Shows how incredibly hard it is to get a formal diagnosis.
My boy has the curse of ‘not looking like he is autistic,’ in pictures. “He looks normal.” I hear that all the time. Then they meet him.
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I just pulled a kid I had last year and who is now skipping everything into my class. He has something going on in his head. Never violent, just can’t sit still. Can’t keep quiet. I told him that one day when he reaches up for help ten people will be there to assist. He sees those hands now as things that push him down and around.
See him playing soccer though, “totally normal kid.”
One needs to be better to see these things I think. And it takes a lot out of you and can be exhausting.
Much easier for @RickRoll with his son, I’d say. Just the one and love is involved.
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His symptoms are identical to mine.
I would suggest not taking medication, they do work but for me the side effects long term outweighs the benefits. Especially with appetite. I know several people who took medication when they’re young and they are all very undersized.
The good news is, with the proper support and learning how to cope with it will do wonders. And I have to say my ADHD symptoms are a plus as an entrepreneur. I’m constantly moving around and coming up with new ideas 
You’re a good dad for trying to help your son with this. I got very little support with this and had to find my own way to cope.
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If you don’t mind me asking, how did you go through Taiwan’s educational system, where cramming lots of homework is the rule?
And at what age did you get diagnosed with ADHD?
Feel free to ask me anything related to it.
I struggled a lot as a kid in the Taiwanese system. I wasn’t getting good grades and I was hit and punished almost every day in front of my classmates to humiliate me. That was their way of discipline back then. It was miserable. I often ran away from school. The amount of course work honestly crushed me with repetition.
I moved to the US when I was around 9 and I did much better there as the US system allowed kids to be more active and creative. But still struggled with paying attention in class. But luckily I was smart enough to get by as I didn’t find any subjects hard to learn, it was just I had trouble with learning in the classroom.
I was officially diagnosed when I was 18 and did take medication for a year before I decided to stop due to rapid weight loss and insomnia. But I’ve had several teachers ask my parents to put me into special classes but my parents refused. That was unfortunately the education systems way of dealing with kids with ADHD.
They saw it as a learning disability but in reality I was far more capable than most of my classmates academically if they just tried to help me learn instead of trying to put me into a slower learning environment.
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Yeah people didn’t know how to deal with hyper kids in the 1970s. I hear ya!
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Thanks for sharing!
I can’t image how hard was it for you to go through it all, and I hope my son can have better luck throughout his academic life.
Did you find any way to cope with your difficulty in paying attention? Any trick I can teach my son to help him?
The only way I’ve found to help my attention is acknowledging it’s my weakness and find how to learn differently. This means self study for me instead of the classroom structure of listening. I’m not sure how you can do this for kids tbh without maybe homeschooling.
I excelled academically going back for my bachelors doing a distance program where it’s online. I got to study on my time and pace and learn on my own. The same for my masters where it’s expected you learn the content yourself for the most part. I recorded lectures and rewatched it at home where I can pause and rewind when I lose focus 
I also don’t really need to pay attention very much as I’m the boss of my own company and I can do what I want 
But I think the best thing you can do for someone with ADHD is 2 things that changed my life.
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Task lists. I have a task list of all the things I need to get done
. I prioritize which is more urgent and important. Having a task list makes it feel more manageable and gives you a visual representation of what you need to do and what you’ve done which is encouraging. ADHD brains struggle with this so it’s helpful to have the visual representation of it. -
Schedule. I schedule my day consistently. I block off time each day for daily tasks and meetings, etc. It’s something I found extremely helping going back to school. I would block off 3-5pm each day for school work everyday and kept that schedule and everyone knew that was my time and left me be. I think this would be really helpful to block off time for school work each day the same time and also block off time for his own personal interests and fun.
ADHD people get bored easily and boredom torments us mentally and physically. Make sure he gets plenty of stimulating physical and mental activities.
