Starting private school search for kindergartener with anxiety, attention and impulse control issues

[Anonymous]

I’m looking for a private school for my five-year-old son who will be entering kindergarten next year and is struggling with anxiety, attention and impulse control issues. We are looking for a school that is nurturing, has low student-teacher ratios, and does skill-building in emotion regulation, impulse control, and executive functioning. My son is susceptible to peer influence, so ideally we’d have a school with a blend of students with his profile and “neurotypical” children as role models. Schools in Fairfax Co. would be ideal, but any ideas are welcomed. We will commute for the right fit. Thanks for your help!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m looking for a private school for my five-year-old son who will be entering kindergarten next year and is struggling with anxiety, attention and impulse control issues. We are looking for a school that is nurturing, has low student-teacher ratios, and does skill-building in emotion regulation, impulse control, and executive functioning. My son is susceptible to peer influence, so ideally we’d have a school with a blend of students with his profile and “neurotypical” children as role models. Schools in Fairfax Co. would be ideal, but any ideas are welcomed. We will commute for the right fit. Thanks for your help!

For a SN school, you'll need a full educational evaluation. The exceptional school fair is coming up:
http://www.exceptionalschoolsfair.com/about-us.html



P.S. OP, kids can learn "behaviors" from NT kids too. Plus, you can get kicked out of SN or mainstream schools for behavior issues so if your kid actually has ADHD and/or anxiety you may want to look into medications.

[Anonymous]

It was too far for us but I looked at the Newton School in Sterling for my similar boy and loved it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m looking for a private school for my five-year-old son who will be entering kindergarten next year and is struggling with anxiety, attention and impulse control issues. We are looking for a school that is nurturing, has low student-teacher ratios, and does skill-building in emotion regulation, impulse control, and executive functioning. My son is susceptible to peer influence, so ideally we’d have a school with a blend of students with his profile and “neurotypical” children as role models. Schools in Fairfax Co. would be ideal, but any ideas are welcomed. We will commute for the right fit. Thanks for your help!

For a SN school, you'll need a full educational evaluation. The exceptional school fair is coming up:
http://www.exceptionalschoolsfair.com/about-us.html



P.S. OP, kids can learn "behaviors" from NT kids too. Plus, you can get kicked out of SN or mainstream schools for behavior issues so if your kid actually has ADHD and/or anxiety you may want to look into medications.

Thank you for this info on the exceptional school fair.

We're working on scheduling a neuropsych evaluation. Is this different than a full educational evaluation? We were planning to go to a private practice but do we have to go through the county for full educational evaluation? We're new to this process.

[Anonymous]

Look at Auburn School

http://www.theauburnschool.org/auburn

Will be able to focus on many of the issues you are looking at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m looking for a private school for my five-year-old son who will be entering kindergarten next year and is struggling with anxiety, attention and impulse control issues. We are looking for a school that is nurturing, has low student-teacher ratios, and does skill-building in emotion regulation, impulse control, and executive functioning. My son is susceptible to peer influence, so ideally we’d have a school with a blend of students with his profile and “neurotypical” children as role models. Schools in Fairfax Co. would be ideal, but any ideas are welcomed. We will commute for the right fit. Thanks for your help!

As far as I know, there is no private school in the DC area that specializes in services to kids with special needs and routinely enrolls NT students. If you want that, you have to go public. Otherwise, your choices are muddling through with a mainstream private (if the issues are minor enough) or go to a SN private with the understanding that all kids have different strengths and weaknesses, and so even a SN child may be a role model in some aspects to your child, while your child will be a role model in other aspects.

Maddux works with kids with that profile, but the devil is in the details, especially how impulse control manifests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m looking for a private school for my five-year-old son who will be entering kindergarten next year and is struggling with anxiety, attention and impulse control issues. We are looking for a school that is nurturing, has low student-teacher ratios, and does skill-building in emotion regulation, impulse control, and executive functioning. My son is susceptible to peer influence, so ideally we’d have a school with a blend of students with his profile and “neurotypical” children as role models. Schools in Fairfax Co. would be ideal, but any ideas are welcomed. We will commute for the right fit. Thanks for your help!

