About That ADHD Serving a Purpose Thing
Friday, August 15, 2008 at 11:32PM Despite some late nights, we have been enjoying the Olympics quite a bit (although I am really missing our TIVO here at the beach). Especially the swimming...I was on a year-round swim team for years and always loved it. The fact that I could still compete to better my score was perfect for me since I was not the most overly athletic or fastest kid.
I found this article about Michael Phelps fascinating. (h/t The More Child)
It immediately made me think of my post ADHD Can Serve A Purpose in which I argue that the struggle ADHD kids have in school is not because of any inherent pathology with the child, but rather results from a mismatch of their learning style with the learning environment.Starting with preschool, teachers complained: Michael couldn’t stay quiet at quiet time, Michael wouldn’t sit at circle time, Michael didn’t keep his hands to himself, Michael was giggling and laughing and nudging kids for attention.
As he entered public school, he displayed what his teachers called “immature” behavior. “In kindergarten I was told by his teacher, ‘Michael can’t sit still, Michael can’t be quiet, Michael can’t focus,’ ” recalled Ms. Phelps, who was herself a teacher for 22 years. The family had recently moved, and she felt Michael might be frustrated because the kindergarten curriculum he was getting in the new district was similar to the pre-K curriculum in their old district.
How many parents of kids in school can relate to this:
She will never forget one teacher’s comment: “This woman says to me, ‘Your son will never be able to focus on anything.’ ”Unfortunately not everyone else gets to prove their teacher so wrong in such grand fashion.
In the meantime, Michael the swimmer had appeared. By 10, he was ranked nationally in his age group. Ms. Phelps watched the boy who couldn’t sit still at school sit for four hours at a meet waiting to swim his five minutes’ worth of races.So basically, once he found his passion he excelled and had no trouble focusing and working hard. Go figure.
<snip>At age 12 Michael needed an algebra tutor, and was so antsy in school that his mother suggested the teacher sit him at a table in the back. And yet he willingly got up at 6:30 daily for 90-minute morning practices and swam 2 to 3 hours every afternoon.
The truth is, not everyone is going to find their passion in school. And many kids do not "fit" very well in the school model. But school, for most kids, is the absolute focus of their lives for 12 years. Which means that they spend 12 years focusing on their weaknesses rather than on their strengths. For the lucky some (like Michael Phelps), they find their passion outside of school and excel anyways. But what about the other kids who are not so lucky? Who grow up getting poor grades and don't have as publicly appreciated gifts? Or who don't have the encouragement to explore and find those gifts?
My belief is that all kids have their own gifts and I feel that homeschooling is an excellent way to help kids explore and find their passions. Because I can tailor our approach to how my kids learn, we can focus on their strengths. This does not mean that we ignore their weaknesses, just that they are not the sole focus of our schooling. Just the other day, Jason was talking about what a great reader he is (which he is). And this from a kid who did not start reading until just before 8. Being a "late" reader did not define who he was like it would have had he been in school.
We have also been working on spelling this summer and it is going well. If he was in school, he would be considered a poor speller. Yet, Jason does not see himself as a poor or struggling speller...he just hasn't gotten around to learning how to spell yet...it wasn't all that important to him. Now that we have been working on it, he is getting better rather painlessly (we are using Sequential Spelling which focuses on word patterns rather than straight memorization). He may never be a natural speller, but I am confident that by the time he is 18, he will be very competent. And the best thing is that the "poor speller" label will not be anything he has to overcome. Because it is not part of who he is.
The article ends with these wise words:
More to the point, I think, is the moral of her story, which offers hope for parents of any child with a challenge like A.D.H.D.: Too many adults looked at Ms. Phelps’s boy and saw what he couldn’t do. This week, the world will be tuned to the Beijing Olympics to see what he can do.Every child should have some adult in his life who sees what he can do (be it a parent, teacher, coach or other mentor). And no child should ever be defined by what they can't do.
Reader Comments (12)
Great post Stephanie!
