Structured/traditional vs Progressive school for adhd/anxiety

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, have you had her formally evaluated in any way? I ask because you need to fully understand the potential scope of her needs in order to make a good decision about placement. Sometimes ADHD is the tip of the iceberg. Consider which school can serve her long-term vs which school is likely to counsel her out if her needs are more than they want to meet. That may point to the progressive school which you say is neurodiverse. If you do go progressive, confirm that they are willing to provide her OG tutoring right now-- some "progressive" schools don't intervene until later and they say it's healthy child development philosophy yada yada Scandinavia reads later but it also lets them avoid providing services and keeps the cost down.

On the other hand, since your daughter is bright and may do well with dyslexia support, consider which school is going to meet her academic needs. "Child-led" sounds good to parents of little kids, but in the long run that can lead to the kid avoiding things that are difficult and focusing on their preferred topics, leaving big holes in their education. Especially for kids with ADHD who sometimes have a hard time focusing on things that interest them less. "Child-led" shouldn't be an excuse for failing to awaken the child's interest in the full range of topics while still making it feel child-led. That requires a very skilled teacher and not all schools have them. "Love of learning", to parents, sometimes just means their child enjoys going to school. And sometimes children enjoy school more if they get to focus only on their favorite topics, but that doesn't make it a good thing for them in the long run.

Also, real talk. Neurodiverse sounds great to parents of little kids. Yay, diversity! Who could be against that. But your kid might have a much harder time with it due to her ADHD. If other kids in the room are stimming, dysregulating, or just generally being noisy-- and that's the model of the school so it's not gonna change-- that might be pretty hard for your daughter when she's trying to maintain focus. And at schools like this, the kids who are more academically capable sometimes peel off in upper grades because the parents want a stronger academic peer group. So the class has a higher and higher ratio of neurodiversity as time passes. What you get as a peer group in K and 1st at this type of school just isn't the same as what it may be in 4th and 5th when you're left with true believers in "progressive education" plus kids whose parents think they wouldn't do well elsewhere. I'll probably get flamed for saying this out loud, but that was our experience.

all of this is so well put. this was my child's experience at montessori elementary. too many kids with dysregulation that needed help and the school could not deliver and it set my child off, and they literally tried to pin it on my chld's lack of social skills? Meanwhile, they had kids hitting the teacher and first graders telling saying "i'm going to smash you b**&&"

[Anonymous]

My child has anxiety but not the ADHD piece, so our experience isn't directly comparable but might still be useful. I'm going to incorporate experiences of some friends who do have ADHD kiddos into this, though.

We started at a progressive private that sounded GREAT on paper. And we were among the fortunate ones whose child did learn to read seeming through osmosis. Which is good, because the school proudly uses the Lucy Calkins curriculum, that doesn't explicitly teach reading or phonics, so for kids who need more than to just be handed a book, it's straight to tutors. So many kids end up with tutors in the early grades for reading, it's crazy looking back on it.

And child-led sounded great. But it turns out it wasn't so child led, there was a lot of explicit and implicit pressure from the teachers to choose a certain thing, but you kind of had to guess what that was (Ms Jenny wants you to choose a service project...no, let's not do one about nature...no, not about animals...Ms Jenny strongly wants you to suggest something about the homeless population but is just waiting for that answer to come up from someone so she can run with it), which was super stressful for my anxious kid. And it has been insanely stressful for friends with kids who don't read social cues easily or quickly and don't get what they're "supposed" to choose for their project until the teacher somewhat disapprovingly tells them their topic isn't approved.

And developmentally appropriate sounds great, until you realize that your fourth grader never learned long division or multiple digit multiplication, because they "wait for sixth grade" on that, even though it means they're two years behind public schools. And you realize that "we focus on a conceptual understanding rather than memorization" means your child learned five strategies for solving 7x6, but can't just quickly recall the answer, making long division extremely painful when you do get there. Or you have a kid with dyscalculia for whom memorization and formulas are a lifeline.

