What is your schedule like for your bright 6-year-old with ADHD?

[pitterpatter]

For the past couple of years, I have thought DD was perhaps gifted with a quirky personality. Now, I highly suspect ADHD. She's still very bright and we are working at an accelerated pace. However, we have recently (past six months) started having some real focus issues, mostly during reading and math.

 

I have been thinking about how to better accommodate her. Just wondering what other people's schedules are like for bright 6-year-olds with ADHD? (DD turned six last month.)

[PeterPan]

Rising 1st grade we kept a lot of the times and methods about like K5. Your birthday is similar to my dd's (late spring), and for us it worked better for years to start new things in January. Actually we still tend to. They tend to have a growth spurt at their 6 months birthday, so you have a kid who in January of the school year is TOTALLY DIFFERENT mentally from what they were in March, April, May when you were planning your school year, kwim? So that's actually the biggest thing I think, only to plan one term ahead. That way you can totally shake things up every 4 months to fit their new maturity and readiness.

 

My did a LOT of art at that age. She spent several hours a day listening to audiobooks and working on paper crafting, sculpting with Sculpey (polymer clay), and hand sewing little clothes for stuffed animals, etc. But she's still that sort of crafty, maker, do-er kind of person. Now it has other expressions like landscaping. :D

 

So schedules? Um, a lot like K5. Short sessions (15-20 min. generally) with breaks. She's a slow riser (many are either high stim or low stim, and the slow stim can be VERY slow risers), so she asked to have time each morning to read. We'd get through our formal together stuff, and then she'd go to her piles of reading, crafting, etc. She started ice skating during K5 I think, so we did the noon skate for years and years. That pushed us to get our together work done. Then after the noon skate we would eat a snack, rest separately, and then come together to have read alouds while she played in the yard. Oh yeah, Lang Fairy Tales that I read aloud while she ran around playing, hehe. We liked doing our writing time after lunch. (fairy tale and fable rewrites, that sort of thing)

 

We did math first for years because that's what people told us you should do. Well turns out her processing speed is very low relative to IQ. Means she was working very, very hard to do all that math! So in essence we were wearing her out first thing and then frustrated that things were so hard the rest of the day. We finally flipped and started doing math LAST, like right before lunch. That turned out to be much better for us. Obviously you have to be careful that it actually gets done. As long as it does, doing it last is better for her. We still do that, doing everything that is easier or faster or that requires less processing first, knowing she'll be tired after math.

 

Yeah breaks, lots of running around the table or around the yard. I'm so much better equipped now. Now I have a small indoor rebounder (trampoline) and an indoor single line swing. Now I know to take breaks during the day, and I invest in good games and puzzles.

 

Curriculum is sort of a catch-22 with these kids. I see you're using it, and it's good for organization. However it's really not worth fighting over. They'll tend to be right-brained and VSL (read Jeffrey Freed's Right-Brain Children in a Left-Brain World) and they make connections in really interesting, sophisticated ways. Curriculum dumps people into conclusions and in the most basic way. It gets done, but some kids are bored with it because it's not appealing to their ability to make connections. At that age my dd read the COFA books (Childhood of Famous Americans) series PROLIFICALLY. She got very, very interested in Qu. Eliz. I, and actually she still is, all these years later. But how she read the books wasn't normal. Like she'd use the timelines in the back of the older COFAs (new versions don't have them, grrr) and track down families, see how kids turned out, etc. So you've got a 2nd grader looking for consequence and cause/effect and relationships. Curriculum is too linear. These kids tend to think more globally and conceptually, so they like tracking down a *theme* or idea rather than going through something strictly chronologically. If you do too much that is top-down, you'll *squash* that drive and go-bugs and exploration that is within them. They have go-bugs. What they don't have is the ability to *organize* and be *efficient*. Give her STRUCTURE, routines, consistent expectations that she can work within and have some freedom within.

