Handling afternoon ccd class | ADHD Information
Hi there!
I'm in process of seeking diagnosis for my son. Anyway, I saw your post. I teach ccd at my church. I can tell you that the material (I'm not sure if it is the same in all churches) is so bland that it makes me want to run around the classroom screaming. When you couple the boring material with having ccd after an 8hr school day... all the kids are distracted and disruptive. Also, most of the work is sit down, listen and fill out a ditto sheet to see what you just learned. My co-teacher and myself use the book as a guide and we try to make most everything into a game, play...anything fun. On the days that we "stick to the book" we loose the kids (especially one boy that has add).
We allow the one child with adhd in our class to stand (if needed). On certain days when he is more fidgety we get him moving by being our aide (passing out pencils, picking them up etc). It seems to help. I could see if he got in with a parent volunteer who was a strict rule-follower where he would have problems.
I would encourage you to talk to your RE office. Maybe there is another teacher that would be better fit (one who has adhd child his/herself) or more willing to encourage different learning styles. If not, I would highly suggest that you try to aide in his classroom. As you said, the Church doesn't provide any support to us parent volunteers, and someone without knowledge that this is beyond your sons control may feel lost in how to work with him.
I do not have ADHD, but I remember having a hard time getting through
CCD. Without a good teacher, I can't see it happening. Kates3 had a great
idea... help teach the class. Lessons in tolerance and kindness, perhaps. Or
if you are in a large enough city, check out the neighboring parishes. Maybe
there will be another class that is a better fit.
My son had asthma when he was a toddler, and he definitely got more
hyper when he had an attack. Kind of like he was frantic... something was
wrong, but he couldn't tell what.
Hello, and welcome!
I don't know that I can offer any good advice - my son (also 7) is not (yet?) on meds - is it possible that the Focalin has worn off by the time CCD starts, and maybe he needs a "booster dose" on that day, or a longer-acting version?
Another option (just brainstorming here) might be to offer to sit in the CCD class, either unobtrusively in the back of the room or actively participating as an "assistant teacher" so that you can intervene if necessary.
Re: the bad behavior on the bus, I don't know. Sometimes my kid's improvement is not linear! Also, I know on some days the bad stuff gets me down - other days, I maintain my equanimity.
Hi,
This is my first post. My son is seven years old and in second grade. He was diagnosed with ADHD last year at the end of the school year. He is currently on 5mg of Focalin XR every day. His behavior at his public school had been improving dramatically. However, his afternoon CCD class has taken a turn for the worst. He was sent out of the class room last week for getting out of his chair, running around, screaming at the other children to stop laughing at a him and eventually hiding under a bench. They did'nt tell me about this until this wednesday - and neither did my son. This week he was apparantly disruptive. But the teacher at CCD is a volunteer with no clue. The church has no one qualified or frankly who cares enough to learn how to handle this and I don't know what to do. To top it all off, I got a call from his public schools vice principal today saying he was written up for bad behavior on the bu ride home. I really thought we were past this. My son is also Asthmatic - when he's getting sick his behavior seems to get worse. Any ideas? Sorry for rambling.