The Role of the Parent in the School Setting. The parent can help the child by talking to the teacher before the school year starts about their child's situation:
- The first priority for the parent is to develop a positive, not adversarial, relationship with the child's teacher.
- The parent must acknowledge the teacher's situation, for the teacher must deal not only with the ADHD child's behavior but also with the needs of all the other children.
- Frequent brief and sympathetic conversations with the teacher can be helpful and can lead to coordination of efforts, particularly if they provide reciprocal information about progress or setbacks.
- Finding a tutor to help after school may be helpful. It is not clear, however, if tutoring offers significant benefits for children whose academic problems stem from inattention unless it is structured specifically to address this problem.
Special Education Programs. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires the school to identify and evaluate children who may need help and to provide special services. However, parents sometimes report pressure by the school to put their children on medication or force them into special classrooms without clear educational justification. The schools, in these cases, may be acting illegally.
High-quality special education can be extremely helpful in improving learning and developing a child's sense of self worth. Many families, however, may not have appropriate programs available for them. Programs vary widely in their ability to provide quality education. Parents must be aware of certain limitations and problems with special education:
- Special education programs within the normal school setting often increase the child's feelings of social alienation.
- If the educational strategy focuses only on abnormal behavior, it will fail to take advantage of the creative, competitive, and dynamic energy that often accompanies ADHD behavior.
- There is no federally funded special education category specifically targeted to ADHD.
If, in fact, ADHD is as common as studies are indicating, the best approach may be to treat the syndrome as a variant of the norm and train teachers to manage these children within the context of a normal classroom.
Special programs are also required under the Rehabilitation Act and by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for students at institutions of higher learning. It is the student's responsibility, however, to inform the administration at their college or university that they need such services. Unfortunately, many college students are reluctant to do this, although such programs can provide important and beneficial assistance in improving their academic performance.
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