My son is in kindergarten, the youngest in the class, and had some behavior issues at the beginning of the school year that the counselor at school said was due to having problems making friends. He’s much better now, both at school and at home. He has friends and is happy to go to school. We haven’t heard any complaint from his teacher for more than 5 months now. He’s also strong academically.
When he was 3-5, he had behavior issues that could potentially indicate ADHD. I started volunteering at his school (lunch break & recess, and soon will do the class too) in order to identify behaviors and compare him to other kids his age. Can someone give me an idea of the kind of problems (severity and frequency) I should see over, say, a month of volunteering to conclude that he needs (or doesn’t need) to be professionally evaluated for ADHD?
For example, how many times should he interrupt the teacher or other students? How many times should he have a physical confrontation with another student? How many times should he ignore a task that the teacher gave to the students? How many times should the teacher contact us about his behavior?
Maybe the shorter version of this question is : what are the signs that a child clearly doesn’t have ADHD?
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My answer is, just get a psychological evaluation and see. They can do it to rule out anything vs looking for something. Because in my experience ADHD can look very different from kid to kid, it's always best to get an eval or seek professional guidance.For me, it's easier to name the signs and symptoms that indicate POSSIBLE adhd at K. These are the ones my daughter had at the midpoint of the year. She was 5 most of the school year if that helps as her birthday is very end of March.
-difficulty with remembering/always losing items like jackets, library books, etc
-emotional dysregulation, having tantrums, getting very upset over little things.
-poor attention, like not being aware of directions, shifts in activities
-time blindness (not knowing the difference between 5 mins and 5 hours, constantly asking if it's time yet), also not being able to recall something that happened earlier in the day, might as well have been last week.
-impulsive, which can look like a lot of things. For my kid, it looks like interrupting when someone else is talking and having a conversation, jumping into conversations randomly, blurting things out
-easily bored if not constantly stimulated, not able to engage herself in activity by herself.
-saying things or behaving in ways she won't remember later. For example she got mad at a boy in her class and told him she would stab him in the eye with a pencil. Didn't recall it at all later when we tried to talk about it. This happens often.
My daughter has officially been diagnosed with ADHD so these are pretty solid signs I think.
Thanks for sharing. This helps. We plan to schedule an evaluation.
Independently of ADHD / getting a thorough evaluation it’s always good to educate oneself, especially when a condition is borderline, because sometimes even the pros make mistakes. That’s basically what I’m trying to get to here.
This CHADD community is so great. I hope someone here has a borderline ADHD kid (or a kid that was assessed and found to not have it) and is comfortable sharing what it’s like. Thanks
"saying things or behaving in ways she won't remember later. For example she got mad at a boy in her class and told him she would stab him in the eye with a pencil. Didn't recall it at all later when we tried to talk about it. This happens often."
REALLY?!? This was totally my son in kinder also and his principal was always complaining to me what a liar he was, when I KNEW that he never lied about things otherwise.
We started the eval process this week and I was talking to the psychologist, who told me he also has ADHD. I told him this story and he said that sounded just like him as a kid. So apparently that's an ADHD thing? Memory of a goldfish, particularly when upset.
You will be potentially comparing with a cohort of kids who may have other conditions or even ADHD but you won’t know it.
What I can say having one kid with ADHD and one without.
My kids are both at the same school.
My non ADHD kid- he doesn’t interrupt the teacher at all, he waits his turn, doesn’t get in trouble in the playground and he can complete a given by the teacher task plus then he does some extra work as he does the core stuff too easily. But the core stuff- as you say your kid is very bright so you should see him able to complete everything core even if he finds it boring. My non ADHD kid does chat in lessons with his mates and gets told off but then he stops. He has never been asked out of the class.
My non ADHD kid is 7 now and he is a summer baby which means in his class he is one of the youngest. We are in the UK and it’s a state school and a class of 30 kids.
My non ADHD kid tells me about the situations in the playground when other kids got carried away in play and got too physical. Kids this age play a lot of physical games. My non ADHD kid knows when to leave the game. He told me the other day ‘it got out of control so me and X left. We watched as game kept going out of control but we weren’t part of it- it was like watching an action film how the situation developed and we were commenting to each other with X that we left at the right time as teachers came and had to separate kids. ‘ something along these lines.
Other stuff about my non ADHD kid- he knows for example that when ‘so and so’ joins to play - he leaves. He told me ‘it’s because so and so pushers hard and gets hyper’.
You see my ADHD kid wouldn’t know when to leave the situation even though he’s 10.
