George McGurn

January l7, l999

I’ll bet that right now there some parents in our city who are not too happy with their child’s school achievement and are wondering if the child just might have some kind of disability or even "Attention Deficit Disorder"(ADD). And they are also wondering if their child might be a Special Needs child. Well, let’s see.

Does your child have a disability? Yes. Every child has some kind of disability. No child is perfect. Children wouldn’t be normal if they were perfect.

Does your child have a physical disability? Yes. All children have some kind of physical disability. Just talk a walk at a mall and check out the different shapes and sizes of the people there.

Does your child have a social disability? Yes. We all have difficulty some time with our social relationships.

Does your child have an emotional disability. Yes. We all have trouble some time trying to understand our

feelings and dealing effectively with them.

Does your child have a learning disability. Yes. We all learn in different ways. And we all have our own intellectual strengths and weakness.

Does your child have special needs. I hope so. Every child has needs that are unique and special.

And now the big question. If all of the above is true then should your child be enrolled in a Special Education program under the 766 special education regulations?

This is a major issue in the schools. What student should be in regular education and what student should be in a special education program? I remember when the teachers and the principals pretty much decided on the individual school program for the students. Then, the parents didn’t have much input into school decisions. But the balance of power has shifted dramatically in the schools. Now many of the academic decisions in a school are made by the parents with help from the medical profession and the legal profession.

Sometimes this works out great for the child who needs a special program. But too many times the child’s gets stuck in a maize of paperwork and meetings while a political power struggle develops around the issue.

I remember Sarah in our school. She was a very unhappy kid whose parents had been fighting with each other for a long time. We had been involved with the family over the years but had not been able to help very much. Neither parent was willing to get involved in the counseling program so we just kind of held Sarah’s hand as she plodded from grade to grade.

Although, I remember one year when we had a very creative counseling intern working with Sarah. This intern was able to get the mother to come to the school to help Sarah. The intern saw that the mother was very uncomfortable talking about issues with her daughter so they evolved a program where the three would meet for an hour each week in the counseling room and knit. Mother was very talented at knitting and began to teach the intern and Sarah how to knit. We called it "knit therapy." Sarah loved having her mother come to the school and very soon Sarah bounced back and started feeling much better about herself. But after a few months, mother lost interest and stopped coming in. Sarah quickly regressed into the unhappy daughter again.

At one point Sarah’s mother left the family and Sarah really took a nose-dive. I called the father again and he became very angry at me and at the school. He said he would take care of Sarah’s problem outside of the school. He had Sarah tested by a Mental Health Clinic and then screened for learning disabilities. She was diagnosed as having ADD with a recommendation for ritalin and some tutoring for her ADD.

The father made sure Sarah took her medication every morning and he drove her to the Clinic for her tutoring twice a week. And very quickly a miracle happened in school for Sarah. Just like the time when her mother spent some time with her with the knitting, Sarah immediately perked up. She became much happier and more productive in school. Sarah loved the attention she was finally getting from her dad.

My principal asked me if I though Sarah really had ADD. I thought about it for a while. Later I told the principal what I thought about Sarah’s ADD. I told him:

When Sarah was being ignored she felt very:………………… s-ADD --sad.

When Sarah’s mom left she felt very: . . . . . . . . . . . . . .m-ADD –mad

But when Dad gave her some attention she felt very:. . . . . gl -ADD -glad

In our schools, Sarah, and a too many kids just like her, receive a lot of support for their ADD issues and not enough support for their "sad" and "mad" issues.

I told the principal I didn’t know how much the ritalin or the tutoring helped Sarah. I thought that dad could have saved himself some time and money by spending more time at home with Sarah before her crisis.

Some kids in our schools do need medication. Some kids in our school do need a special kind of instruction. But there are too many kids in our schools on medication or in a special academic program who are going nowhere. Because what these kids really need is more support and encouragement from their parents.