As an educator, it’s not unusual to
meet with a parent who is panic-stricken because his/her child has issues
because he/she may have ADHD, be on medication for one reason or another, have
a broken finger nail or may have just broken up with a significant other – as
significant as others can be to high school kids.
In
addition to going through the litany of paperwork, I often smile and tell the
parent or guardian that I know a young man who has gone through some of the
same issues. I tell them that it took a
while to identify his ADHD, but working with health care professionals and
educators, he managed to get on track.
A
key, I tell them, is to let the student find his or her own way. Medications, counseling and Individual
Education Programs (IEPs) are just part of the overall program. Letting kids succeed on their own may be one
the best treatments a student can have.
I have found that some parents are so obsessed with student success that
they become the ones who are in need of help.
True
story: I had a parent tell me once that had she known there were going to be
some standardized tests administered, she would have adjusted her student’s
medication. Whoa, Nellie, let’s get
Trigger back in the stable.
Parental
obsession with wanting our kids to succeed may be “normal” (as normal as
parenting can be) – but we need to look at what’s behind it and how we approach
it.
Many
education administrators are obsessed with student success – for their own
purposes. The more AP classes, AP tests
and higher ACT scores we can post, then, by golly, the better the front office
looks. And, by gosh, when U.S. News and
World Reports puts out it list, and the school is listed – celebrate – the
school has done its job.
But
has it?
The
student that I tell parents about never took an AP test and while he did really
well on the ACT, it was no big deal to him.
The school didn’t push him too much because he worked with the special
education staff and that just isn’t “cool.”
At
least it wasn’t until the student was selected to National Honor Society – as a
sophomore. And, oh yes, he was an
Illinois State Scholar. And, oh yes, not
that it’s important to the school, but he also had a double-digit scholarship
for each year of college.
What
the school doesn’t know is that the student performed extremely well in a rigid
engineering program.
But
see, education has become so quantitative that it has lost focus on the
qualitative aspects of education.
So
I tell parents to relax because their student will mature and, with support and
letting their student prove to him or herself that they can succeed – they
will.
I
let them know because the student I’ve been telling them about graduated on
Saturday and I know his parents are proud of him.
Believe
me, we are.
