School computer use requirement and ADHD disaster

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son has severe ADHD, and in school, took Adderall and had an IEP. He's now in college but he never got into trouble for looking at stuff he shouldn't be looking at in MCPS K-12. At home, he would sit at the dining room table so we could monitor his screen as we walked past his chair behind him. He often needed redirection from watching stupid Youtube videos, but the alternative was a med booster in the afternoon, which messed with his sleep.

Some of it is parenting. Some of it is meds. Some of it is brain maturity. You're going to have to deal with this until he can self-regulate better.

I really hate posts like this. "My kid didn't have this problem, so it must be your fault that your child does."

Great for you that your child's ADHD didn't cause him to impulsively misuse computers. But others with ADHD are different.

Read. He did misuse them. He just never got into trouble for accessing inappropriate sites. We dealt with it. We survived. Screens aren’t going away any time soon, so you’re going to have to manage too.

Point: it is possible to power through this even with severe ADHD. Yes, it sucks. No, your kid doesn’t get a pass for bad behavior or poor grades (in case the conversation is going there).

Again - your did was NOT in school in this era when screens and apps are totally pervasive. It’s bad for all kids and close to disastrous for kids with any learning differences.

Of course he was. You think the screen stuff dates from the pandemic? His school was using laptops since his early elementary days, well before the pandemic.

Screens have been used in school forever, people. My son has severe ADHD with dysgraphia and other LDs. The typing accommodation works best in a screen environment. Don’t say screens are all bad. They’re not, not for certain LDs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son has severe ADHD, and in school, took Adderall and had an IEP. He's now in college but he never got into trouble for looking at stuff he shouldn't be looking at in MCPS K-12. At home, he would sit at the dining room table so we could monitor his screen as we walked past his chair behind him. He often needed redirection from watching stupid Youtube videos, but the alternative was a med booster in the afternoon, which messed with his sleep.

Some of it is parenting. Some of it is meds. Some of it is brain maturity. You're going to have to deal with this until he can self-regulate better.

I really hate posts like this. "My kid didn't have this problem, so it must be your fault that your child does."

Great for you that your child's ADHD didn't cause him to impulsively misuse computers. But others with ADHD are different.

Read. He did misuse them. He just never got into trouble for accessing inappropriate sites. We dealt with it. We survived. Screens aren’t going away any time soon, so you’re going to have to manage too.

Point: it is possible to power through this even with severe ADHD. Yes, it sucks. No, your kid doesn’t get a pass for bad behavior or poor grades (in case the conversation is going there).

Again - your did was NOT in school in this era when screens and apps are totally pervasive. It’s bad for all kids and close to disastrous for kids with any learning differences.

Of course he was. You think the screen stuff dates from the pandemic? His school was using laptops since his early elementary days, well before the pandemic.

Screens have been used in school forever, people. My son has severe ADHD with dysgraphia and other LDs. The typing accommodation works best in a screen environment. Don’t say screens are all bad. They’re not, not for certain LDs.

Again you don’t know because you don’t have a kid in school right now. The environment has changed. Making sure your kid stays on task at home is one small piece of the puzzle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a middle school special education teacher. I work with students like your son. There are options that I have utilized and which one works depends on the specific child. For some students, paper and pencil version is fine and preferred. For others, they may throw a fit and being given paper and pencil is worse than the computer. For some students, we use a first and then board. First you complete your assignment and then you get five minutes on a an educational game website. For other students, we freeze their computer to block access to any other site than the site that is given. No one size fits all but hopefully something will help.

Why tf would the school not block access for ALL kids? Unbelievable.

Also paper and pencil just is not available once the Ed tech becomes more integrated into the curriculum. It’s a lot more than just printing out a worksheet.

Other teacher back again- the HS teacher. Yes, I block access for everyone except what we need to be on. Kids are equally addicted and off task these days. The controls are not perfect but help for a large percentage.

I have two teens myself and one has an IEP and one does not. We’ve used different combinations of controls and learning self management with tech over the years. This is not strictly a special ed issue any longer and that poster blaming the parent was not being fair. Parents can’t control their kids when they are in school and so many of them will get around anything we put in place.

My kid with an IEP is going to college next fall and currently has no controls whatsoever, thankfully, and can now self manage. He will need to be able to do that when he’s living on his own. He had very strict lockdown in everything when he was in middle school.

