Teacher asking if son had meds -- whole class hears this!

This is very familiar and the reason I really can’t stand labels.

I mentioned to my son’s swimming coach that he is a little dyspraxic and has some difficulty doing what she was asking. She was just swinging her arms around and getting frustrated that he wasn’t following along. Well she just sort of looked at me and never tried to teach him a thing again. This was while I was of course paying her privately for lessons. She would let him just jump off the diving board and cut the lesson short.

I don’t allow teachers or coaches to use labels as excuses to not teach. I am very specific about giving them directions on what works.

In the above scenario I would now approach it like this. I would walk over to her and explain that he learns best if she moves his arms for him so that he can feel what he needs to do.

So, thats it in a nutshell. You can’t expect that anyone will understand your kid through the use of labels. You have to be one step ahead and tell them very specifically what works and what doesn’t based on what you have experienced in the past. When they present you with a problem turn the question around and ask the teacher what she has found that works for this type of situation. Let her know that you want to work WITH her to help your child succeed.

If she doesn’t have an answer give her one. Don’t give her an out by presenting information that would allow her to blame the child.

Totally inappropriate on the part of the teacher. Way, way out of line. But, do you think what might be happening is that the medication is not working well? Not an excuse at all for the teacher, but what if you had them fill out Connors forms and dropped in yourself to see if there is a problem. Sometimes the dose has to be changed or the medication has to be changed after a while, espec. if the child has grown a lot or hit puberty.

I’ve got copies of the evaluation and the doctor asked me to wait until we’re several weeks into the schoolyear before asking the teachers to complete them.

Meanwhile, the other teachers have told me he’s doing great. No problems.

I agree with the whole “label” thing. I would prefer not using them at all. So many people have these preconceived notions based on those labels and refuse to look past the label to see the PERSON. Makes me really mad. Yes, my son has ADHD but that’s one small part of him — he’s highly creative, very sensitive, caring, loving, a good friend, cares about others, and has an above-average IQ. ADHD does not control his life and does not define who he is.

Makes me kind of nervous, thinking about giving those forms to his high school teachers. I’d rather they not even know, and treat him the way they have been treating him (except this one teacher needs to turn her little act around immediately).

I don’t feel comfortable just dropping in at school. Kids can be pretty mean, plus we’re not just dealing with a roomful of middle school aged kids. He’s mixed in with high school kids in this accelerated program and I don’t want them teasing him and saying, “Ooooh! Your mommy came to check on you!”

I do have conferences scheduled with teachers in a few weeks though.

The only time I’ve felt the need to peek in on the classes was two years ago when he had the teacher from hell. She should have been retired already. She hated kids and I witnessed her ridiculing kids and snapping at them in ways that nobody should ever treat a child. Sat down with her for the conference at the first quarter, ready for the usual praise I have always heard from teachers, and she absolutely let me have it. It was like she was talking about someone else’s child. She was terrible. He hated school for a while and I moved him to another school with a great principal and great teachers. What was awful was that same week I went to have a cofnerence with the two teachers at the gifted program (then he went one day a week, now he is there every day) and they had no idea about the ADHD. They praised him!

If one teacher knows about the ADHD, ten to one they all know now and the label is on your son like it or not. So your job is to get out there and educate them about what ADHD is and isnt and all the great abilities your son has. Lots of kids with ADHD have above average or gifted iqs. Lots of teachers have no clue about this or really what ADHD really is.They think what they read in the paper is true. So sad really that people judge in the absence of true knowledge and we end up actually having to hide from a label that is not shameful at all. Imagine if you had to disguise that your child had poor vision because teachers would think less of him. You’d send him to school without his glasses and he would be missing things on the board, doing messy work, bumping into other children, etc. and his teachers would be saying he was a bad kid. You’d be outraged if your child had to go through this because of the ignorance of his teachers. So would most people. It wouldn’t be tolerated. Its terrible that people dont get outraged when parents have to hide that their child has ADHD.

If your son has a 504 or an IEP, I’d ask the case manager to go in and explain to that teacher that it is not appropriate to discuss the child’s medication in front of the other students.

She’s really out of line.

Absolutely digusting! I would get my child out of that class double quick, and I would then take it up with the Principal, and really let them have it. Any teacher that would act that way has zero sensitivity or concern for your child or any other child for that matter. I would not be willing to subject my child to that teacher, and would insist on an immediate change. You may be doing other kids a favor by making your point in no uncertain terms. If nothing else, the teacher has violated your son’s confidentiality, which is a legal and ethical breach. Not that I’m suggesting it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you could file a legal action. There is no excuse for that kind of behavior from a professional person.