Also be aware that progressive private schools have a *lot* of group work - it's almost exclusive group work, in our experience. This is incredibly hard for kids who might prefer to work on their own sometimes, be it because of anxiety or ADHD or social difficulties or something else.

Finally, we found that just as the school didn't do much to differentiate instruction for kids who were struggling (hence the tutoring), they were also unwilling to differentiate for kids who needed more. There was no option to move ahead or do harder work. The school said they did great with highly gifted kids, but that wasn't true in practice.

In short, our progressive private, one of the top ranked in our state, does very well with kids who fit in the fairly small mold they want; kids outside that struggle or choose to leave for an environment that fits them better.

I'm still a believer in the educational philosophy they claim to follow. But I've also come to realize that to do it well requires your teachers be incredible across the board. Ours were probably mostly above average, but that wasn't enough. We moved our daughter for middle school and wish we had done it sooner. She's thriving with more structure and more differentiation and stronger core academics.

Parochial schools can be strict, cold, and inflexible, but they can also be warm and supportive and structured but flexible. If yours is the later I would absolutely go with that.

[Anonymous]

PP, so much of that resonates! Our current school seems to be fine for a percentage of kids for whom it just works. And I get the bit about needing a really amazing teacher. Most are good. Thank you so much. Really grateful for this forum at every step of my special kid parenting journey. - OP

[Anonymous]

no one on here can offer good advice, we don't know your child and we don't know enough about these schools

[Anonymous]

Progressive schools like green acres will say they can work with kids with anxiety, but I don't think they fully undertand anxiety disorders. big difference

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:no one on here can offer good advice, we don't know your child and we don't know enough about these schools

This is OP. I’ve found the feedback and stories thus far incredibly helpful. In particular, not letting my my own desires for a free and child lead education get in the way of meeting what my kid actually needs (probably structure, even though I hate that!). Anyways, thanks to all who have shared their stories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child has anxiety but not the ADHD piece, so our experience isn't directly comparable but might still be useful. I'm going to incorporate experiences of some friends who do have ADHD kiddos into this, though.

We started at a progressive private that sounded GREAT on paper. And we were among the fortunate ones whose child did learn to read seeming through osmosis. Which is good, because the school proudly uses the Lucy Calkins curriculum, that doesn't explicitly teach reading or phonics, so for kids who need more than to just be handed a book, it's straight to tutors. So many kids end up with tutors in the early grades for reading, it's crazy looking back on it.

And child-led sounded great. But it turns out it wasn't so child led, there was a lot of explicit and implicit pressure from the teachers to choose a certain thing, but you kind of had to guess what that was (Ms Jenny wants you to choose a service project...no, let's not do one about nature...no, not about animals...Ms Jenny strongly wants you to suggest something about the homeless population but is just waiting for that answer to come up from someone so she can run with it), which was super stressful for my anxious kid. And it has been insanely stressful for friends with kids who don't read social cues easily or quickly and don't get what they're "supposed" to choose for their project until the teacher somewhat disapprovingly tells them their topic isn't approved.

And developmentally appropriate sounds great, until you realize that your fourth grader never learned long division or multiple digit multiplication, because they "wait for sixth grade" on that, even though it means they're two years behind public schools. And you realize that "we focus on a conceptual understanding rather than memorization" means your child learned five strategies for solving 7x6, but can't just quickly recall the answer, making long division extremely painful when you do get there. Or you have a kid with dyscalculia for whom memorization and formulas are a lifeline.

Also be aware that progressive private schools have a *lot* of group work - it's almost exclusive group work, in our experience. This is incredibly hard for kids who might prefer to work on their own sometimes, be it because of anxiety or ADHD or social difficulties or something else.

Finally, we found that just as the school didn't do much to differentiate instruction for kids who were struggling (hence the tutoring), they were also unwilling to differentiate for kids who needed more. There was no option to move ahead or do harder work. The school said they did great with highly gifted kids, but that wasn't true in practice.

In short, our progressive private, one of the top ranked in our state, does very well with kids who fit in the fairly small mold they want; kids outside that struggle or choose to leave for an environment that fits them better.