Regarding spelling, it is possible that Jason may never be a good speller, but you are correct about his not having to overcome a label. Lots of people cannot spell -- particularly right brained learners and visual thinkers (often dyslexic). Spelling is just not something they can do without painstaking thought. How many adults do you know who say, "Oh, I'm a terrible speller." It isn't that they are stupid or weren't paying attention in school -- their brains just don't work that way. My husband is a prime example. He's the smartest person I know, but he really struggles with spelling. People who read his writing will often make unfair judgments about him because of that. In fact, I was one of those people who used to say, "Geez, he/she can't even spell correctly, how good could what they are saying be?!" But I have learned to back off from that negative stereotype now that I have married and birthed bad spellers! ;-)
Excellent post, Stephanie. My son with ADHD specifically told me he doesn't want it treated, even with natural remedies. He feels his "disability" gives him extra energy for athletics. :-) Since nobody's making him sit down for any length of time, he can listen to audiobooks or read alouds while playing instead of sitting down with a book, he's able to devise his own approaches to math, etc. -- well, he's doing fine.
And people often forget the tendency of folks with ADHD to HYPERfocus -- pouring all their energy into something they're passionate about. This can be a real gift!
Loved this! I bet he and his parents are so sad he didn't sit still and learn his math...NOT! This is a great story for parents who have challenging kids. I homeschool too. ;)
His mother's description matches what my oldest son's k-2 teachers said about him, except they also started demanding I medicate him. I chose to homeschool instead. Today, at 24, my son is a rising executive in a large corporation, and they value his "intense drive", which also served him well in the Navy and college. I wonder if Michael Phelps would have accomplished what he has, if he'd been forced to be just like every other little boy. He's truly an individual.
Great post! I so agree that so many kids aren't necessarily going to find their passion in school. My eldest has an unbelievable passion for the computer that he would have never discovered sitting in a computer lab just 2-3 hours a week. And my youngest has a passion for science that he can only truly fulfill by homeschooling. Also...just discovered we are on the same Yahoo Group..."Homeschooling Creatively" . (my moniker on there is tsmama24) Small world wide web, huh? ;-)
This is such an awesome example of not every child learns the same way or a the same rate! When a child finds their niche they soar! Homeschoolers are so fortunate to be able to have that extra time to find that niche and stay with it - not get hustled on to the next topic because so and so said they must cover this and that.
Thanks so much for sharing!
Interesting. I was listening to the sports commentator allude to Phelps' "problems" at school but that was it. No further details, so I was left wondering.
This is why we HS too. My eldest wasn't ADHD, but he was a serious wriggler, which didn't bother the kindergarten teacher, but it sure bugged the grade 1 teacher. He spent more time in detention than he did in school some days, just for wiggling and wriggling. No biting, yelling, noisiness, mean behaviour. Just wiggling. It was awful. Grade 2 came along and I joined the ranks of people I had formerly mocked! Such a momentous decision over such a silly thing, really, but it's worked for us.
What does this say about our teachers? Still not getting the message, you can not medicate a child into conforming!
Thanks for the tip of the hat, Stephanie. I'm so glad the Times published that piece--clearly it touches a nerve for a lot of people.
As always, your points about the flexibility of homeschooling for kids who don't quite fit the model are spot on. But as a mom who has had her feet in both the homeschooling and schooling worlds, I can't stop wondering about the thousands upon thousands of kids who for whatever reasons can't homeschool. What can be done to change the school experience so that it works for more kids? I don't have the answers but I have to think that there has to be a way to change the way kids are being educated.
In any case, I'll be very interested to see what Michael does in the coming 4 years, both in and out of the pool.
I heard about this last night in an interview with Phelps and his mom. I think that he is a great role model for all children.
I read the same NY Times article and just loved it. Another article ended with one of Michael Phelps' former teachers saying something akin to, "It wasn't that he couldn't focus. It was just that he had not yet found anything worthy of his focus."
I have found Mrs. Phelps' understanding and support of her son to be so inspiring. I struggle with kids being involved in these intensely competitive activities, but for many, it's their salvation!
Moxy Jane
Austin, TX
Most ADHD kids I know are very intelligent people. I'm talking gifted. I think that these kids just suffer from a desk oriented society as opposed to a more physical one. They just have tons of energy to burn. They need a regulated schedule and a more intense focus. This is really tough on kids in the modern school society.