Today, ahem, was Sunni’s parent-teacher conference. “Sunni” is my twelve-year-old daughter with ADHD.
She did not want to come to her conference, but I insisted. As is typical of her, she would rather have hid, or busied herself with babysitting. Sunni is extremely shy and hates “facing the music.” But her turn came, and we sat down across from her teacher. I squeezed myself into a child-size seat too small for my poor derriere, and Sunni sat sideways, turning symbolically away from the confrontation.
Inconsistency and Inattention
“As I mentioned on the phone, she’s missing a lot of assignments. And we’re seeing a real inconsistency in her work,” the teacher stated. She pushed some papers across the table, pointing at Sunni’s handwriting. “As you can see, sometimes her writing is nice and neat, and other times we see…this…” and she indicated several illegible scribbles written in answer blanks. It did look strangely like the work of two different children. The teacher then produced examples of papers with purple marker lines randomly decorating the page. “We just don’t know what to make of this,” she said.
I turned to Sunni. “What do you think is going on when this happens with the purple markings?” I asked.
Sunni shrugged. “I dunno. I guess I’m just daydreaming.”
“And what about when your handwriting gets sloppy…especially after it was neat a few lines before?”
She looked down. “I think maybe I notice that time is running out, so I’m hurrying to finish.”
“Are you daydreaming a lot in class?”
“Yeah. A lot.”
“Anything in particular you are thinking about? Is anything bothering you? Is it one certain thing, or lots of things on your mind?”
“Lots of things. I dunno, everything. Like if the teacher talks about Egypt, than I start thinking about mummies. And then I think about a movie I saw that had mummies in it. And then I think of my friend that saw the movie with me, and what she told me at recess. Stuff like that.” Sunni eyes started to get glassy, and her face turned red.
Managing ADHD
“Sunni, you’re not in trouble,” I said. “We’re just trying to figure out how to help you have a better experience in school.” The teacher and I both reassured her she was a wonderful girl, kind and sensitive, creative, and artistically talented. “This inattention is something you’re going to have to manage, like your brother manages his diabetes,” I said.
“It’s not your fault,” her teacher added. “We just need to think of strategies to work around it.” Sunni seemed to brighten up at these comments.
We talked about Sunni’s medication, and how we had tried nearly everything available, ending up with Adderall, which seemed to have the best results. Yet it still wasn’t a perfect solution. That’s when the teacher suggested that maybe Sunni should watch the clock throughout class, making a tally in a notebook every five minutes. “That way, she has something to keep her tuning back in to her work. And if fifteen minutes go by without a tally, we’ll know she’s losing major chunks of time.”
Something about that suggestion didn’t feel right to me. A tally? This girl was having a hard time focusing on her schoolwork, so how was she going to focus on keeping a tally? And didn’t we already know she was losing a significant amount of time daydreaming? How could a tally give any new insight?
Could a peer tutor help my daughter?
Then a light bulb went on. Yesterday I had written a blog about peer tutors, and how my autistic son would soon have one assigned to him. Could a peer tutor help Sunni? I suggested it to her teacher. “That’s an excellent idea,” she said. “Yes. Someone who can sit by Sunni and make sure she’s staying on task. Someone who could gently tap her or remind her what we’re doing. It would have to be one of my best students…” She stopped for a moment to consider.
“What do you think about this, Sunni–about having a student in your class help you stay focused?”
Sunni smiled at me cheerfully and nodded.
And so, once again, I sing the praises of peer tutors, and how wonderfully beneficial they can be for students who need extra assistance. Of course, we haven’t started the process yet, and it’s possible that it won’t work out as well as I predict for either or both of my children. Yet I’ve learned to trust my own maternal instincts when it comes to my kids. My gut tells me this is going to help them.
And I have hope.