Homeschooling ADD Kids

Recently I talked about how we have a whiteboard in Steven’s room that we use when we do home school with him.  Getting this whiteboard was one of the best things that we’ve done to hold his attention.  I plan on writing a lot of info on this blog about ways that we’re using the whiteboard, so today I made a category for it in case you’d like to read my blog posts specifically about these methods.

One thing we are using it for is drawing pictures (just quick, stick-figure type drawings) in order to illustrate concepts.  It really captures Steven’s attention, and he remembers a lot more of what he learns when we draw it out. 

Here’s an example of how I used it to teach him the concept of “free will”.  The book we were reading explained that it is the ability to choose what one wishes to do and to make decisions that positively or negatively affect their lives and that they should accept responsibility for their actions.  Not an exciting topic for a kid with Attention Deficit Disorder.  

To start off, I drew a stick figure of a person with a robot next to the person.  Next to the robot was a remote control. (He thought the remote was a TV, so I told him what I was trying to draw.) Then our conversation went more or less like this:

Me: “What could someone do with the remote control?  

Steven: “You could make it move.”

Me:  “Could you do that to the human?”

Steven: “No”.  

Me:  “So is the human controlled by anything?”  

Steven: “No, they just do what they want to do.”  

Me:  “Exactly.  That is what is called free will.”  

(Then I wrote “RIGHT” on one side of the stick figure person and “WRONG” on the other side, with arrows pointing to each.) 

Me:  “So if he does right things or he does wrong things, who is responsible for what he does?”  

Steven: “He is.”

Not only did Steven pay attention the whole time, but he truly seemed to enjoy the discussion even though it was about an abstract topic that would normally bore him to bits.

That’s just one example of how to effectively use a whiteboard to teach a kid with ADD.  If I forget, remind me to explain how to do “word relationships” and “comic book scenes” on a whiteboard.

No Comments | In: whiteboard use | tags: comic book scenes, drawings, whiteboard. | #

I recently read that kids should be told upfront that they have ADD and how it affects them. Of course, like anything, it is better to talk about it in a positive way.

I tried this yesterday. We have a whiteboard in Steven’s room. I said “the brains of people without ADD work this way” (then I drew the top red line, in the photo below, somewhat slowly showing relatively even-spaced progressive movements from left to right). Then I said, “but the brains of kids with ADD work kind of like this” (then I drew the bottom red line very quickly showing progressive movements from left to right angled to the right like they were rushing ahead). Steven said, “no, my brain works more like this” (then he very rapidly drew the purple line that you see in the photo). It was like he was trying to say to me, ‘no, it’s not even that orderly, it’s all over the place!’

And I believe that he’s probably right. I think he feels the hyper, wandering, unsatisfied state of his mind…going here and there, constantly flying around.

It would be interesting to hear comments from others to see if they also feel this way, or if there children have such feelings.

1 Comment | In: the ADD mind, whiteboard use | tags: ADD brain, hyper, mind, self-awareness of ADD, wandering mind, whiteboard use. | #

This is the very first post on your new blog. The purpose of this blog is to share ideas about how to best home school kids with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

My wife and I are not parents. However we home school my 12-year old brother-in-law, Steven. We found we had to take him out of a charter school two years ago since he wasn’t learning anything there. We spoke to the teachers about the fact that he has ADD, but the only feedback we received from them were notes saying he’s having trouble paying attention and was misbehaving. I felt like asking them if they remembered our conversations, and who was not paying attention those times. It was frustrating. They didn’t seem to have any solutions.

I think most teachers are not trained as to how to teach ADD kids. Then again, even if they are, typical classrooms are not the best environments for children with ADD. Since the main problem that ADD kids have is focusing on one thing, being in a classroom with 20 or so other children is extremely distracting for them. Even when he received several hours a day of special education with only 3 other kids present, he was distracted by the movements and actions of those 3 children.

A couple of years ago, at 10 years old, Steven could only read short words like “cat”, “dog”, “to”, “the”, etc. He couldn’t make it through full sentences, and if he did, it took so long to read a few sentences that it bored him out of his wits.

To us, the solution seemed simple: take him out of school and teach him ourselves. His parents are older and couldn’t do it, so we run a one-student school, so to speak.

How do we do it and still work, maintain a home and have a “life”? What methods have we found best for homeschooling Steven? What ideas have we tried that failed? What frustrations have we faced and how do we manage to stay sane? These are all questions that we will answer throughout this blog. At the same time we hope to get comments from readers. Sharing all of our experiences, knowledge and research together, I’m sure we will find the most effective ways to teach ADD kids at home.

Oh, and by the way, it’s working.

–Kevin Broccoli

1 Comment | In: general, whiteboard use | tags: abstract concepts, ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), free will, home school, home school for children with ADD, home school for kids with ADD, home schooling, homes chooling kids with ADD, homes schooling children with ADD, homeschooling, homeschooling children with ADD, homeschooling kids with ADD, learning differences, whiteboard. | #