I'm still a believer in the educational philosophy they claim to follow. But I've also come to realize that to do it well requires your teachers be incredible across the board. Ours were probably mostly above average, but that wasn't enough. We moved our daughter for middle school and wish we had done it sooner. She's thriving with more structure and more differentiation and stronger core academics.

Parochial schools can be strict, cold, and inflexible, but they can also be warm and supportive and structured but flexible. If yours is the later I would absolutely go with that.

All of this! I've never been able to understand why parents will voluntarily choose a private school that fails to meet their child's needs in something as fundamental as reading. To pay all that money and not get a core competency seems bonkers to me. And "child-led" is often more of an aspiration than a reality--it only works if the kids are smart, flexible, natural polymaths and the teachers are really talented.

Often times parents think they want "child-led" but really, they want their child to learn certain things (such as reading! and math!) and that's actually more important to them than "child-led" when push comes to shove. They think their child will learn those things in a child-led environment, but if the kid isn't into it, it takes a lot of social pressure from teachers to make it happen. Honestly some children (and adults) are a lot happier with straightforward explicit requirements rather than the indirect social pressure approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:no one on here can offer good advice, we don't know your child and we don't know enough about these schools

This is OP. I’ve found the feedback and stories thus far incredibly helpful. In particular, not letting my my own desires for a free and child lead education get in the way of meeting what my kid actually needs (probably structure, even though I hate that!). Anyways, thanks to all who have shared their stories.

have you tried the public schools? the “free” eduction gives my kid a lot more than private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child has anxiety but not the ADHD piece, so our experience isn't directly comparable but might still be useful. I'm going to incorporate experiences of some friends who do have ADHD kiddos into this, though.

We started at a progressive private that sounded GREAT on paper. And we were among the fortunate ones whose child did learn to read seeming through osmosis. Which is good, because the school proudly uses the Lucy Calkins curriculum, that doesn't explicitly teach reading or phonics, so for kids who need more than to just be handed a book, it's straight to tutors. So many kids end up with tutors in the early grades for reading, it's crazy looking back on it.

And child-led sounded great. But it turns out it wasn't so child led, there was a lot of explicit and implicit pressure from the teachers to choose a certain thing, but you kind of had to guess what that was (Ms Jenny wants you to choose a service project...no, let's not do one about nature...no, not about animals...Ms Jenny strongly wants you to suggest something about the homeless population but is just waiting for that answer to come up from someone so she can run with it), which was super stressful for my anxious kid. And it has been insanely stressful for friends with kids who don't read social cues easily or quickly and don't get what they're "supposed" to choose for their project until the teacher somewhat disapprovingly tells them their topic isn't approved.

And developmentally appropriate sounds great, until you realize that your fourth grader never learned long division or multiple digit multiplication, because they "wait for sixth grade" on that, even though it means they're two years behind public schools. And you realize that "we focus on a conceptual understanding rather than memorization" means your child learned five strategies for solving 7x6, but can't just quickly recall the answer, making long division extremely painful when you do get there. Or you have a kid with dyscalculia for whom memorization and formulas are a lifeline.

Also be aware that progressive private schools have a *lot* of group work - it's almost exclusive group work, in our experience. This is incredibly hard for kids who might prefer to work on their own sometimes, be it because of anxiety or ADHD or social difficulties or something else.

Finally, we found that just as the school didn't do much to differentiate instruction for kids who were struggling (hence the tutoring), they were also unwilling to differentiate for kids who needed more. There was no option to move ahead or do harder work. The school said they did great with highly gifted kids, but that wasn't true in practice.

In short, our progressive private, one of the top ranked in our state, does very well with kids who fit in the fairly small mold they want; kids outside that struggle or choose to leave for an environment that fits them better.

I'm still a believer in the educational philosophy they claim to follow. But I've also come to realize that to do it well requires your teachers be incredible across the board. Ours were probably mostly above average, but that wasn't enough. We moved our daughter for middle school and wish we had done it sooner. She's thriving with more structure and more differentiation and stronger core academics.

Parochial schools can be strict, cold, and inflexible, but they can also be warm and supportive and structured but flexible. If yours is the later I would absolutely go with that.