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Every person I know that was in a gifted and talented program was really just an ADHD child who happened to be really good at one specific thing that is “valued”. I never understood how some of my classmates were taking a special super advanced math class with a college professor in middle school while they failed to have the capacity for basic essay writing and stumbled along in world language classes.
The answer is obvious, now that I am an educator focused on how the eff the brain learns: those students were “very good” at math because early on their brain latched onto the fun patterns and the game that math has the potential to be. They were able to focus because it fascinated their young, developing brain, which all neurotypical brains have the capacity to latch onto, until that interest is quashed by the education system. Teachers picked up on what they considered to be “talent” or “natural ability” and said “genius!!” and made sure they got into an accelerated math program. But everything else got neglected. I knew people in high school who were in the accelerated math program in elementary school and fell back into “stupid people math” (algebra I divided into two years instead of the traditional one year). At the time I didn’t understand how someone could magically become so “stupid”. Now I do: they were “good at” some aspect of math because it was interesting to them and then they got pushed too far. Their ADHD brain went into overdrive when they didn’t understand something and they ran away when all the “you’re so smart” turned into “well we thought you were smart but maybe you’re not actually”. (And not getting full marks on the SAT and ACT as a 12 year old probably made the school look bad)
This is why I consider phrases like “that’s so easy” and “you already know this” to be just as toxic as “you’re so stupid” and “why can’t you do anything?” Both indicate that “ability” is something that is inherent — either you can or you can’t. Even people that insist that you can “learn a skill” through practice (math, music, and language teachers, im looking at you!!) undermine their ENTIRE argument the second they say things like “you learned this already!” and “I know you already know how to find the answer”, even if they think they’re being encouraging by tacking on “just try to remember”. It’s just not how the brain works! If the student (of any age!) forgets, show them again! Use manipulatives! Make it fun.
There is probably NOTHING more frustrating than someone trying to convince you that something is easy when you don’t have any idea where to start. Yet it’s language adults use with kids all the time, thinking it’s helping to push them along. Instead of “good job” try “you did it!” Instead of “I know you know how to do this” try “what strategy do you think you can start with?”. Instead of “you’re so smart! You found the answer!” Just say “you found an answer!” (Note the change in articles there!). I know a lot of people roll their eyes at this sort of language because it falls into the (for some reason taboo??) “positive parenting” category, but I find that even adjusting my self talk has helped me to become a better learner, as it puts the focus on what’s in my control, and not things that I can’t control, like my brain not focusing when something was introduced the first time.
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What do you mean?
Materials designed to concretely represent abstract concepts. Think beads for counting, slips of paper for each component of a formula (which a child can derive on their own for something like area, if you start with a graph paper rectangle and have them count the squares and then see they get the same answer if they multiply the sides), etc.
Search “montessori elementary math” for more info (in montessori they call “manipulatives” “sensorial materials”). Unfortunately, for some stupid reason the info isn’t readily available online, but I can check when I get home if there’s someone who has defied the montessori overlords and posted helpful info on the internet.
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Try to have your child moved to a school that does not follow the Taiwan rote-learning method. If not possible, consider not living in Taiwan.
That’s what I’m asking in my OP 
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accommodating teacher could reduce his homework or give him something alternative
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Are you in Taipei? I know I listed a bunch of montessori schools, but I think there are a number of alternative schools too. Also, it occurred to me that laws about providing all children with an education should mean your child gets an IEP and whatever accommodations are needed (at a public school)
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Do Taiwanese schools have modified rules for SPED kids?
Yes, we talked to her about that. It didn’t change much.
Also, besides the homework there’s the problem is not paying attention during the class.
New Taipei City. Alternative schools would also be interesting.
We are looking at one called “That’s It School”, have you heard about them?
What’s an IEP?
individualized education plan, or like that. for this, you need to talk immediately with your school, and special education office of department of education of ntc, if the school doesn’t have a teacher for special education. the application limit is next week for the next semester.
there are rules, but some teachers try to be accomodating as much as possible without official procedures.
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Alight, I missed that link in your first post.
Thanks for the heads up!