–— Steve

Oops! I guess I forgot to sign in when I posted there in the middle of this thread.

We don’t have a 504 or IEP. Never have. He’s in 6th grade now and we found out about the ADHD in 1st grade. The psychologist said it would be best to talk with teachers and make sure they understand our situation rather than doing a 504 or IEP. Said it’s best to deal with it this way rather than put more labels out there or have that follow him forever.

I had such high hopes that these teachers would be top notch, since they are teaching at the high school, in the program these middle school kids have qualified for due to their high IQs. His other teachers seem great and seem to really understand kids. But this one…

She did email me back to apologize.

An appology goes a long way with me. Maybe the teacher is impulsive and has ADHD?! No seriously, the comments in class were a serious invasion of your child’s privacy. In NY state this would be a violation of the new privacy laws that affect students. My husband is a 9th grade teacher and has over 100 students and is only aware of one child with with ADHD because of some mix up with these privacy laws. He doens’t like not knowing who might need a little more compasion and understanding and who might need some other form of management. I think that I aggree with the idea of being a real advocate for ADHD kids. Try to educate the teachers. Communication has got to help. Find the most convenient way for the teacher to communicate with you and go for it. My husband prefers e-mail, but surprisingly, even though most parents have computers he gets a lot of phone calls when he is not available and the phone tag drives him crazy.

Not only should she NOT have done that, with all the new privacy laws we have, she’s likely in violation of them. She did NOT have anyone’s permission to discuss his medical history with anybody much less an entire class.

I’d get hold of one of the new HIPPA forms - you can likely get it off the Net - and send it to her. Tell her your son mentioned that she mentioned his medication to a class of students and ask nicely if she’d had it in mind for you to sign one of these new forms to have her be an authorized person to discuss his medical history? While the question is tongue-in-cheek, it might get the message across.

Sadly, teachers, unlike doctors, don’t always use the information given in a positive way. Doctors are supposed to note it in charts and then base what they do on the information that’s been given. In education, the information given can become a weapon of sorts hurled back at parents.

Boy! as if we ADHDers don’t have enough to worry about with our self esteem. This lady sounds like a real witch. How incondiderate and cold hearted can she be. Its like she wanted to point him out to the whole class. How dare she!!! Don;t blame yourself for mentioning adhd. I have adhd, and so does my son, and sometimes you get into a conversation with someone and you feel comfortable mentioning it. We know that there is nothing wrong with us! Its people who are uneducated about it, like her, who just don’t no any better than to assume we aren’t intellegent. That just goes to show you the old saying is true! “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me”. I tell you what, me and my son are very conscious to what is going on around us. We are not stupid! I have a high IQ too! She has NO RIGHT to discriminate against him because he is ADHD.

Haven’t been back to this site for a while but stopped by to look for some info and thought I’d post an update on this situation.

Back before Christmas I called the administrator of the gifted program to let him know what had happened with my son’s teacher scolding him in front of the entire class and asking him if he had taken his meds that day. Not sure if I mentioned this, but she did this to him several mornings in a row. Also told the administrator about the phone call I received from the school nurse asking me to leave some of his meds there, and how I was concerned about the possibility of an overdose since the teacher obviously couldn’t tell the difference between my son being unmedicated vs. being a little exuberent in the morning before class started.

Believe me, there is a HUGE difference between my son’s unmedicated state vs. being excited. If you’ve got an ADHD child, you probably know what I mean.

The administrator didn’t seem too concerned, which really surprised me. He was more concerned about the fact that several parents had recently complained about this teacher for various reasons and he thought there was a conspiracy of some type against her.

This woman should have retired long ago. It’s obvious she doesn’t enjoy teaching and isn’t good with the kids any longer. Someone said they thought she had a stroke a few years ago and maybe she did. She does seem to have some problems with one side of her face and that same side of her body. Plus her behavior can be bizarre.