As far as I know, there is no private school in the DC area that specializes in services to kids with special needs and routinely enrolls NT students. If you want that, you have to go public. Otherwise, your choices are muddling through with a mainstream private (if the issues are minor enough) or go to a SN private with the understanding that all kids have different strengths and weaknesses, and so even a SN child may be a role model in some aspects to your child, while your child will be a role model in other aspects.

Maddux works with kids with that profile, but the devil is in the details, especially how impulse control manifests.

You raise an excellent point and I shouldn't have used NT in my original post. What I am looking for is exactly what you describe, other kids with different strengths and weaknesses than my son to serve as role models.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m looking for a private school for my five-year-old son who will be entering kindergarten next year and is struggling with anxiety, attention and impulse control issues. We are looking for a school that is nurturing, has low student-teacher ratios, and does skill-building in emotion regulation, impulse control, and executive functioning. My son is susceptible to peer influence, so ideally we’d have a school with a blend of students with his profile and “neurotypical” children as role models. Schools in Fairfax Co. would be ideal, but any ideas are welcomed. We will commute for the right fit. Thanks for your help!

As far as I know, there is no private school in the DC area that specializes in services to kids with special needs and routinely enrolls NT students. If you want that, you have to go public. Otherwise, your choices are muddling through with a mainstream private (if the issues are minor enough) or go to a SN private with the understanding that all kids have different strengths and weaknesses, and so even a SN child may be a role model in some aspects to your child, while your child will be a role model in other aspects.

Maddux works with kids with that profile, but the devil is in the details, especially how impulse control manifests.

You raise an excellent point and I shouldn't have used NT in my original post. What I am looking for is exactly what you describe, other kids with different strengths and weaknesses than my son to serve as role models.

I'm 21:26, and Maddux provided that for our child. However, just something to think about -- schools tend to do only one thing well. So, for example, a school that specializes in language-based learning disorders might not have staff that have extensive training in building social skills, and vice versa. Of course there is overlap and so teachers will be able to handle some things, but in general, the best SN schools tend to focus on one particular population and have highly specialized and experienced staff regarding that issue.

So the bigger the range of issues the more your child has a range of role models, but the more difficulty the teachers might have in serving everyone appropriately. Just something to think about, based on the two different SN schools we've been in.

[Anonymous]

I second Maddux.

[Anonymous]

Most SN schools regardless of their population focus or speciality have an underpinning social skills curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m looking for a private school for my five-year-old son who will be entering kindergarten next year and is struggling with anxiety, attention and impulse control issues. We are looking for a school that is nurturing, has low student-teacher ratios, and does skill-building in emotion regulation, impulse control, and executive functioning. My son is susceptible to peer influence, so ideally we’d have a school with a blend of students with his profile and “neurotypical” children as role models. Schools in Fairfax Co. would be ideal, but any ideas are welcomed. We will commute for the right fit. Thanks for your help!

For a SN school, you'll need a full educational evaluation. The exceptional school fair is coming up:
http://www.exceptionalschoolsfair.com/about-us.html



P.S. OP, kids can learn "behaviors" from NT kids too. Plus, you can get kicked out of SN or mainstream schools for behavior issues so if your kid actually has ADHD and/or anxiety you may want to look into medications.

Thank you for this info on the exceptional school fair.

We're working on scheduling a neuropsych evaluation. Is this different than a full educational evaluation? We were planning to go to a private practice but do we have to go through the county for full educational evaluation? We're new to this process.

Sorry, I just saw this question. The public school can do full testing, but they probably won't at this point b/c it sounds like your kid doesn't have an IEP and probably doesn't present as needing one. An impulsive 5 year old is a dime a dozen. Wrights Law is an excellent resource that can take you through the IEP route: http://www.wrightslaw.com

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look at Auburn School

http://www.theauburnschool.org/auburn

Will be able to focus on many of the issues you are looking at.

+1

[Anonymous]

McLean is worth touring.