All of this! I've never been able to understand why parents will voluntarily choose a private school that fails to meet their child's needs in something as fundamental as reading. To pay all that money and not get a core competency seems bonkers to me. And "child-led" is often more of an aspiration than a reality--it only works if the kids are smart, flexible, natural polymaths and the teachers are really talented.

Often times parents think they want "child-led" but really, they want their child to learn certain things (such as reading! and math!) and that's actually more important to them than "child-led" when push comes to shove. They think their child will learn those things in a child-led environment, but if the kid isn't into it, it takes a lot of social pressure from teachers to make it happen. Honestly some children (and adults) are a lot happier with straightforward explicit requirements rather than the indirect social pressure approach.

oftentimes it's just basic snob appeal and not wanting to be around non-White kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So you're asking should you send your child to a school that can't actually meet her academic needs, and then when she's tired from masking and struggling all day, make her have tutoring? I really don't think that makes sense. How does "love of learning" happen when she's not able to keep up without the tutor?

Why not look beyond these two schools for the actual right fit?

I would agree with this. She may also just be a late reader and the anxiety and adhd may be manifesting as dyslexia. Look for middle ground. I’m a woman who had adhd growing up and I read late (6/7) and benefitted from a school with structure and zero pressure or stigma around reading. I did very well in school with zero supports and went to an Ivy for college. I’m

[Anonymous]

A lot of kids cannot read in 1st grade and are beginning to pick up reading skills. This emphasis on early reading is misguided and goes against how kids develop. We are in a wealthy district with highly educated parents and many were panicking that their child could not read in 1st but by the end of 2nd basically everyone caught up and it was fine.

Are you sure you're not overreacting? Never heard of them testing for dyslexia in 1st grade.

[Anonymous]

Where is the anxiety? I don't see anything in your post about that but noticed it's in the headline and you even wrote she's "mainstream presenting." Other than being behind in reading, which can be completely normal, and being easily distracted, which can also be normal at this age, what else are you so worried about that you did a full neuropsych at 4.5 and are doing another one?

[Anonymous]

Another family where paraochial school destroyed my bright child's confidence. We tried for 3 years before moving to public. What a difference! Most parochial schools cannot accommodate kids with disabilities and your child will be labeled the problem kid and because the environments are small they will never get out from that. Be careful about putting your creative child in that stifling environment. We are catholic and were so disappointed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi op, though I don’t have a ton of experience yet I will share my recent experience in case it is helpful. My daughter attended a very progressive preschool, mostly outdoors, the most wonderful, inclusive place, super wonderful place to be for a neurodivergent kid in many ways. I so believe in their philosophy in theory and was so grateful for the opportunity to go there. But she really struggled there. Their approach had structure, of course, it was a well run program not a free for all but it was incredibly child led. Which I loved! But again, lots of struggles with emotion regulation and peers. We were often hearing about the difficulty.

But she has started kindergarten at a public school, classroom is super structured and teacher led and is thriving. First IEP meeting they said basically all great things. We were kind of astounded.

My current theory is that while I want that free flowing child led environment for her, the super structured environment is actually easier and less stressful for her. Preschool teacher had actually commented on how things are better for teacher led things. Having the routine be so certain and the tasks so clear seems to be really doing wonders.

This all being said I have to admit if paying for private I would have trouble not choosing the more progressive school and I think a lot was gained from that experience, but I just wanted to share because it’s been pretty eye opening for me. But my kid’s ADHD symptoms show themselves in emotional regulation issues pretty prominently which doesn’t sound like your issue so they may have very different symptom presentation so please take with a grain of salt!

We had a similar experience switching from Montessori to more structured. The Montessori child-led 3-hour time blocks were really tough for our gifted kid with combined ADHD and high functioning ASD. We didn't have official diagnoses at the time, just knew "high energy." They did better in a more teacher-led traditional school, which was surprising to me because the are so independent and creative.

