Unschooling is best for children with ADD/ADHD
September 12th, 2007 (Homeschooling Curriculum: Lesson Plans And Tips)
The main criteria for ADD includes such things as distractibility, impulsivity, restlessness and difficulty staying on task. Today schools also say that if your child is bored, frustrated or daydreams then they have ADD, which is not true. What is true is that most of the time children who do have ADD/ADHD score higher on tests and are very creative and personable. These are character traits that lead these children to go on to become artists, musicians, writers, entrepreneurs, scientists, mathematicians, engineers, troubleshooters and even inventors.
Children who have ADD/ADHD often score as gifted on the “National Foundation for the Gifted and Creative” test because they have many of the following characteristics:
- Sensitive
- Energetic
- Easily get bored and thus appear to have a short attention span
- Need a stable, secure adult around them
- Resist authority if it is not democratic
- Have a preferred way in which to learn things
- Are easily frustrated when they do not have the resources or people to help them carry out their big ideas
- Exploratory learners
- Resist learning by listening
- Cannot sit still unless they are absorbed in something they are interested in
- Very compassionate
- Have a lot of fears
- Impulsive
Unschooling these children is actually very beneficial because they thrive whenever they are allowed to put aside textbooks and learn from hands-on experiences wherein they can also be active and thus can run around, play, jump and climb while they are learning. Of course, the reason why this works is because everyone is a natural learner at heart, especially whenever the constraints of institutionalized learning are removed from their lives. As such ADD/ADHD really is nothing more than a difference that can open wide the gateway of discovery and wonder.