Fourth Grade and Unfocused!!?

My daughter does the same thing. To a dr they would call it attention deficit. To me its jsut them being lazy. I give her omega three kids vitamins that seems to help with the brain. offer fishsitcks, salmon is good for the brain to function better. she is getting better about her work but there are time where i have this problem. I just try to tell myself not to get frustrated and just talk to her everyday until she can't stand it anymore. Trust methey know what is expected they just blocking us out. when i say lets go to toysr us and get some toys all of a sudden they don't have selective hearing lol. All these drs are so quick to drug the kids but never take the time to see why. Im totally against it.

My answer is based on California law and my experience as an educator.

Here, if school employees discuss anything medical regarding a student, the school district can be held liable for all costs of the treatment, so that does not happen here.

A referral is sent by the teacher for ADHD screening and it stops there until there is a medical diagnosis. If the parent is not "into" doctors it is unlikely that will happen.

Recommending vitamins or herbs may be considered practicing medicine without a license, so that also does not happen here.

If the child is ADHD, then forcing them to look only at the work is fairly useless because their peripheral vision and hearing will keep them distracted. There are degrees of hyperactivity with the disorder; many kids show no hyperactivity. "Blank" looks are more likely to be found with other psychiatric disorders.

One thing I used to do to see if the child was possibly ADHD or just lazy was to ask the parent about the child's use of video games. If the child can focus on something like a GameBoy, it is likely that the issue is mostly behavorial. You will have to be really careful about how you phrase it, because diagnosing things is not in your job description.

One thing you could do is to casually mention to the parent about your reading something about that new study out showing that artificial colors and sodium benzoate in foods can cause ADHD-like symptoms.

Anothe thing you can do is use a timer while the child works and offer an incentive if the work is finished within the time limit. Put the incentive where the child can see it, but not reach it. Tell the child what the limit is and do not discuss the timer until it goes off. When it goes off, remove the incentive and again, do not discuss it.

When the child asks about it, simply say "Time's up for that."

Two hours is way too long for any one activity for a child of that age. Whoever is setting that up needs to make some changes.

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Sounds like ADD, like the previous posters mentioned. I would ask the mom about his diet, not just about what holistic approaches you can take to help. Lots of sugar or other additives can cause issues like this as well.

Also changing your approach to tutoring can help. Engage him, use the materials to make it fun for him. Use his experiences in relation to the materials you have to go over, AKA "real world" examples. Make his homework visual to him. Instead of having him stare at the question and answer it, present it in a different way. Draw it out, or put it on index cards, this works really well for math problems. Or use something else that is tangible, like counting chips (again, works well for math). He may not be able to focus because of the way the information is presented. If you show it to him in a way that makes him use the more creative part of his brain, then that will engage him and make him focus. I've seen this a lot in the kids I work with (and my own child, she's not been diagnosed ADD/ADHD though)

There is ADHD, which includes hyperactivity (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and there is also Attention Deficit (ADD) without the hyperness. I don't want to automatically assume that this is the problem though (because too many these days resort to it). It could be a number of other things as well, including depression or just plain boredome with his work, as most children do have trouble concentrating on things that don't intrerest them.

If it is a severe enough problem and his parents don't want to get him evaluated, which may or may not be a good thing, I would just try to gain his interest more, by making the lessons more fun and entertaining. I would also check into how much sleep he is getting. A lot of parents, I've noticed, do not monitor their children's sleep. This is essential in concentrating. Even if he is hyper and running around, he could be restless and overtired, thus making it harder to focus on one thing.

do you tutor other kids without this problem? how long do you tutor for and has he had any break between school and tutoring? before you decide he needs to be treated for add, i'd assume he's bored. i'd focus on trying to make the tutoring session more interactive and fun, with less drill and seat work. (okay, use these 12" blocks to build a square with a perimeter of 8' ... ready? go!). i'd make sure the problems were interesting. (not page after page of 454+321, but some word problems and other things to make it more interesting). i'd consider adding in some breaks for jumping jacks (quick -- do 4x3 jumping jacks!) or other physical activity. if you tutor right after school, i'd suggest to mom that maybe changing the time until after he'd had some time to run around outside or play for awhile might work better.

if mom and his daytime teachers are seeing problems with him all the time, sure, he should be evaluated for ADD. just not paying attention in a tutoring session, though, isn't enough to assume he's got some kind of learning or behavioral problem.

if it does seem from his experience at school and at home that he may have ADD, and if mom doesn't believe in the doctor thing (ouch), then tell her to do some online research ... there's evidence, for example, that spending more time outside can help reduce ADD symptoms for some kids. i'm sure there are other things like that, too. i'd be really careful with the "herbal" route, though. personally, i think people are far too willing to assume "vitamins" and "herbs" are magically better for them than "medicines" (natural does not necessarily equal healthy, and personally i'm not into experimenting on my kids with remedies that haven't been extensively tested)....

My son has a learning disability (dysgraphia) and, when faced with the task that vexes him (writing), he would shut down and mimic ADHD behavior. Something similar could be the case here. Is he behaving this way across the board or only during one specific subject (literacy, math, etc.)?

I will tell you as a parent that I mightily resent education professionals making medical diagnoses of my child, or suggesting medication, herbs or anything else when it may not be warranted. We caved to school system pressure and medicated our son for the first half of second grade. Not only did the meds NOT help, they made him morose and uncommunicative (and he's normally a happy kid). The neurologist in charge of his case ordered more evaluations, and that's when the dysgraphia was uncovered. She recanted the ADHD diagnosis.

My point in telling you this: tread lightly when "diagnosing" a child to a parent, particularly when you lack the medical qualification to do so.

Mom needs to get a doctor involved because this type of behavior is not normal. Only allowing this behavior to continue, will hurt this academic future and may also cause some problems in school. Try to explain this to Mom and she might come around. I know there are some meds that are supposed to help with focus (focus factor, etc.), but I do not know how effective they are. They say that drinking more water helps focus. It does sound like ADHD because he can't focus.

It sounds like ADD or ADHD. Kids are not all hyper who have this. It is attention deficit disorder. It is where they cannot focus on one thing for very long or they lose interest in it quickly. His mother really needs to take him to the doc to have the proper tests run. With you being a teacher, you could probably have him tested at school and see where that gets you with his mother. If she refuses to treat him, you can have people go to her to talk to her about it and hopefully they can convince her otherwise. Not having this treated could be considered child neglect on her part. Do what is best for the child without worrying about the mother. Do some research on ADD on the net and see what alternative methods you can come up with to treat it for him. He needs something or he will end up being a failure bc he will not be able to concentrate on anything in order to hold a job or anything else. Do what you have to do to ensure that you have given and offered the chance of a successful student. If they refuse that chance, then there is nothing left that you will be able to do about it.

Yes this could be ADD innatentive and/or executive dysfunction.

There is a great message board for parents about ADD alternative treatments --

http://millermom.proboards107.com/

I don't know if you are a tutor for a public school, but there is a federal law called 'child safety medication act of 2003' that was made because schools force parents to give their kids these meds when they are not needed. It is now illegal for schools to even mention this to parents.

Some of these kids died.

Here's the law --

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c108:4:./tem...