Does poor parents/teachers cause and exacerbate ADHA and LD

Yes, absolutely, they can exacerbate the problems.

Think of a child as a growing plant. It will flourish under caretakers who adjust exposure to light and water to meet the plant’s needs, and who provide the right amounts of the right kind of nutrients to encourage growth and flowering.

With children who have learning disabilities, school classrooms are often very hostile environments that do not meet their needs. An LD child in this type of situation will often withdraw, rebel, or just stop trying. He may not know exactly what is wrong, but he does know that he is not getting what he needs (and may be punished for things over which he has no control).

Research has shown that schools and teachers (and sometimes parents) blame the child first for problems. Schools and teachers generally blame the parents as a second cause for problems. Often, though, it is the school setting itself that is exacerbating the problem.

Many LD children (not all) actually do better schooling at home because parents are in a position to meet unique needs there. There are quite a few groups of parents online who talk about successfully homeschooling their LD children. These are often children who did very poorly in school settings.

Nancy

I agree with Nancy3. I also saw it happen to my son. For several years the school kept telling me that my child did not have any difficulty, he just wasn’t trying hard enough. I knew from family history that there was a problem. Unforutnately, I did not know how to get the right help. By the time the school admitted there was a problem, my son was ready to give up and learned avoidance. If he had the help in first grade when he should have had it, I doubt he would have learned the avoidance behaviors.

I see alot of buck passing by both parents and educators but I find that overall the biggest harm to special needs kids is done by schools. Often when parents ask questions or advocate their kids get treated poorly by teachers as a form of retaliation.

If IEPs are not followed and parents complain, God help the special needs kid!

I think this is one area that you can’t make blanket statements about. Yes, there are many schools that make it more difficult to get help but there are also many schools that really do try to support kids with special needs. We so often hear just the negatives but there are also a lot of positives.

I’ve been very fortunate that my dd has had great support in her public middle and high school. Her teachers have been understanding, flexible and willing to try new things. She’s made amazing progress that just wouldn’t have been possible without their support.

[quote=scifinut]I think this is one area that you can’t make blanket statements about. Yes, there are many schools that make it more difficult to get help but there are also many schools that really do try to support kids with special needs. We so often hear just the negatives but there are also a lot of positives.

I’ve been very fortunate that my dd has had great support in her public middle and high school. Her teachers have been understanding, flexible and willing to try new things. She’s made amazing progress that just wouldn’t have been possible without their support. [/quote]

IMO your family is one of the lucky ones because I rarely hear many positive stories about SPED. Mainly I hear frustration from parents because schools are not in compliance with IEPs.

I have heard too many horror stories from parents who are continually stone-walled be educators. I hear about special needs kids getting tossed into classes with disruptive and undisciplined hooligans and forced to endure abuse by both students and teachers.

Mostly I see schools shirking their legal responsiblities while labling non special needs kids special needs, LD or ADHD just to get more state funding.

Part of my role as a child advocate is to make schools live up to their legal responsibilities when it comes to educating all kids and looking out for their welfare.

They can blame the parents all they want and at times parents are to blame but when the needs of students are not being met the blame, IMO, falls mostly on the school.

Many parents are afraid to “rock the boat” and knowing what I know I can see why. IMO, most schools do the bare minimum and in the meantime they do more damage than good, again, IMO.