My ADHD kid doesn’t interrupt the teacher though and never did. In the classroom he presents as inattentive and avoiding ( disappearing in the loo) when it’s stuff he finds difficult like maths. With stuff he loves like history he can hyper focus at school. He loves school.
Kids with ADHD tend to be slightly delayed for their age in play skills so you may be able to see it in relation to the age group.
Other thought about how complex ADHD is… So many adults now in the UK get diagnosed as adults. I have been chatting some time ago at the wedding with a girl who is a project manager and one of the most renowned museums in Europe. She said that 2 of her staff have ADHD. They have university degrees but they were diagnosed way later after even finishing uni. They work organising exhibitions- planning and delivering themed exhibitions, they work in a large team, they are experts in their field. One of them is on medication and other is not on medication and has an ‘ADHD plan’ because ADHD is a disability. In this plan it states clearly how her supervisor can support her- make ‘reasonable adjustments’ - for her this means helping her so she doesn’t get overwhelmed with the project. It is her supervisor who breaks project into chunks and she gets sessions with her supervisor on completion of each chunk. Otherwise she gets anxiety and she can’t even start and she would end up having a breakdown and not doing anything. This employee with ADHD is actually quite a genius at her job plus in Europe you can get away with ‘coddling’ employees - people are taken care off, have at least 6 weeks holidays in a year and extra unpaid leave if they need to have a break 😄
ADHD is complex.
Not every child with ADHD is the same.
There are subtypes of ADHD.
When I was little I presented as inattentive, disorganised and high anxiety. I was quiet and never causing any trouble in the class. No one would say back then that I have had ADHD.
Also with regards to your wife, think for yourself where the ‘power’ is in your household. Kids immediately notice this. For example in my house no doubt it’s my husband who has that ‘invisible power’ because he earns all the income we have. Also when he’s hungry or tired or severely stressed at work or jet lagged or all together those above he will say stuff like ‘And what have you been doing all day, on your phone again?’ Or ‘Nothing gets done if I am not home to do it.’ Or ‘Pay attention, you are like (name of our ADHD son here)’ and kids listen to him talking to me this way and they learn that this is the person they can ‘take the p…’ with.
Kids know who is the ‘invisible boss’ in the house.
sorry to hear. I think this (and other related behaviors that you didn’t mention, but could be present, like not showing affection to kids) creates a tremendous amount of stress for everyone. And it certainly doesn’t help your kids. We don’t have that
Ah, we have a lot of affection! Lots of cuddles, super affectionate family- our kids won’t go to sleep without kisses ‘good hight’.
My husband is working from home now (no more 1.5h each way commuting to work in a capital city) and he makes kids breakfast whisky I make their packed lunches. He walks kids to school daily and I pick them up, then we share who does which weekend sport club and which after school club. And of course he still has to travel all around the world for work very frequently as he works for a large international company. The fact that he doesn’t have to commute daily to work released extra 3h in a day and it makes stuff like walking kids to school possible.
One thing I’d say- you maybe can think about kids behaviours (also bad behaviours) as ways of kids telling you that they want something…, something else to what they are getting currently.
I treat is let’s say as ‘my kids were really misbehaving in the morning’ and this was the way of them telling us adults that they want to see more of daddy in the mornings (when my husband was communist daily to work they didn’t see him in the morning when they would wake up). And it’s so lucky that now we can give them what they wanted- they have their dad daily making their breakfast and walking them to school.
I’d say- kids behaviours (bad behaviours) are ways of kids trying to tell us something about their needs and they their needs haven’t been met.
And of course most of the times life is not so easy, we can’t meet all of the kids’ needs - most of the times and for most kids it is not possible to have daddy daily walking kids to school…Many kids have to stay in childcare before school and then again after school.
And kids with ADHD are definitely more needy and they don’t cope as well with long daily childcare and they won’t be as good at occupying themselves nicely and in constructive ways on their own.
I think that your idea of observing other kids as well as your child is a great one. If you are able to arrange with the principal/teacher to be a ‘stealth’ observer out of sight you might get more accurate impressions. Summer is a great time as well to try out some summer camps and observe. Soliciting input from teachers and camp counselors is particularly helpful because they are used to kids —even the youngest in the class—and can spot kids who appear to be struggling in some way—not keeping up with the group plan, having trouble with other kids, impulsivity that is putting others off, etc. It’s not so much what he/she has or doesn’t have, it’s more what behaviors, if any, are causing him or her to not fit in or do well. Our son was not identified until 1st grade when behaviors started to cause him more difficulty. In my experience, teachers in the younger years are more likely to hedge on labeling and give the benefit of the doubt. If they do comment, it’s usually justified and because your child is not having as good of an experience as others.
