Homeschooling With ADHD - Assets
I came back to add that I hope the post is clear in that it is addressing those who are interested in homeschooling, but have some reservations. This, like any of my posts, is not to say everyone should homeschool - it’s up to you to determine what is right for your family’s needs.
This post is not about homeschooling children with ADHD.
(This is where I imagine inserting a scratching record stop sound effect.)
I actually don’t plan on writing any posts on how to handle others (children or adults) with ADHD, mainly because I don’t know how? I mean, I do know how I would have preferred to have been treated in the past, and how I like (and expect) to be treated, and I could attempt to translate what it’s like to have ADHD. You see, I am the one with ADHD here. It is possible that my children do as well, because it is highly genetic, but we don’t know that yet. Also, I probably wouldn’t be disclosing that publicly if I did know, because that’s for them to decide if (and what) they want to share anything with the world.
I’m not a fan of posts that talk about how to deal or cope with another person’s disorder, syndrome, condition, whatever you want to call it, especially when there is no conversation involving the individual in question. I personally see it mostly with ADHD and ASD, though I am sure that it is not exclusive to those things. Thing is, this tends to be an issue of the parent’s expectations placed on the child, and having those expectations chucked back in their face, because howdare. If you weren’t prepared for the possibility of having to parent an “imperfect” child (to use societal biases), then you weren’t prepared for parenting.
I’m also not going to get into having ADHD a whole lot in this post - that’s something I’m planning to write about in more detail over in the Mental Orts section. That being said, I did think it was important to address what homeschooling can look like when you, the parent and homeschool supervisor, have ADHD. In some ways, I suppose this could also address homeschooling kids with ADHD, because this is something that tends to run in families (no, it’s not something acquired from the internet, or video games, or cultural stuff, or whatever… in the words of Lady Gaga, “I was born this way”).
can i homeschool if I have ADHD?
The simple answer is yes. As far as I am aware, there are no laws prohibiting someone with ADHD from homeschooling their kids (just as there are none prohibiting them from becoming teachers or even principals), simply on the basis that one is diagnosed and medically treated for this. My state (PA) doesn’t have anything prohibiting me from homeschooling on this basis. Here are the bullet points to which I attest on my yearly affidavit:
I am the parent, guardian, or legal custodian of the student.
I am the home supervisor of the home education program and am responsible for the provision of instruction in the home education program.
I have earned a high school diploma or its equivalent.
All the subjects required by law will be offered in the English language.
The student has received the immunizations required by law, or that the student has a medical, religious, or philosophical exemption.
The student is receiving the health and medical services required by law for students of the child’s age or grade level.
No adult living in the home, or any person having legal custody of the student, has been convicted within five years of today’s date of any of the criminal offenses enumerated within Section 111 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes.
The home education program shall comply with the provisions of Section 13-1327.1 of Pennsylvania Statutes Annotated and that the notarized affidavit shall be satisfactory evidence thereof.
Pennsylvania is considered to be one of the stricter states when it comes to homeschool laws, and there is nothing in there stating that someone with disabilities is automatically disqualified from homeschooling. Despite whatever your personal feelings might be on ADHD, it is considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (sort of… it depends on how disabling it is for the individual). It is not a learning disability as per National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, so in this state you would not have to have your curriculum pre-approved by an evaluator as one would need to in PA with learning disabilities if you were to homeschool a child with ADHD - but this has nothing to do with the homeschool supervisor specifically having ADHD. While I understand some people seem to balk at the idea that it is a disorder, please realize that this is how children with ADHD (and hopefully adults at some point) are able to receive the accommodations needed to thrive - not to mention that if a public school is unable to provide an appropriate education for a child with ADHD, under IDEA they can be forced to pay for a private school education (this case helped to amend IDEA).
As long as you meet your state’s legal requirements for homeschooling, there are no legal barriers preventing you from homeschooling your child(ren). Now let’s address the other component of this…
am I impaired by my ADHD to the extent that I cannot homeschool my kids?
This is something I cannot answer for you, not directly; rather, it is something you have to figure out for yourself. I think it’s worth keeping in mind that with ADHD often comes a healthy dose of imposter syndrome that keeps us honest, sometimes to the point of being overly self-critical. I don’t think it’s common for people with ADHD to be overconfident, especially on serious matters - usually, it’s the complete opposite. In fact, sometimes we even get imposter syndrome about our own diagnosis, that it’s not that bad, maybe they got it wrong, maybe I am all these horrible things people think of me and there’s nothing actually causing this. You get the idea.
The idea of being solely responsible for educating your child(ren) and preparing them for the future is incredibly overwhelming and scary, and even homeschooling adults who have no known limitations occasionally get hit with fear and self-doubt. This is normal. This is to be expected. Your fears are valid, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily based on any objective facts. In any formal education, no single individual is responsible for a child’s education - it takes an entire team of people to do this.
