Dear Editor,
I’ve been concerned about an issue that affects more here in Vance County than I first realized.
My child is AD/HD. The medication he takes is administered according to weight and other characteristics, ie: behavior, attention, grades and social interaction.
I must use the public schools due to a financial inability to use other resources. I am a caring, hands-on, support-your-local-school-and-staff kind of parent. I’ll back the teacher and other staff even if I don’t agree with their tactics, because I have recognized my child’s inability to conform.
My son has an IEP. Most times it works well. Two out of four teachers have shown caring and patience (even though he has low marks in one class). As for the other two, I have been less than happy with their teaching styles. His meds will probably be increased next week due to weight gain and red-flagged behavior problems at school.
We use Study Island on a regular basis. I check his homework folder every night and monitor his completing of it. He hates homework (the writing part) and it is torture for both him and me, but it gets done.
He is in the third grade. There are benchmark tests and EOGs at the end of the year. Third grade has twice the homework from last year. There is little or no recess time at school and not enough things he loves like art, music, and sports.
And now, I have to get his meds increased again. I hate drugging my child. It makes him sick on the stomach, gives him a headache and I suspect makes life easier for everyone else. I have spoken with other parents and many other teachers and school staff to learn that we may have somewhat of an epidemic here in regards to drugging our kids. I know some children need the meds. I have a child that does. It appears to me that along the way something has been lost in our quest to teach the EOG. Teachers have had to request that parents drug their children. I even heard one teaching person state that a local principal was highly encouraging parents to get their children on meds.
Editor, I’m sorry, but that is wrong. Something is wrong when a teacher can’t reach a child. It bothers me that when children are medicated at an early age and then can’t remember what they were taught from week to week because they learned in a fog. That’s not learning.
I will continue to be active in my son’s education because I love him. He’s been profiled as a “problem child” and myself as a “problem parent” because I’m up there on a regular basis and I question what’s going on. I’ll continue to put up with teachers whose desire to reach children burned out years ago due to many reasons, some not of their choosing. I will continue to support our local school even though I personally feel like a number.
I’d like to know:
1) If there are other parents that are seeing it the way I do? Interested in forming a support group? and
2) With so many people who post on HiH that are in the profession of education, can they offer some words of wisdom to a parent struggling to cope?
I know it ain’t politics and it ain’t paying taxes or making new jobs, but it is a big concern for a lot of parents in this county.
Thanks,
Loyal HiH Reader