Found out that one set of parents had their son removed from her class right before Christmas. They had been concerned about similar behavior from this teacher and she had been hateful to their son in front of his class too. The last straw was when their son came home, took out a worksheet to do his homework, and on the reverse side of the paper was instructions on how to use various sex toys. They were appalled! This teacher prints items out, turns them over, and prints on the other side to recycle. Not sure how porno papers got into her printer, but these parents complained AGAIN to the administrator and demanded that their son be excused from the class. His final grade for the class was the grade that he had earned up to that point, which was 95%.

Unfortunately for us, my son isn’t making an 95% in this class so this wasn’t an option for us. And we can’t totally pull him from the class because it’s a requirement in this gifted program and she is the only teacher — not only in this school but in the whole city (7 high schools).

Several weeks ago I went to a monthly parent meeting after missing for several months. The next day I got a phone call from one of the moms. She said that her daughter always wants to hear all about the meetings and the daughter asked which moms were there. When she mentioned me, her daughter said, “Mom, that’s ____’s mom! He’s the boy I told you about. The one that Mrs. _____ is always so mean to.”

This mom said she hoped I was offended but she felt compelled to call me and tell me about this. She said that when the teacher yelled at my son and didn’t believe he had taken his meds those mornings, her daughter was so upset about it that she came hom and told her mom about it.

Now for something to stick with a giggly, bubbly sixth grade girl all day long and then for her to remember and tell her mom about it, it MUST have upset her.

At the time when I called to tell the administrator about this teacher’s actions, she had let me know that my son had a few assignments missing and we made arrangements for her to email the work to me over the course of a couple of weeks. That way he wouldn’t lose them, I could pull them up, and we could keep track of the work he was getting finished up. She sent me two emails with about 3 attachments each. The first set he finished, turned in, she wrote scores on them, and returned them. Then she emailed the same assignments and said she never received them and this was his last chance to get them done.

This is typical behavior of this woman, by the way. Always losing students’ work and saying she never got it when the parents know darn good and well their child completed it. Or she gives it back with a score written on it, but no score is recorded in her grading program.

After the second batch, I emailed to ask if more work was on the way. The holidays were coming and I thought we could make use of the break to get more work done.

She didn’t reply.

My son missed the first day back to school after break (which was a Monday) because my grandmother died at 91 (the day after his birthday too) and we had the funeral.

Tuesday he comes home telling me he’s supposed to stay late on Wednesday and Thursday plus come in early Friday to do some makeup work. She demanded that he get part of the makeup work done on these days. So not only was he dealing with the grief of losing a great-grandparent that he was very close to, and studying for his regular schoolwork, but he now had this extra work heaped on him all at once rather than a little at a time like we had agreed.

Keep in mind, she quit emailing the makeup work to me when I contacted the administrator. I truly think she got mad and decided she would reneg on our deal.

I went through my son’s notebook for this class to compare the returned assignments and scores to the grade print-out she gave us and discovered several errors. While I was doing this I found a lot of assignments that hadn’t been completed or turned in.

I realize problems with getting things finished is a challenge for these kids, but I didn’t realize there was such a big problem with facing this woman or communicating with her. For example, he would rather not turn something in than go up and ask her if she will accept the late work for partial credit. It’s that bad! He doesn’t even want to speak to her for the littlest thing!

Well, there are only a few more days of this semester. The goal right now is to survive this class and get out of there.

Thanks for listening to me whine.

I realize there will always be people that you don’t get along with in life, but when that person is an authority figure and seems to get a kick out of damaging the self esteem of these kids, it’s just not right.

This teacher sounds awful. If you are not getting results with the principal maybe the whole thing needs to go a step higher to the superintendant. There should be a supervisor of instruction or somebody like that at the board level for the gifted program. I would recommend documenting and taking further action—especially if your son does not pass the class. The behavior you are describing is very unprofessional and should be addressed at an administrative level. Good luck!

Maybe the teacher and principal need to realize that they are opening themselves up for a law suit when a child’s private medical record is discussed. Telling the entire class that a child is on medication is a breech of privacy.
I once got in trouble for telling a child that her mom wasn’t visiting her (the child was upset) b/c he mom was hospitalized. Problem was, the mom didn’t want the daughter to know, I violated that by telling the girl. It all ended up fine, but I learned, nothing about a person’s medical record is allowed to be discussed in any fashion without permission.

I find it interesting that when the prince metions other parents have come to him with complaints he immediately circles the wagons and hints the parents are conspiring… so-o-o-o-o-o-o typical.

This is why SOME parents end up out of patience and become a real headache for their school personnel.

Dad, one of the BAD parents…