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We have parent/teacher conferences in our school today. These will be routine for Hannah, but a parent who has a child with attachment issues can dread these conferences. I have been through many of them with my son.
Chances are you will be faced with one of two things.
1) Your child is extremely charming at school and the teacher will think you are nuts if you try to describe difficulties at home.
2) You will have bobble head syndrome as you nod up and down about all the things your child is trying at school because you are dealing with the same issues at home.
Each scenario is equally frustrating. In the first case, your child has shown the school the sweet side that you wish you’d see at home, but it’s not real. Your child listens intently to the teacher, offers to help clean the classroom, is the first to line up and use good manners. When your child comes home, homework is a struggle, bad manners and name calling abound and outright defiance is the norm. If you try to bring up the issues that you have at home, your child’s teacher looks at you as if you have sprouted a second head and probably says something like “We don’t see those kinds of behaviors at school.”
In the second scenario, your child is acting out in school, disrespectful, maybe hoarding food, stealing from classmates, or various other behaviors. You see these same issues at home so you are well aware of what the teacher is saying. Next usually comes the suggestions of behavior modifications such as star and sticker charts or point systems. These don’t work with our kids because they don’t care. They don’t care if they don’t get a sticker or don’t get the maximum number of points each day.
So what do you do to survive these conferences? The best thing to do is go in armed with information about attachment disorder and interventions that help. When we first got the diagnosis on my son, I downloaded pages of information and shared them with my son’s special education teacher. It was a little overwhelming, but thankfully, the teacher read through it and picked out the parts that were the most helpful.
Here are some great resources for you to share with your child’s teacher.
Oil & Water: The Attachment Disordered Child in School – This is a great article by Lawrence Smith, an attachment therapist in Maryland. It explains your child’s behaviors, what interventions work, what doesn’t, and most importantly – WHY!
Captive in the Classroom – This video by Nancy Thomas is specifically designed for teachers to help them understand what motivates our kids and what doesn’t. The website also contains a letter for teachers and helps to describe attachment disorder.
School psychologist or guidance counselor – Talk with your child’s school psychologist and/or guidance counselor to see if they have any knowledge or training on attachment issues. Surprisingly, the first person who ever noticed anything with my son was the school psychologist when Sammy was in Kindergarten. I don’t know why we never connected with this information, but he had a great handle on Sammy and knew what made him tick. He backed us up in the issues that we saw and would go into the classroom and observe Sammy. He also attended IEP meetings and gave input on behavior interventions. This can be one of your most valuable school resources.
Gather as much information as you can that speaks to your child’s specific issues and you will be seen as more credible and proactive when it comes to interventions for your child.
I am a teacher who is learning as much about RAD as possible, because I will have a student in my classroom next year with this disorder. The parents were very honest and upfront about RAD and their child. The mother gave me the same resources, as listed above, to help me understand the child that will be in my classroom, and how best to deal with him.
Parents have to be open and honest about their RAD child in order to ensure the connection is not lost between home and school. Parents and teachers have to work together to keep the RAD child moving forward at all times. Not having the correct knowledge about how to work with a RAD child at school, can do more harm than good, to that child and cause greater distress to the family.
I am reading and gathering as much information as possible right now. Thank you for your post, and the resources attached; they are both wonderful!