Raising a Child with ADD and a Learning Disability

Yes, ADD is a learning disability all on it's own.  Your child has trouble paying attention, following directions and remember instructions, how is learning supposed to come easily?

For parents facing only ADD you are facing a daily struggle.  Add extra disablities and you may feel overwhelmed or powerless!

That's how I felt when my son first started attending school.  He was so excited to start.  I remember him walking into the kindergarten classroom with a smile across his face and shocking enthusiasm.  His teacher noticed too, and commented that she has never witnessed such enthusiasm to start school.  We were both thrilled.

Two weeks later, he was not so excited.  In fact he wanted to quit going to school all together.  I arranged a meeting with his teach to see what was going on in his classroom and her concerns were heart breaking.

She shared with me that Aaron seemed to be distant at times and never completed his assignments in class.  He often sat there staring at his paper and frequently expressed that he didn't know what he was supposed to be doing.

The teacher would re-explain the task to him several times but he just didn't seem to follow along.  She shared that during story time he would sit on the mat and his eyes would wonder off.  When she would pull his attention back, he couldn't share what the story was about.

She did proudly share that in all his distraction he was not disruptive.  She was conerned however that he seemed so lost at times and his enthusiasm for school was gone.

I started helping in the classroom twice a week in the hopes that having mom there would help encourage him to participate.  What I saw was shocking; my son truly lost, and confused.

I worked closely with his teacher all year in an effort to help him learn to read.  She shared her opinion that we may be dealing with ADD, but that she felt there was something more going on here.  At this point it was a wait and see because the public school system does nothing until 3rd grade, three years of school.  Would my son struggle for 3 years?

We worked with him over the summer with a reading program at home that uses multi-sensory learning and he started reading.  His progress made me more confident as the new school year came upon us and he entered first grade.

This teacher was not as helpfu and seemed to like complaining about my sons lack of response in the classroom.  She would send home notes; "Your son is very disorganized.  You need to correct this," and "Aaron is falling behind.  He was already behind to start with."

A meeting was called with the school and they informed me that Aaron was still too young for them to fund full testing but would evaluate him for special education if I desired.

Well that isn't what I desired at all!  I wanted to know why my son was having so much trouble.  We opted for private testing and are very glad we did!

It turns out my son is battling ADD, but that is not all he is faced with.  He also has auditory AND visual dyslexia.  My heart felt such grief for my son's struggles in school.  He had been doing the best he could and not getting anywhere while he watched his peers excel.  I now understood why he wanted to quit school, and did what any good mother would do, I pulled him out!

No seriously, I made the decision to homeschool my son so that he could receive the best education for his learning needs.  Each year has brought new challenges and excitements.  Seeing him progress from one level to the next always brings me joy.

His attention deficit is a challenge on it's own and we have made successful climbs to improve his attention span. After four years of homeschooling we have seen progress in his ability to retain information, and understanding of his academic studies.

While he still hates schooling, we are confident that he will succeed.  We are equally confident that his condifence in himelf will grow as he sees himself improving each year.

Raising a kid with ADD and a learning disability affects more than academics, it trickles into every aspect of your child's life; his confidence, sociability, development of friendships and overall personal satsifaction.

I have found with the homeschool atmospere I can battle everyone of these challenges with great success.  Yet it is not just through homeschooling that we have found success, but with diligent efforts in our treatment for ADD; efforts anyone can duplicate.