Agree. Screen management is something all kids need to learn. So far my kid (HFA and inattentive-ish) doesn’t seem to find the biggest challenge in staying on task on screens - he seems about average there - but he definitely suffers from not being able to absorb instruction from the screen and the lack of guidance as teachers decide to just let the computer do the teacher. he’s generally more emotionally reactive than average, so the annoyances of the apps (the annoying voiceovers, forced pace, and glitches) throw him off. Academically because he is naturally strong in reading and writing, the screens haven’t hurt him that much, but the lack of feedback and focused repetition has (ie no grammar tests or spelling tests). Math is a disaster though - he just cannot learn what he needs to be learned by being rushed through an app and shown the main lessons by video. RIP my savings - all going to Mathnasium now!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In MCPS, I tried paper analogues in the 504. The problem is that analogues don’t exist often - the Spanish game to reinforce vocab doses t have a paper equivalent (not even a vocab list exists to stare out!). And so on in all classes.

It’s infuriating but I haven’t found a solution. Either my kid’s ADHD interferes with his education or the school system’s lack of paper options does. #progress

This is a situation where private school might be appropriate. Either in scholarship or by suing for placement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In MCPS, I tried paper analogues in the 504. The problem is that analogues don’t exist often - the Spanish game to reinforce vocab doses t have a paper equivalent (not even a vocab list exists to stare out!). And so on in all classes.

It’s infuriating but I haven’t found a solution. Either my kid’s ADHD interferes with his education or the school system’s lack of paper options does. #progress

This is a situation where private school might be appropriate. Either in scholarship or by suing for placement.

I don’t think there’s any way to get around it at any school. The most we can do is get 1:1 tutors for the key skills, then mitigate the damages by getting IEP or 504 provisions that means a teacher can’t just stick our kid in front of a screen then ding them when they don’t get the work done. They need chances to redo and ideally more accomodations/supports to keep them on task in class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In MCPS, I tried paper analogues in the 504. The problem is that analogues don’t exist often - the Spanish game to reinforce vocab doses t have a paper equivalent (not even a vocab list exists to stare out!). And so on in all classes.

It’s infuriating but I haven’t found a solution. Either my kid’s ADHD interferes with his education or the school system’s lack of paper options does. #progress

This is a situation where private school might be appropriate. Either in scholarship or by suing for placement.

Sure, as long as you have plenty of money to supplement what you "might" get as financial aid at a private school or paying lawyers to sue the county which is a long and expensive process. On top of that, the county wins cases brought by parents significantly more times than the parents. I'm sorry but this point of view is naive.

[Anonymous]

OP, thanks everyone, given me some validation and good tips. Private school is no better than public when it comes to tech in our experience.

I appreciate the writing and mathnasium tip. Our neuropysch recorded very high math capability and the last 2 years of algorithm and online and explanatory math it's dropped. And comes with a ton of frustration. And the math teacher says he needs better computer usage. I'll stop venting. I just find this so maddening.

Also from what I can tell the last 5 years has been a drastic acceleration in a bad way. Tech companies are in schools now. It's not mavis beacon on a cd. It's Google selling things on the school issued device. I feel for the teachers in all this truly. It's almost impossible to ignore the AI offering help and friendship on the school Chromebook.

Also, AI is best learned by developing critical thinking skills and that's by being in person, making mistakes, and playing. Sigh. I'll report back if I find a magic accomodation or way to go analog in elementary school.

Thanks all and good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, thanks everyone, given me some validation and good tips. Private school is no better than public when it comes to tech in our experience.

I appreciate the writing and mathnasium tip. Our neuropysch recorded very high math capability and the last 2 years of algorithm and online and explanatory math it's dropped. And comes with a ton of frustration. And the math teacher says he needs better computer usage. I'll stop venting. I just find this so maddening.

Also from what I can tell the last 5 years has been a drastic acceleration in a bad way. Tech companies are in schools now. It's not mavis beacon on a cd. It's Google selling things on the school issued device. I feel for the teachers in all this truly. It's almost impossible to ignore the AI offering help and friendship on the school Chromebook.

Also, AI is best learned by developing critical thinking skills and that's by being in person, making mistakes, and playing. Sigh. I'll report back if I find a magic accomodation or way to go analog in elementary school.

Thanks all and good luck!

I definitely recommend getting your kid into math tutoring or enrichment ASAP! Mathnasium is good for my kid but math isn’t his strongest subject - your kid might thrive in AOPs or Russian Math. the more you can pre-teach the math the more bearable the computer algos might be (less frustrating).

[Anonymous]

OP reporting back, school made clear they might meet us halfway but they are unwilling to change their tech policy. Next step is folding this into a 504 discussion and update.