So much depends on the teachers, though, so I imagine good experiences could be had in both types of schooling with the right teachers. Even in structured classes, there's a huge difference on days when there are substitute teachers. That's when we see behavior dysregulation and fatiguing, enough so that I can tell at pick up before even hearing from my child that they have a sub because they appear exhausted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child has anxiety but not the ADHD piece, so our experience isn't directly comparable but might still be useful. I'm going to incorporate experiences of some friends who do have ADHD kiddos into this, though.

We started at a progressive private that sounded GREAT on paper. And we were among the fortunate ones whose child did learn to read seeming through osmosis. Which is good, because the school proudly uses the Lucy Calkins curriculum, that doesn't explicitly teach reading or phonics, so for kids who need more than to just be handed a book, it's straight to tutors. So many kids end up with tutors in the early grades for reading, it's crazy looking back on it.

And child-led sounded great. But it turns out it wasn't so child led, there was a lot of explicit and implicit pressure from the teachers to choose a certain thing, but you kind of had to guess what that was (Ms Jenny wants you to choose a service project...no, let's not do one about nature...no, not about animals...Ms Jenny strongly wants you to suggest something about the homeless population but is just waiting for that answer to come up from someone so she can run with it), which was super stressful for my anxious kid. And it has been insanely stressful for friends with kids who don't read social cues easily or quickly and don't get what they're "supposed" to choose for their project until the teacher somewhat disapprovingly tells them their topic isn't approved.

And developmentally appropriate sounds great, until you realize that your fourth grader never learned long division or multiple digit multiplication, because they "wait for sixth grade" on that, even though it means they're two years behind public schools. And you realize that "we focus on a conceptual understanding rather than memorization" means your child learned five strategies for solving 7x6, but can't just quickly recall the answer, making long division extremely painful when you do get there. Or you have a kid with dyscalculia for whom memorization and formulas are a lifeline.

Also be aware that progressive private schools have a *lot* of group work - it's almost exclusive group work, in our experience. This is incredibly hard for kids who might prefer to work on their own sometimes, be it because of anxiety or ADHD or social difficulties or something else.

Finally, we found that just as the school didn't do much to differentiate instruction for kids who were struggling (hence the tutoring), they were also unwilling to differentiate for kids who needed more. There was no option to move ahead or do harder work. The school said they did great with highly gifted kids, but that wasn't true in practice.

In short, our progressive private, one of the top ranked in our state, does very well with kids who fit in the fairly small mold they want; kids outside that struggle or choose to leave for an environment that fits them better.

I'm still a believer in the educational philosophy they claim to follow. But I've also come to realize that to do it well requires your teachers be incredible across the board. Ours were probably mostly above average, but that wasn't enough. We moved our daughter for middle school and wish we had done it sooner. She's thriving with more structure and more differentiation and stronger core academics.

Parochial schools can be strict, cold, and inflexible, but they can also be warm and supportive and structured but flexible. If yours is the later I would absolutely go with that.

All of this! I've never been able to understand why parents will voluntarily choose a private school that fails to meet their child's needs in something as fundamental as reading. To pay all that money and not get a core competency seems bonkers to me. And "child-led" is often more of an aspiration than a reality--it only works if the kids are smart, flexible, natural polymaths and the teachers are really talented.

Often times parents think they want "child-led" but really, they want their child to learn certain things (such as reading! and math!) and that's actually more important to them than "child-led" when push comes to shove. They think their child will learn those things in a child-led environment, but if the kid isn't into it, it takes a lot of social pressure from teachers to make it happen. Honestly some children (and adults) are a lot happier with straightforward explicit requirements rather than the indirect social pressure approach.

oftentimes it's just basic snob appeal and not wanting to be around non-White kids.

Very untrue, our "progressive" school that sounds pretty similar to what OP described went out of its way to put in racial justice and equity everywhere - my child was younger at the time, but basically we were told that Goldilocks is racist because the girl in it is blonde and it codifies a white standard of beauty, hence we need to change how we tell it to children. My kiddo is half brown and English is not his first language, but I thought it was just way too woke for me. So if you had any exposure to "progressive" schools you would know it's not about eliminating interaction with a certain racial group.