My son did Kindergarten last year, has ADHD, and this is how I try to explain it to him when he's having issues at activities or school: "See, So-and-so can be silly or wild one minute but then pay attention and get back on track the next. Once you get silly and wild, it's really hard for your brain to do that." That's the best differential I've observed on my own: lots of kiddos exhibit ADHD/ODD type behaviors but a kiddo without ADHD can more easily pivot between that and expected behavior without as much impulsivity and inattention.
I second the others, though. Do the evaluations, as there are several levels of them. My son seemed borderline last year but it's pretty clear a year later.
Although it's stereotypical, it really does show differently with gender, too. My (older) daughter (9) never shows anything at school but actually was much more clear re ADHD once we did the formal evaluation.
Be careful about a diagnosis of ADHD if it is just school based. Studies have shown a higher rate of ADHD diagnosis in the youngest compared to the oldest children in a kindergarten class. For some, this may just be a 'maturity' factor.
I would actually wait and reassess things this fall. Although most of the time kids with ADHD are actually underdiagnosed, kids at the young end for their grade are sometimes mistaken for having ADHD. It doesn’t sound like he was struggling all year.
One thing I didn’t know about the 6 symptoms that have to be present for ADHD, is that they all have to be present at once. And I think this means : during the same day. So if there are many days where only 1 or 2 of the 6 symptoms have occurred (by occurred I mean happened and created a problem) then this doesn’t satisfy the ADHD criteria.
Furthermore, the article suggests that more than 6 symptoms should be used when evaluating younger kids and less than 6 for adults.
Interesting. I think for us, it was the recurrent symptoms in similar situations, not by day or 6 present in the same day, and worsening or changing into something worse over time. We expected improvement as she grew, like your son being great for the last semester of school.
I think it’s all about if your child is having persistent symptoms that are interfering with his/her ability to learn at school, taking up significant amounts of the teacher’s time, needing more redirection than most classmates, etc. Same thing would need to be occurring in at least 1 other setting. I would encourage you to try to set aside preconceived ideas about ADHD. I would also encourage you to remain as open minded as possible about your child and his/her performance. All of us are presumably in this parent group because we have faced the difficult task of being told the child we expected to be perfect wasn’t. It’s difficult to hear, particularly if you were raised to believe a child’s behavior, good or bad, reflects the parents’ efforts, good or bad , at disciplining him/her. Sooner or later every parent grieves the loss of what they hoped would be a perfectly intelligent, perfectly behaved child that would reflect perfectly on them as a parent. Children behave many ways for many reasons. As parents, unless we do something terrible, we probably have less influence on how they turn out than we like to think. Thinking of yourself as a gardener instead of a carpenter with your child is a healthier way, I think, to approach things. And approaching challenges together with your partner as a unified team is the only way you’ll make it. If you try to interpret your child’s behavior as a reflection of your partner’s insufficiency as a parent, you are likely going to make an already tough situation even harder. Your pediatrician knows how to diagnose ADHD & doesn’t need you to review how many criteria your child needs to meet, etc. ADHD is not a result of poor parenting, bad genetics, carelessness in pregnancy, etc. I have an advanced graduate degree with honors, an Ivy League undergraduate degree, and have ADHD. I’ve always been a straight A student. There’s no correlation between ADHD & intelligence. The more you can work with your child and partner & accept whoever your child is, believe me, the better he will do & the happier & more confident adult he will become.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. I’m sorry I only reply now; I missed it. I’ll never let anything (and certainly not my ego) stand in the way of my son getting medical help for any issue. By the same token however, I’ll never let anybody treat or diagnose my kids without first having thoroughly researched the matter in and out. Unfortunately, ADHD evaluations are not like, say, a COVID test. It’s a life changing event. It’s very serious. So it also requires serious due diligence.
Yes, I understand, and wouldn’t it be awesome to have a yes or no test? I apologize if my post sounded really strident!!! Many of us in this group have lived through lots of the difficult emotions, experiences, etc, of having a child who struggles and being told by a teacher or someone that they’re struggling. I’m sorry. Every single parent wants the best for their child. And no parent wants to get an incorrect, superficial, or sloppily done evaluation for any medical or behavior issue for their precious child. You are absolutely right. And it’s a great idea to read and feel more comfortable with the possibilities. To reassure you, too, even with time and just maturity, all kids, regardless of their situation, make progress in their behavior. I hope this helps and that you can get some answers about your child that you feel comfortable with.
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Repeating Kindergarten & outside services. 
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