 

I think they'll diagnose at 7 for most kids, though *sometimes* they will diagnose earlier. What you do now depends on what you're seeing, what's rising to the forefront. I see you're doing AAS. I would make a pre-emptive trip to the optometrist, just to make sure there aren't any developmental vision issues and that her ability to visualize is there. If there are no vision problems, she *should* be VSL, which means you *should* be able to harness visualization methods for spelling. If it's not working, that's a big clue to head to the optometrist. I would do it anyway, and I would go to a developmental optometrist, not a regular one. They don't cost more, but they can check more. COVD is where you find them. They can do a regular exam and just *screen* for the extra things (convergence, focusing, etc.).

 

Is she having any symptoms of sensory or tone issues? Hand pain when writing, avoiding certain things, whatever. It comes out lots of ways. Anything weird you're seeing now, you might as well track down.

 

I'm not even sure where my computer files are from that far back. I have paper records downstairs somewhere. Maybe I can pull them later. I'm pretty sure we started using paper checklists around 1st or 2nd. We didn't necessarily put times, just checklists. Mostly things were just SHORT with us. If we needed 45 min, we broke it up into 3 sessions. That kind of thing. So we didn't just do math. She might do 5-10 min of drill, then do something else (read alouds, Bible, whatever), then 20 min. of math, then later in the afternoon do a dab more math. Break things up. Don't wear her out.

 

Btw, welcome to the LC/SN board! :)

[pitterpatter]

Wow, thanks!! That's a lot of good, helpful information to process. I appreciate it.

 

I "think" our routine is pretty good right now. I keep everything low-stimulus in the morning and get school done by lunch. I have thought about switching up reading and math. Right now, we do reading/language arts, math, history, science (or art ever once in a while) on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And, reading/language arts, math, Spanish, history or science on Tuesday and Thursday. I can't figure out a way to move reading and math and make it work. She gets pretty wound up with history and science sometimes and I can't imagine getting her to settle enough to do reading and math after other subjects. I just started something new...I've added in Evan-Moor's Daily Phonics and Daily Math right before each subject. She really likes their worksheets...they keep her active filling in circles and such. They take like five minutes each and she thinks they're fun. I'm hoping they'll help transition her into reading and math each day. We'll see if it works. We school for 3 to 3.5 hours a day right now...year around. Trying to cut it a little. For some reason, she's lost her ability to go that long. We were going along great at the beginning of this past school year, then at the end of December/first of January, things just started falling apart for her. I thought it was a growth spurt, but things kept getting worse. Ever once in a while, she'll have a great day, but we've been having a lot more bad days than good lately. So, I'm in the process of shaking things up a bit.

 

Sensory issues. Yup. She likes to rub me. Rubs my arms up and down. Has since she was a baby. She doesn't like loud noises unless she wants something loud (like her music when she's dancing). She'll cover her ears sometimes. She's SUPER emotional. She scratches all over all of the time. Says she has itches. (It's not dermatological.) She's recently taken up smoothing her eyebrows...does it all of time. Ever once in a while when she's really stressed, she'll start making a clicking sound in her throat. We have a sensory cushion she uses during school. I know there's more, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment. She doesn't like handwriting. She does fine with it, for the most part. She just really doesn't like it. I've pretty much dropped it as a subject and just have her write more as part of her regular coursework. I just remind her to keep it neat. I don't think she really has any tone issues. Oh, there's cutting, which is about like handwriting for her. She's fine doing it on her own without expectations, but with have issues during school time. She's not good at watching or listening to someone tell/show her how to do something and then replicating it. She needs step-by-step instructions and then practice to do something exactly right. For example, she can draw things out of her head, but not look at someone else's drawing and duplicate it even remotely close, even if you model it once. Same way with gymnastics.

 

You've given me some things to think about. I'm going to do some more thinking. I'm a little overwhelmed with the thought of perhaps having to figure out how to switch up things so often. I've spent a lot of time coming up with the things we do now. Hah! Like I said, she's accelerated and does well enough with the subject matter...it's more of an issue with focus right now.

[PeterPan]

I'd go ahead and get her an OT eval for that sensory. Sensory can be a 4-alarm fire, making it harder to focus than it has to be. So some OT can chill the sensory to help her focus better. If you are paying for it yourself, see if the person will work with you, like doing sessions every other week and more homework, that kind of thing. Some are good about that and some aren't. The eval might uncover some things or give you more ideas.

 

Our OT said that inability to do something if it's not put into words is a praxis symptom. It's why I caught onto my ds's verbal apraxia so quickly when someone here on the boards suggested that was the cause of his lack of speech, because literally just a couple weeks earlier the OT had said the same thing about dd. So for instance if you show my dd a complicated hand motion and ask her to replicate, she can't. Yes, when we ice skated a lot it was a problem, because some coaches can put things into words and some can't. I usually watched the classes and then worked with her myself afterward. So I was compensating and didn't even know it. She tried to take a sign language class at co-op, and boy did that flop in a hot minute. She still wants to do sign language, sigh, so I'm trying more options for her. It's definitely an issue though, and that was the word the OT used, praxis (as in motor control). However either it wasn't to a degree diagnosable or the lady really was floozy, because she never put anything in the actual write-up. Considering the lady was doing the write-up literally right when we arrived for our appt, it could have gotten left out, lol. Maybe that's why the np then didn't diagnose dysgraphia, even though her motor control is not automatic for handwriting? I get so weary of the DSM. They split hairs and divide things. Whatever.

 

So to me, I'd get that OT eval, because you don't know what you're missing. She could actually have some retained primitive reflexes or low tone or other things going on that you could actually do something for. If she does have some of those things going on, they could be the reason she's resisting certain things like cutting and whatnot in school.

 

That's interesting that she likes workbooks! My ds does. He's a workbook junky, and my dd never would touch them. I think it's probably just personality, so that's awesome that you're latching onto it and catering to her.

 

If you have transition issues, you could staple several subject papers/worksheets into one daily packet, then she'd just sit down once and bang in out.

 

Mondays were always bad in our house till I started making her do school work on Sunday afternoon. Seriously. Doesn't take much, just enough that they get back in mode. One or two things, just a dab. Something that they have to sit down and do intentionally with the thought that this is school work, I'm in work mode, tomorrow I'll be in work mode.

 

As the materials get harder and more involved, she's going to have less ability to cope. Where they hit the wall differs, but the average is around 4th grade, that point where they REALLY CAN'T cover it anymore. Some books you read also give you screwball expectations, so you start thinking something is WRONG if your kid isn't doing xyz by such and such age or working "independently" at such and such an age or whatever. That makes it seem harder too, because you thought it was going to look a certain way when you got to 1st or 2nd or 4th and it DOESN'T, not with these kids.

 

I divide our year into terms: fall term, winter term, May term, summer term. I plan each term uniquely and don't really make the schedule for it until right when we get there. I did try to pull up some of my old lists from my drawer files, but apparently at that age we were still using index cards in the pocket chart. By 2nd, yes I have proper checklists. I would go ahead and make checklists now. They have been SO good for us, I highly, highly recommend them. It's just a way of establishing the plan.

 

Have you thought about getting her an ipad, a mini-ipad, or an ipod touch? She'd probably lose a touch, but a mini or full ipad would be great. Then you can put her checklists right on there. There are tons and tons of checklist apps. Technology is FABULOUS for these kids in getting their lives organized and accomplishing their goals.

 

You're going to do better at this than you think. It's not like you just TOSS things. Well sometimes you do, lol. But sometimes it's more than you finished your math 4 book and are moving on to math 5. Many things are like that once you get in a groove.

 

Ok, I'm trying to understand what you're saying about your schedule and I'm missing it. In general our morning schedules at that age were something like:

 

singing/Bible time/memory work

spelling

latin

typing or miscellaneous

math

 

Then lunch.

 

ice skate, then audiobooks and crafting

 

Somewhere in there she got time to read her history, sometimes in the morning, depending on when we got started, otherwise in the afternoon. Science was a couple days a week in the afternoons. She's a history fanatic, not so much into science, so it shows.

 

She was reading well by fall of 1st grade (like reading 4th gr books on history), so at that point we continued with our SWR and dictation and it was good. I recall throwing in a workbook at one point, some typing, some editing, Shurley grammar and FLL1/2 (which we finished around that time, beginning of 1st). But that's just that whole pile of little scraggly things you do in the morning. For her history was typically 1-2 hours a day, so it had to be in the afternoon. We also don't start early.

 

If you mark on her weekly list things that are together and things that are individual, then you find your rhythm on how you work together. You know that the together things have to be done in the morning and the individual things float to afternoon if you get a late start. That sort of thing.

 

Guess you could say I'm a lot less worried about it now than I was then, lol. I spent so much time worrying. It's really easy to do. Moderate amounts of diligent effort pay off over time. I'm very glad about the diligent effort we made in some things that were hard for her (like spelling). Absolutely don't regret that. At one point we were spending 1+ hour a day on spelling, and I don't regret that one bit. She's an adequate speller at this point, and I'm glad. But any time I spent actually fretting over *content* teaching, that was not time well spent. Any content will do, and frankly I love, love, love the online self-paced veritas press history. It gives you so much freedom by giving you a baseline of coverage. At that point you can just do your thing, give them piles of books, do activities, whatever you like. But you know if HO is working for her, that's awesome. I didn't have a workbooky child. I just don't think it's necessary to do everything with equal exertion from you. It's not humanly possible. It's ok to do some things really well and give a little more flex or do something non-traditional for something else to keep it practical. And maybe if you flex something like that, you'll find your schedule problems fix themselves?

[pitterpatter]

Thanks, again. I'm going to cry a little and think about all that you've written. LOL! Will share it with DH too.

[PeterPan]

Why are you crying? Usually it comes from one of the parents, and y'all are happy, secure individuals, right? Not a death sentence, no missing arms, and certainly not a DEFECT. It's just a DIFFERENCE. Differences are good. Embrace it, don't be afraid of it. :)

 

It's ok to cry and get it out, but it's going to be OK, really!

 

:grouphug:

[Bree]

:banghead: That about sums up my day with my dd who's 6 with ADHD and has sensory issues :) I know for my dd she concentrates more when we do different activities like wrapping her up in a blanket tight like a burrito and rubbing her back, she's sensory seeking. I would probably try to find some of the SPD forums or websites and check on different areas that might help in that aspect. I know for my dd when I am able to meet her sensory needs she is able to do better in school.

[pitterpatter]

I've thought about getting her some kind of fidget toy, but I'm pretty sure she would just play with it and that's it.

 

 

:banghead: That about sums up my day with my dd who's 6 with ADHD and has sensory issues :) I know for my dd she concentrates more when we do different activities like wrapping her up in a blanket tight like a burrito and rubbing her back, she's sensory seeking. I would probably try to find some of the SPD forums or websites and check on different areas that might help in that aspect. I know for my dd when I am able to meet her sensory needs she is able to do better in school.

[pitterpatter]

I guess as far as scheduling is concerned, I was wondering what subjects/activities/etc. people do and for how long at a time. Do you put something away, if something ends up taking waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long. For example, a specific book that can take DD ten minutes to read one day, another of let's say the same series could end up taking her an hour to read another day...just depends on how her brain is working that day. Some days she reads with near fluency and other days when she's not letting her brain just read, she sounds out darn near every word, for no real reason. Since I don't know how her brain is working from day-to-day, I totally pick the wrong books some days because I go by what she was able to read the day before. But, I hate to quit in the middle of a book. And, I don't want her to quit trying, thinking we'll just put it up. Maybe one answer is to read chapter books and we just read for time. Hate to do that, though, as she loves picture books.

[pitterpatter]

Aw, we just already have a lot going on health-wise in our family and she's an only. She's already "different" because a serious tumor popped up when she was one. Surgery was the only option. She's had three surgeries now. So, she does have a fairly significant defect caused from the surgeries. We have to monitor the disease to make sure it doesn't come back. It's similar to cancer in the way it acts, but it's not a cancer. Anyway, so yeah...it's hard to look at our sweet little girl that we love so much and think about her current and future struggles. We want a happy, perfect life for her, you know.

 

 

Why are you crying? Usually it comes from one of the parents, and y'all are happy, secure individuals, right? Not a death sentence, no missing arms, and certainly not a DEFECT. It's just a DIFFERENCE. Differences are good. Embrace it, don't be afraid of it. :)

 

It's ok to cry and get it out, but it's going to be OK, really!

 

:grouphug:

[PeterPan]

We want a happy, perfect life for her, you know.

 

 

This meant a lot to me when I was thinking through these things... Welcome to Holland - Our Kids