ADHD or Trauma? How Foster Parents Can Advocate at School - Weekend Wisdom

Question: The school thinks my foster son may have ADHD, but I know he’s been through a lot of trauma. How do I know what’s driving his behavior and how to advocate for the support he actually needs?

Resources:

• The Grandparents' Guide to Back to School
• How Do Teachers Understand Adoption and What Can Parents Do About It?
• A Parent's Guide to Working with the Schools on Behavior
• Back to School with Foster and Adopted Kids
• Understood.org

Transcript

Tracy Whitney 0:01

The school thinks my foster son might have ADHD, but I know he's been through a lot of trauma. How do I know what's driving his behavior? ADHD or trauma? And how do I advocate for the support that he actually needs? Hi everyone and welcome to Weekend Wisdom, one of creating a family's two weekly podcasts. My name is Tracy Whitney, and I'm very happy to be here with you today to answer this big question from Nicole, who's a foster mom in North Carolina. Does this question feel familiar to you? Can you relate to the confusion and the tension that Nicole is sharing with us? I can. I've often asked, is it ADHD? Is it trauma? Is it both? What's going on? So let's talk through about how to think about this and what you, Nicole, can do next, or you listeners, if you're feeling like this question relates to your experience. First, you are absolutely right to pause and consider the similarities between ADHD and trauma. They can show up in a lot of similar ways: difficulty with focus, impulsivity, emotional outbursts, difficulty sitting still, struggles with transitions. Those are all common behaviors or manifestations of both ADHD and of trauma. But here's a key thought that can help guide your next steps with this kiddo. Behavior is communication. Kids who've experienced trauma may be hyper-vigilant, which means always on kind of high alert. They may be easily overwhelmed. They may react to input or stimuli around them or overreact to input and stimuli around them. And they may actually be reacting to triggers that we don't understand, we don't see, or we don't experience. And in school, that can show up and look a lot like ADHD for our kids. I would consider that this might not be an either-or for you, Nicole, when you're thinking about your foster son. It could be both, because some kids truly have ADHD and a history of trauma. So, kind of letting yourself off the hook a little bit, you can shift from trying to get the right label or the right diagnoses to understanding what supports and interventions will actually help your child function well and feel safe at home and in the classroom. So instead of asking, is this ADHD or trauma? You can try asking yourself, what does my child need to succeed in this environment? I'll link a few resources in our show notes that can help you ask this question and other questions that will help the school start to work with you also. The truth of the matter is that schools often focus only on behavior. So your goal is to understand what those underlying needs are, and then what's driving that behavior is that need. So for example, does your child need more structure and he's acting out because he feels kind of loosey goosey and nothing hemming him in? Does he need more movement breaks? Does he need a more predictable routine? Does he need visual support to see that routine? Does he need emotional regulation support? Does he need a stronger relationship with one single trusted safe adult at school? When you can frame the questions this way, you move from trying to nail down, again, that right diagnosis to brainstorming the practical solutions that work for your child. And so that helps us move into advocacy. Your foster son's school may not be trained in trauma-informed practices and care, but you can help guide the conversation towards that. Here are a few phrases you can use that, in my experience, have been very helpful to getting schools on board with this conversation. So you can start by saying, given his history, I would like us to consider how trauma might be impacting his behavior in the classroom. You could say, what supports can we put in place while we figure out what's going on for him? Or you could say, can we focus on the strategies that help him feel safe and regulated so he can behave appropriately in class? Your goal should always be to approach the school proactively and collaboratively. You want to make sure that you're doing everything on your side of the table, so to speak, to work with them, welcome them as a partner to Team Johnny. I'm calling him Johnny because you didn't name him, and minimize any risk for adversarial interactions. Not to say that they won't ever happen, but you can only take care of you, you can only be responsible for you. So do your best to be collaborative and proactive on your side of the table. So for the team Johnny approach, you can ask things like, what's a functional behavior assessment and would we benefit from getting one done? What's a 504 plan? What's an IEP plan? What accommodations could I be adding to his existing 504 or his existing IEP? And what are some of the trauma-informed classroom strategies that you, the school, know about or that I've researched and I want to bring to you. You can work