Homeschooling an ADD Child: Tips for Parents

When my son was first diagnosed with ADD (attention deficit disorder - without the hyperactivity), I was not the least bit disappointed. I did not see his diagnosis as a disorder at all, and I did not think there were too many hurdles that we had to overcome that other parents with non-ADD learners had to. I was partly correct. It soon became clear to me that if my son was going to learn how to love learning, and be allowed to grow at his own pace, I was going to have to send him to an expensive private school that catered to kids with ADD, or I was going to have to teach him myself. Quite a bit of misunderstanding about ADD still abounds in many traditional educational environments. It is only a learning disability in a classroom filled with an overload of stimulation - something not too good for any student - ADD or otherwise.

The latter option terrified me. Not because I only new a little about homeschooling, and not because I didn't think I could do it, but because I was not sure if the ideas I had for teaching my son would apply to a student with ADD. We learned together, and over the past four years, we have developed some excellent learning strategies - that my 11 year old son calls "tips" - for learning our way around an ADD diagnosis. These are some of his favorite:

Firstly, I did not traditionally home school. I used an on line public charter school. We have tried three, and have now settled with one we really enjoy from our state. They send us the curriculum, the computer, all supplies - completely free. As a taxpayer, I pay for my son's charter school education just as I do for my other children who are currently enrolled in a local public school. My son has a teacher he speaks with and works with on line regularly, a special ed teacher, and an IEP (an individualized education plan) that gets reviewed each year. He participates in field trips and state testing, on line school clubs, and he has made lifelong friends who attend his school and others like it. I highly recommend a public on line charter school if you are not a teacher and have a child with special needs like ADD. The help you get will be immense and the loneliness factor often felt by traditional homeschooling moms is virtually non-existent with a charter school. There is just too much human connection for a sense of isolation. I have used both methods - this is by far the best.

Keep a Schedule: It doesn't have to be hard and fast. It just has to be a general consistency that you work within the parameters of every day. For example, my son and I get up around 8am, log onto his school, check assignments due for the day, see if he has any Elluminates (on line classrooms to attend). Then we get to work. With a child with ADD, it is very important - and my son wholeheartedly agrees - that a parent, and educator, is sitting right next to the child encouraging their focus, learning alongside them, and helping them to grasp the concept. I often read his history assignment for the day, but he answers all the questions himself after we have discussed what was just read. Consistency is key with learning the ADD way.

Keep Busy While Keeping Busy: While I was interviewing my son regarding his thoughts on tips and ideas, he said this one almost immediately, "Let the parents know that it's not that kids with ADD can't focus on more than one thing at once. It is that they are usually already focusing on so many things, that they just have to narrow it down to a couple. Kids with ADD can always do more than one thing at a time. This is how I can win so many computer games. I can listen to you tell me that I need to let the dog out, but I can win at the same time and come back and do it all over again." Offering a child with ADD something else to put in their hands while they are memorizing math facts or reading over their literature can be a HUGE help in their concentration. Let them squeeze a stress ball during a long book chapter, and make sure they are reading out loud. Do not be afraid to let your child standing while working. I have often had my son tell me to scoot over so he can stand while answering the state capitals or repeating the scientific method. Movement and tactile involvement somehow aids the child with ADD. To complete long performance tests at home, my son's teacher recently suggested I get him a yoga ball to bounce on while completing the 1 hour test. Allow your child to chew gum - but only while working. The opposite of traditional school. If they are doing two things at once, kids with ADD will actually focus much better. Try it. You will be surprised at how movement and learning go hand-in-hand with ADD.

Minimize Extra Noise: Turn off the TV, make the computer screen blank (unless you are using it for school), turn the radio volume completely off. All extra visual or audio will always be a distraction to your learning child. "Make other people leave the room," my son insists. Many times, if people have not considered our homeschooling arrangement and they simply "pop" over to the house to say hi - we loose our precious school time and cannot complete the day's activities. Even if the guest and I are in a completely different room, the idea of having another person in the house who isn't normally there during school hours, is very distracting for my son.

Do Not Overload: After a certain point in the day, too much information has made your child with ADD mentally fatigued as well. It is best to let a tired brain rest and not overload it. Kids with ADD will never be all night studiers. They will succeed the best if they learn how to manage their study time with minimal conversation from others.

Rewards: "If you have a kid with ADD, you should offer them rewards for finishing their work, cause sometimes we really hate our school work," said my son while thinking of what he considers to be the second most important aspect of education. Bribes. It's that simple. Writing in a non-ADD manner can be so difficult for kids with ADD. Reward them with frequent breaks, their favorite snack, a walk outside, five minutes doing a craft they enjoy. Give them the constant reassurance that when they do well, they deserve compensation. Be prepared to prolong your school day with kids who have ADD, as well. Breaks are necessary. Very necessary, so it won't be the often touted "2 hour school day" of traditionally homeschooled kids. No, your ADD child will be in the home classroom for about the same amount as a traditionally schooled child, and you will be sitting next to him or her most of the day.

Dictation Days: This is one of my favorite parts of teaching my son. Often the writing, at least in the beginning, is very slow. Kids with ADD very often have difficulty with reading and writing, but excel in Math and Science. In order to ease my son's school life a bit, and offer him one of those great rewards he loves, we have a Dictation Day once a week. This was suggested to me by one of his charter school teachers, and has been praised by some of my other children's traditional public and private school teachers. I allow Isaac to teach me for one day. He reads all the information to me, tells me what to write down, and has me write down all the math problems as he works them out. It is akin to a teacher in a regular classroom asking for answers to the math problems she is writing on the board. Only we do this with every assignment for one full day (something clearly outlined in his IEP), and we get our work done in half the time - without any breaks!

Be Patient: Children with ADD do not have a disability - they simply think far outside the box the rest of us have safely put ourselves into. They think wide and far and they are dreamers and creators, engineers at a very early age. If you simply watch your ADD child play for a few moments without their knowledge, and look at them as though for the first time, you will clearly see how intuitive and intelligent they naturally are. You will marvel at how much more they understand than you do about certain subjects, cultures, or people. For they see things in a light very different than most of us who do not have ADD. Be as patient as you wish they could be, and you will see them begin to absorb the strategies you teach them for learning with ADD. Repeat often, "Take your time. You will do just fine." And they will, because you believed in them before anyone else and this is the most important fact you could ever teach them.