Truth be told, it takes an entire team when it comes to homeschooling as well - it’s just that you’re the only one on the hook. Not only that, I’d like to point out that nobody actually gets to take the credit for a child’s successes but the child themselves. Ever. They’re the ones actually doing the work. There is also a third misconception here that I think needs to be cleared up.
We don’t actually teach - not the way that schools are designed, anyway. I don’t have a blackboard. I’m not doing reading assignments, pop quizzes, tests, etc. If that’s what your child loves and responds well to, and that works for you as a supervisor, go for it, but we really don’t need to do that, do we? You know your child. You know what they know, and just in case you didn’t know what they know, I assure you, they will very quickly remind you that “Moooooom, I already knew that.” Also, let me point out that in my state’s law, I am not even designated a teacher. I am a homeschool supervisor - as in, “someone who oversees and provides direction.” Okay, well, someone’s supposed teach these kids, if it’s not you, then who?
Well, I can teach them if I want to and they respond well to that - but the reason I wanted to point this out is because I am not the only one teaching them. Any individual my children interacts with teaches them something. Their dad teaches them. Their friends teach them. My kids teach each other. Not only that, and I know this is somewhat hard to believe for some people who seem to need to tone down their sense of self-importance (hey, maybe this is where our ADHD helps), but they teach themselves. So really, all you need to homeschool your kids are the following rules:
Know and follow your state laws. This is extremely important.
Provide them with resources (i.e. provision of instruction - but you get to define what constitutes as instruction). Technology, books, videos, documentaries, links, games (board and video games count), sign them up for local and online classes, chauffer them to various locations for field trips, materials, activities, etc. Remember, you’re supervising their education here.
Get out of their way. Don’t micromanage this.
Now I’ll get a bit more specific.
How can ADHD be an asset?
No, I am not about to write about ADHD being a gift, as there are certainly parts of having ADHD that can be really frustrating if not disabling at times. I don’t personally feel like it’s a gift. I also don’t see it as a curse. It just is. I have no idea what it’s like to not have ADHD - I just remember what it felt like to think I didn’t, and honestly, that kind of sucked. Not that not having it sucks (again, I don’t know anything about that), but not knowing I had it sucked because I was held to the same standards and expectations that everyone else seems to have, and that’s really not fair. I mean, try getting mad at a kid who desperately needs glasses for not being able to read a book just because they can’t see the page. If you grow up your whole life treated like this, it’s going to take more than a diagnosis and a prescription to overcome years of negative self-talk. Please stop telling people they can overcome their ADHD with a positive attitude - you can’t think your way out of this.
Spend some time reflecting on how exactly is it that you see the world? How do you process information? How does that appear to be different from those who do not think like you? I’m not stating that one is better than the other, because both have their pros and cons. What I’m aiming for here is that once you learn these things about yourself, learn to accept them, and approach things realistically, you will know how you need to structure your homeschool environment, and your general approach to homeschooling.
To give you a hand, here are some of mine. I am not saying that everyone with ADHD has these, but this is how I take advantage of my way of seeing things.
eliminating the unnecessary
Thanks to the fact that I have to spend so much energy on mental dissertations to convince myself to do much of anything, I do not do things simply because I should, or because that’s the way it’s always been done. That is not a motivator for me. I am that annoying child who perpetually asks “why?” until I can get an answer that actually makes sense. “Because I said so” is not an acceptable answer.
The way this has been an asset in homeschooling is in examining all of the “whys” of education:
Why do schools use things like worksheets, quizzes, tests, grades?
Why do we expect that learning & education looks a certain way, and that if you are not doing those things, it’s not “homeschooling?”
Why do we have to learn all these things that are not useful in the long run? I struggle with my memory as it is, but I certainly don’t remember most of what I was taught in school. Maybe it’s because I never needed it.
Why is standardized education so boring compared to the education we receive in college (this isn’t about the challenge, but the approach)?
Why do schools repeatedly ask kids what they want to be when they grow up when there is no intent to tailor their education to their specific interests?
Why did I suddenly learn to love certain subjects that I absolutely hated as a child, long after I stopped having to learn those things?
Why are schools competitive rather than collaborative?
You get the idea. Once you get the “whys” out, you can ask the “whats” and the “hows” of education. Be sure to follow these up with the “why nots.” For extra credit, look up the “whos” - these may or may not cause some emotional flooding of the ragey kind.
Side note: eliminating the unnecessary is an incredibly important strategy, not just in homeschooling but in learning how to be accepting of how our brains function. It is absolutely vital for us to stay on top of decluttering all aspects of our lives (something which I am going to go into in greater detail over in Mental Orts), mainly because of how easily we get overwhelmed to the point of mental paralysis, and the fact that our working memory doesn’t work very well (hence forgetting things, losing things, etc.).
