I have no idea what this image has to do with this post. (Image by dvanzuijlekom via Flickr)

We had our meeting with Nick‘s teacher yesterday, and it went better than I hoped.  She seemed to have asked for the meeting to reassure us and not complain about any bad behavior.

The teacher started out by telling us that Nick is easily the smartest kid in his class, which disarmed us right away.  She also said that she realizes that Nick hasn’t been challenged up until now and she has some plans to push him in the subjects that he’s ahead and to help in areas that he needs work (mostly calming down and doing his work).   Now that she has an idea where everyone stands, she has Nick in a reading group with the other kids who can read well (for kindergarteners) and they’ll be taking on more challenging projects instead of sounding out “cat” and “dog”.

We also talked briefly about ADHD.  The teacher has a son who grew up with ADHD, so she’s familiar with it as a teacher and parent.  She advised us not to jump into a diagnosis, but thought it was definitely something to watch for and “keep in the back of (our) minds.”  At first she wrote a lot of his issues off to maturity levels and excitement being with so many kids.  When I explained that he behaved better for me than anyone and still occasionally had these problems, she agreed that ADHD or something similar was a possibility, though she – of course – stressed that she was not a doctor and had no real training in the area.

At this point, Rhonda and I are going to keep researching homeschooling and will get Nick evaluated for ADHD.   We’re planning on trying to ride out the school year in public school, since the teacher”gets” Nick better than we had imagined, and we’ll see how things go.

In the meantime, I’ll still be posting about ADHD, ADD, homeschooling, and other information we find in our research.

Related articles

• Homeschooling When Both Parent and Child Have ADHD (everydayhealth.com)
• Should Teachers Have Access to ADHD Records? (everydayhealth.com)
• The ABCs of ADHD (everydayhealth.com)