together to make plans that meet Johnny's unique needs. But one part of this conversation that is very often overlooked is your understanding of and access to this child's full record. As a foster parent, you should consider asking the caseworker for his full set of records if you have not already, and then take some time to comb through them very carefully to see what you can learn. These records often include pretty significant clues that can help us understand what's going on for our kids. It would include prior educational evaluations, medical or psychological history, school records from previous placements, foster parent notes from previous placements, if you can have an in-person conversation with a caseworker or a previous foster parent that helps you kind of get a better full picture of what Johnny's life was like before he came to your home. Those are all things that you can use to better understand what's going on underneath the surface that's driving difficult behaviors in the classroom that the teacher wants to just label as ADHD. The more complete the picture that you can flesh out, the better the decisions are that you can make with the school, with his caseworker to make sure that he's getting what he needs and you're setting him up to thrive. Nicole, you didn't say if this was possible, but you might also want to consider inviting Johnny's parents to the conversations. If they're safe, if they're in touch, if they're accessible, you could learn some new information from them to kind of support your advocacy at the school or with the school. You can learn his early developmental history, you can learn any relevant family history, you can learn maybe what his known triggers are, and you can maybe figure out what's worked before from the caseworkers' experience, from the birth parents' experience. All of those things can kind of help you round out the picture. So this collaboration between you and the caseworker and you and the school can be really powerful on Johnny's behalf. And the added benefit is that if possible, these parents, Johnny's parents, can see how you are caring for him and investing in him while he's in your care. And it can make them feel much more reassured about the fact that he's in a safe place even if he can't be with them. Another tip that might help you navigate and set this child up for success in the classroom is to consider what outside professionals might bring to the table as far as support and intervention and treatment. So you would be thinking about trauma-informed therapists, you would be thinking about pediatricians or developmental pediatricians, and your child's pediatrician should have some good recommendations for you if you decide to go that route. You can also think about some educational advocates. All of these professionals can help you differentiate between ADHD and trauma, or identify both if those are truly what exists for Johnny's experience. They can recommend accommodations that would meet Johnny's needs and set him up to thrive. And they can even attend some of these meetings with you if you need them to. There's quite a few, especially educational advocates that do that as part of their services. The most important thing is that you're working again collaboratively with Johnny's caseworker, with Johnny's birth parents if it's possible, with his pediatrician, all of these people that have experience and knowledge of Johnny's case and can add to what you're experiencing at home with him and what they're experiencing in school with him. The good news is that you're asking the right questions and your instinct is kind of spot on for what's going on with your foster son. His child, his history matters, and you're taking that into account. So that's really good, a great foundation for you and for working with the school. And the goal now is to find the right supports that set him up for success, that let him find his path towards thriving in school, paying attention to what he's most excited about, things that challenge him the most. And then you should just keep asking questions and keep collaborating and keep advocating. It can feel overwhelming, it can feel frustrating, and it can feel like you're not getting anywhere, but you are this child's most important voice in that IEP meeting room. You are his lead on Team Johnny, and so doing everything you can from that position of strength and confidence that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing can really go a long way towards setting him up for success in the classroom. I'm so grateful, Nicole, that you wrote to us. I hope that this information helped. I hope that the resources that I'll link in the show notes are of some help as well. And listeners, if you felt like this show kind of hit you where you were at and it's resonating with you, drop us some fan mail in your podcast player. There's a button that says drop us some fan mail. Tell us about your experiences with questions about ADHD versus trauma or both. Tell us about how you navigated the IEP process or support process for your kids at school. And it's also a great way to ask us about other topics that you'd like to hear about. We want to know how we're doing. So drop us some fan mail today. Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next week.