Every day, teachers are faced with stressful situations, and challenging student or parent relationships. They may see a student struggling to attend in class, often interrupting, or turning in careless worksheets covered in doodles. Unfortunately, 32.2% of students with ADHD drop out of high school, (Breslau et al. 2011), with the national average around 5%. There is a need to continue to support these students and get helpful accommodations or interventions. What can be done to help these students?
Self-Care:
Teaching is a challenging profession, and the stress of meeting deadlines and managing a classroom can take a toll on our well-being. Poor nutrition, lack of physical activity, and sleeplessness are common issues that can impact our ability to handle stress effectively. It’s important to recognize that our overall health and well-being significantly impact our ability to create a positive classroom environment.
One effective self-care strategy is to take at least five minutes during the day to practice the Navy SEALs’ calming technique, Boxed Breathing. Additionally, if you identify nutrition, sleep, or exercise as areas that need improvement, try to make small changes to your daily routine that can help you better cope with the stress of the classroom. By taking care of ourselves, we can cultivate the resilience and positivity needed to excel as educators.
Classroom Management:
None of these accommodations will fit every classroom, but they could help with some behaviors and help achieve Michael Phelp’s levels of success. These interventions can also be applied class-wide and not restricted to one or two students. A classroom is a dynamic and fast-paced environment which can stress the constellation of ADHD-specific difficulties with internal self-regulation. Daniel Wysocki Ed.S., a counselor in Jonesboro, AR says, “There are several ways in which we can provide assistance to children who struggle with impaired information processing in the classroom. One approach is to display clear sets of rules that outline classroom expectations, which can help students better understand what is expected of them. Another helpful strategy is to increase the use of visual aids to reinforce these expectations, making it easier for children with processing difficulties to understand and remember them. Finally, we can work to reduce the child’s reliance on impaired information processing by using alternative teaching methods that cater to their unique learning style. “
Management of negative behaviors could also include reinforcement of positive behaviors. Training the correct behaviors is equally as important as reducing negative classroom acts. Children with ADHD will benefit from extra positive attention. In school, a child with ADHD could receive 20,000 corrective or negative comments by the time they are age 10 (Jellinek 2010), and this will greatly impact self-concept.
ADHD often is accompanied by working memory impairment. A child with ADHD may not be able to complete a task requiring multiple steps and could need to be provided with memory aids or a “buddy double”. Pairing students to offer consistent visual clues could be a successful classroom intervention. This could be implemented classroom wide with specific adjustments.
Here is another 80+ classroom ideas from Dr. Russell Barkley on classroom management.
Student Psychology:
ADHD is brain-based and biological, but the thoughts and emotions of children could also be included within any classroom mental health intervention. It is important to teach children how to overcome challenges and not rely on avoidance, but this will often require extra attention and support. Negative self-talk among children is common and it is important to encourage their resilience. Key phrases that teachers might look for would be, “stuck points”, or “thinking traps”. These key phrases can be easily and quickly redirected to help with flexible thinking. Acknowledge the student’s beliefs and try to see if there is more than one way to work through the current problem.
References
Jellinek, M. (2010). https://www.mdedge.com/psychiatry/article/23971/pediatrics/dont-let-adhd-crush-childrens-self-esteem
Breslau, J., Miller, E., Joanie Chung, W. J., & Schweitzer, J. B. (2011). Childhood and adolescent onset psychiatric disorders, substance use, and failure to graduate high school on time. Journal of psychiatric research, 45(3), 295–301. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.06.014