While decluttering isn’t a specifically ADHD thing, our reasons for decluttering as well as the mental process involved in determining what is or isn’t essential does fit in here. For many of us, there simply is no tolerance for excess; excess is often what causes stress, is overstimulating, and as such exacerbates our symptoms. Eliminating the unnecessary gets carried over into homeschooling to help us stick to the things that matter, get rid of the things that don’t (or aren’t working), and to help us function more efficiently. There is no one right answer to what the right number of stuff (or tools or whatever) - some people can only function in extreme minimalism, others can handle some clutter, others like to surround themselves with stuff. I thought I was someone who liked being surrounded with stuff (transposing this to an educational setting: buy all the curricula, get all the books, pin all the activities, schedule all the things), only to realize that this was the cause of an overwhelming amount of stress. Instead of leaving all the options open and available, it only served as a reminder of all the things we didn’t get to do.
novelty seeking
There is nothing I struggle with more than mundane routine tasks (to the point that it was a reason I avoided routines, until I realized that I needed to rethink my approach to routines). I think it’s safe to say that many children feel the same way. Homeschooling is supposed to be fun for the both of us (yes, both… it is okay to enjoy things and make decisions based on things you both enjoy doing, not to mention a great way to model compromise and setting boundaries)! While there is absolutely nothing wrong with having some form of curriculum in place to fall back on, especially if you’re mandated to meet certain minimum days/subject requirements (I’ll get to how that works for me in a future post), I would not recommend making the curriculum the default. Use it more like a guide and a safety net. This just makes for an uninspiring experience.
Keep homeschooling fun by seeking out novel approaches to learning topics, subjects, and interests.
Outside-of-the-box approach
This builds on the previous two “assets” I mentioned. Those of us with ADHD spend our entire lives coming up with various creative strategies to help us cope in a world that can at times seem quite unforgiving. We are expected to maintain a certain level of cleanliness, be on time at work and when meeting with friends, keep track of everyone’s else’s lives (in addition to our own), be consistent, and so on. After eliminating the unnecessary, and through our need for novelty-seeking, we can come up with creative approaches to education. One example of this is including either board games or video games as part of your own curated curriculum.
Another way this is incredibly helpful is when your child is stuck on learning a certain topic/subject, one that is actually relevant to them, and you sense that their interest slipping away. My ability to think quickly on my feet, combined with this outside-of-the-box approach, allows me to come up with different ways to introduce the materials that doesn’t go over their heads.
This is an experience that isn’t possible in a classroom, especially in one where there is a large number of students in proportion to available educators. Let’s say a teacher has a total of 600 students; if they were to meet with every single student they teach every day, they would have just over half a minute per student and no time to teach. There just isn’t enough time. If there is any question about your ability to teach your child, especially if they need a unique approach but do not qualify for an IEP, you can’t do much worse than that. In a system like that, their only option would be failure.
noticing what’s missing
This is one of those strange paradoxes, because we often struggle with paying attention to detail. That’s because this tends to be more of an issue in situations where we are understimulated (when you’re hyperfocused or hyperfixated, the opposite tends to be the case, where you might obsess over even the tiniest details). If you find the involvement in your children’s education stimulating, you are more likely to notice something isn’t right, and leap through the entire potential sequence of events to the possible future in which this is a defining moment. This allows me to quickly identify the gaps in learning, and use my creative problem solving skills to adjust my approach.
Real life example of My Assets in practice
I’ve been homeschooling for some time, and we’ve relied on a lot of traditional (and non-traditional) methods, and covered all the subjects. The other day I noticed that my kids were getting frustrated with me for not providing them with an immediate solution (how to figure out the volume of a nonstandard container without markings for units of measurement). I suggested that they take the measuring cup, the container in question, and some water, and try to see if they could figure out how much water fits in the container. This ended in a lot of frustration, because I didn’t explain the steps needed to solve the problem.
This is an often-overlooked issue when you rely on curricula to help you teach the science, especially if it provides the experiments and questions to ask before starting: my children were used to me telling them how to try to figure this out. I hadn’t picked up on it before, because when it comes to play, they can usually figure things out on their own (even if they get frustrated). The solution: we need to change our approach to science, as if MacGuyver were the one teaching it. Here’s the problem, and here’s what you got, how do we figure it out?
Once I realized what is missing (a very essential problem solving skill), I decided I needed to eliminate the unnecessary (the full science experiment spelled out for them), and realized that I need an outside-of-the-box approach to figure out the problem in a way that most curricula leave up to the teachers. This piqued my interest through novelty-seeking, because it got me thinking about how I can restructure our science learning in a new way that would teach them a far more important skill than simply knowing how to measure the volume of a container.
Bonus asset of mine that I didn’t mention above - my ability to think on my feet. The entire situation above, including figuring out the problem from my end, and how to go about fixing it took less than 15 minutes (I think anyway, because I still struggle with time blindness - but it was in the same evening).
What do you think are some ways you might be able to see your unique way of processing the world as an advantage when it comes to homeschooling? Feel free to let me know in the comments below.
Title image by Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash
