaming it on their ADHD.

It is a very difficult and controversial area which opens
the whole can of worms about the problems of labelling
children.

Obviously on top of the approach outlined above her son will
need lots of support to help him behave. No two children
with ADHD are the same. There is a very wide range of
reasonable adjustments that can be made in the classroom
setting some of which will and will not work for her son.
Very often something will work for a few weeks and then stop
working. So something else will need to be tried.

A good source of suggestions to support her son can be found
here:

http://www.addiss.co.uk/information.htm

Hope this helps
Mark

--
Mark Norwood
Assistant Headteacher
www.avssc.org

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