Retention and the Social Impact

Through personal experience I came to know the social impact of retaining a child. The school system my daughter was in recommended retention in grade three. She was a tall girl and socially immature. Her grades were low and she had trouble with friendships.. At the time, we felt this would be the best situation for our child and agreed with the school and kept her back.

We didn’t realize the devastating effect this would have on her and spent the summer trying to put her self esteem back together. We actually moved to a different town so our daughter could have a new start at a new school. Her height allowed her to tower over her new third grade classmates and the social impact started to sink in. Had we made the wrong choice?

We got her involved in sports right away to counter the ill feelings of being held back. Her grades were a little better but nothing to write home about. She continued to have trouble making friends. We had her tested for learning disabilities and to our surprise identified with ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder. Unlike many ADD children, she was never a behavioral and worked very hard to improve her grades. Grades four and five were uneventful but she managed to make the junior high softball team in fifth grade.

Through classroom accommodations and wonderful teachers in grade six, my daughter made honor every term. Near the end of sixth grade we decided to reverse the process and pushed to have her skip a grade. Girls especially have a tendency of leaping ahead in social maturity between the 6^th and 8^th grade and she found herself even more isolated from friends. The school was against moving her ahead, but after many meetings, having to be on the honor roll for the year, and hiring an advocate, they allowed my daughter to skip the 7^th grade.

That was the best decision we could have made. Our daughter was able to maintain honor roll and be very successful in sports all through High School. We often wonder if we hadn’t worked so hard to have her moved ahead and she hadn’t had our support of her teachers if she would have continued her education and receive a 4 year college degree.

Retention in school is also called grade retention, being held back, or repeating a grade. This can be emotionally traumatic for young students and can cause irreversible damage. A major reason cited for the use of retention is that the child is immature and lagging significantly behind his or her peers academically and/or socially. I am not an advocate of social promotion, but I also have serious questions about retention. I believe that we must identify and apply solutions other than retention and social promotion when students are having significant struggles in school. The temporary benefits of retention are deceptive, as teachers do not usually follow student progress beyond a few years.

Regards,

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD, is one of the most common mental disorders that develop in children. The diagnosis of ADHD has become so common that between two and 10 percent of school-aged children have been labeled as having ADHD, with boys three times more likely than girls to develop and be diagnosed with the disorder (Barkley, 1998).

Simply telling the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder child to “Clean the room” may not produce the desired results the parent expects. First and foremost, ADHD children do not choose their ADHD symptoms. Secondly, parents need to know that the ADHD symptoms are not produced by parenting flaws. Major components of treatment for children with ADHD include; parental support and education in behavioral training, appropriate school placement and medication (typically psycho stimulants).

Although many in the medical community believe in drug treatment for ADHD, there are many other health professionals, parents and educators alike that do not agree that a long-term course of medication is the answer to calming the symptoms. There is a well-known controversy about the frequency of the use of the drug Ritalin for treatment of behavior disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and hyperactivity. Many parents and clinicians alike believe that a change in diet, family counseling, patience and acceptance produce more positive results than medication.

Regular communication among parents, teachers, and doctors benefits a child who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Children with ADHD may also qualify for free services within public schools. Most children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or other disabilities are eligible to receive special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Best Regards!

Homework – Like It or Not

The basic purpose of assigning homework to students is the same as schooling in general. Homework is assigned in order to increase the knowledge and improve the abilities and skills of the students. Homework should be designed to reinforce what students have already learned, prepare them for upcoming lessons and improving learning skills.

Teachers have traditionally assigned homework as a way to expand their instructional time, but if it is not matched to the student’s ability and the teacher does not have the time to give the proper feedback, then the opportunity to provide effective homework activities are significantly limited. Homework should also provide the opportunity for parents to participate in their children’s education. This can create a major aspect for role modeling as well as positive reinforcement. Students with a positive attitude toward homework, who enjoy it and work on it enthusiastically, generally complete their homework faster and achieve better grades in school

Teachers need to know what their students understand and can do independently, therefore they often advise parents not to do the child’s homework assignments for them, nor correct their child’s homework assignments and have them copy the corrections. Another way teachers can be more effective is by alerting parents to their students’ homework, giving parents a chance to become familiar with the material and their child’s progress.

Most kids don’t like homework and some parents dislike the task even more. Typically, there are a growing number of teachers, parents and students that advocate to eliminate, or at least limit the amount of homework a child is assigned. The main reason for this belief is that students also learn from activities in life other than textbooks and workbooks found in the classroom. The amount of time a child spends in the classroom, then working at home completing assignments can leave the child out of touch, without free time, and unable to get exercise or pursue extracurricular activities. Talents and other interests cannot be nurtured in a classroom setting with teachers focused on a specific subject.

In the meantime, the following are some suggestions which may help in the homework dilemma:

It is imperative to make homework as painless as possible.

• Try to have kids relate homework to something positive such as time with mom or dad maybe sharing a piece of pie or cake.
• Make homework the ultimate of importance.
• Use homework completion as a chance to praise a child.
• Make the penalty for non compliance of completion logical and clearly understood.
• The most important aspect for homework completion is not to be critical.
• Take breaks based on the child’s ability to focus.
• Setup a schedule for homework times.
• Set up a location in your home for doing homework.
• Regulate the noise level based on the child’s comfort level.
• Make a game out of assisting your child to study for a test.
• Encourage your child to participate in study groups.

Don’t forget that your child’s teacher is a good source of academic information.

Best Regards!