Well, we’ve finally hit the big time. An actual call from the principal saying that my kid raised his hand in math and asked to go to the bathroom. However, instead of going to the bathroom he went up and down the halls saying hello to all the substitute teachers of that day (there was a school conference so most of the regular teachers were out). I was also told that he seems to excuse himself quite often to go to the bathroom as a means to get out of class.
Okay, couple of issues good and bad here. WHY am I just hearing about this 4 months into the school year? (I’m pretty sure it is payback on the principal’s part for me filing a formal complaint of how the school held a 504 meeting about my kid without any of this testing results on hand)……this is bad, or on the bright side, at least I now understand why the kid doesn’t understand a lick of mathematics, not because he’s dumb, it’s because he’s always in the john, so, I guess that’s somewhat of a positive??
I inquired exactly what does detention mean? I was told they all sit in a room and are told to be quiet. Ooooo, that’ll show him. Are you freakin’ kidding me, after years and years and years of school kids getting in trouble and this is the best that these schools can come up with? Won’t there just be lots of hand signals to the other kids in detention and other general tom-foolery that on some level will just result in an overall bonding experience for all the bad kids? How is sitting in a room with all your fellow hooligans supposed to make an impression on you when you’re 13. If anything I think that it sort of says, “Hey, I’ve arrived, I’ve hit ‘bad-ass’ status.”
When I asked if they really felt that this would work they informed me that if this became a habit then they could enforce a “no-bathroom” policy. What????? How do you NOT allow a kid to go to the bathroom if he has to. They actually said that they would monitor how often he could go to the bathroom. Great, so the onus once again falls back on me, the parent of an ADHDer. Do I opt to have his very basic freedom of going to the bathroom taken away with the slim chance it’ll nip this bad behavior in the bud, also by allowing the school to do this to him won’t it just give his already ADHD riddled self-esteem yet another blow by having yet another person telling him what and when he can do something. Seriously, just shoot me now. This blows!!!!!
life and adhd 
Would it be possible to make a suggestion to the school in place of detention? I had a meeting with my son’s school recently and came away with the same feeling – that’s the best they could do. After the fact, I rethought it and made some suggestions. We are just starting, so I’m not sure how they will go. But at least at my son’s school, I feel they are a little lost with ADHD kids. Neither the teachers nor the administrators get any (or pursue) specialized ADHD training. And I don’t think it’s widely available (which of course makes no sense).
At our school they put the Vice Principal in charge of all 504 or ADHD kids. She is one of the meanest and most UN-empathetic women I have ever met. Whatever, I told myself not to judge, just because she is mean doesn’t mean she can’t advocate for a child. Well, then I found out the on the one day of the year that the Special Ed Board dedicated for ADHD training the lovely Vice Principal took one of her vacation days.
Ok, I can now officially hate and judge this woman.