Kathic2021
May 22, 2021 19:38
Hello, we adopted a few years ago and a child has had a lot of school and house moves and struggling to settle in the current school for nearly a year, not listening to the teachers, misbehaving, displaying poor concentration, easily distracted, trying to get teacher‘s attention often, making a lot of noise, etc Learning fast and has great progress in terms of learning but the behaviour in the class is very disturbing. The child has settled in at home very well and doesn’t have issues with following instructions etc doesn’t have ADHD or Autism, we have checked this with specialists already.
Has anyone had similar problem or perhaps any tips? Or perhaps could you could point me to the old posts as I for some reason cannot find these.
Thanks 🙏
windfalls
May 24, 2021 14:34
HI Kathic,
You say your child has been checked by specialists for ADHD/ASD - but who was that with? If it was with CAHMS, just bear in mind that some CAMHS refuse to see anything other than attachment/developmental trauma with adopted children. I am not saying that attachment/developmental trauma is not relevant with adopted children, just that quite often it is a mixture of genetic conditions and attachment/developmental trauma. So if it was CAHMS consider obtaining a private diagnosis. Also look at obtaining therapy for attachment/developmental trauma and as chestnuttree says approach post adoption support. Does your child have an EHCP? if not look at obtaining one - school can either start the procedure for this or you can apply yourself.
best wishes xxx
bluelizard
June 3, 2021 16:27
Hi Kathic,
I would definitely look at getting a EHCP. My AS doesn't have any diagnosis like ADHD or ASD (only dyslexia) and never seemed to reach the threshold (whatever that is) for any significant interventions / diagnoses. He has just finished yr 11 and the last couple of years have been a complete rollercoaster and also an eye-opener. We did home-schooling in lockdown and it really gave me a huge insight into his problems, all the things you mentioned - poor concentration, easily distracted, not listening properly. At school he'd got into a lot of trouble because it was seen as "misbehaving", but in the home environment we muddled through, he got a shed load of schoolwork done (much more than would have happened in school) and developed a few strategies for coping with it between us. Armed with this insight we applied for the EHCP, which is currently being drafted.
I think that we will manage to get this in place (for college in September). What may have helped was that school have supported this (probably because they didn't need to actually spend any money, as he has effectively left now) and we also had help from post adoption (was good for bouncing ideas off and also liaising with school). I hope you find something that will help, I wish we had looked into the EHCP earlier. Best of luck.
