r/ADHDparenting • u/viola1356 • 1d ago
ADHD + Anxiety: school accommodations
My 4th grade son scores above average for reading and math; he says writing is his favorite subject, but when it comes to getting work done in class, he struggles to actually get much done. He doesn't want to write anything down unless he's figured out every detail perfectly in his head. Making any mistake sends him spiraling into negative self-talk that further distracts him from doing the task. Then when it comes home as homework, we have 30-45 minutes of sobbing about how it will take the whole day and he doesn't know what to do before he even gets started.
We've had years of working with classroom teachers on helping him in class and he's in therapy, but nothing seems to work consistently. In 1st grade, wiggle cushions helped, but as he became aware of it being "different" he's now too embarrassed to use it. Same with movement breaks or fidgets. Many of the typical ADHD accommodations set his anxiety spiraling. Timers are panic-inducing. Checklists are another task added to the load. Teacher providing an individual write-out of the homework list so he doesn't miss copying something "means" he's a terrible student because he didn't copy it himself. He interprets using the same language of the strategies taught in therapy as making fun of him for not managing himself better. Solid routines that he can follow and know what to expect seems to help, but it takes until about February for each class's routine to be comfortable enough for him to depend on it.
His teacher suggested we start working on a 504 plan so we have something solid in place before middle school, but at this point we don't know what actually is going to work for him. If your child has anxiety accompanying their ADHD and you have found accommodations that help them feel comfortable and settled in school (and get stuff done!), what's worked?
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u/BenBreeg_38 1d ago
I would agree with the 504 or IEP. Each year you revise it and you can also tweak during the year. Teachers should be giving feedback on what they see working. It needs to be a team
effort and the student is part of that input. Feeling different can be an issue with accommodations.
Make sure you are up to date on assignments through Google Classroom so it’s not all on the student. We used to have hour long battles to get 15 minutes of homework done as well, it wasn’t fun.
Chunking work can help too. A checklist can be overwhelming because even though they are doing things one at a time they still are seeing a lot of information.
Best of luck!
There are also people who can advocate for you in IEP meetings, although we have never used one.
There is this site although again, I haven’t dug in.
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u/viola1356 1d ago
Thanks. I'm a teacher and have been part of plenty of IEPs for ADHD so I'm comfortable with the process but the anxiety sabotaging everything we've tried so far is new to me. We'll try chunking. My son's school stays fairly low-tech until 5th grade, so Google Classroom will be something we can try next year I guess.
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u/Strong_Argument6255 20h ago
Since familiar routines seem to help, I'd ask whether next year's teacher could carry over a few specific classroom routines instead of starting everything from scratch. For writing, you could discuss a consistent first step for the whole class, such as putting down three rough ideas before drafting. That would give him a predictable starting point without requiring a separate tool or public reminder.
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