I read a meme a while ago which said something like "We spend hours with our special needs children teaching them how to act with society but don't spend the same amount of time with normal children learning how to interact with special needs children."

Obviously the usual "What is normal?" question applies but I think we can agree on the whole that usually people spend hours teaching a neurodivergent child how to "act" with neurotypical children so that they will look or be more normal.

This brief article is a great one that explains why we need neurodiversity in education and is a good way of helping reframe our thinking when we are having a tough time with our ADHD learners. If we embed these thoughts in our words and actions in the classroom we positively role model to all the children that the world is full of diversity and this is a positive thing.

I am not an expert on this topic and have recently made mistakes here but these are some questions and ponderings about how we can make a class culture that is how we want society to be

1) Are the class rules achievable by all? e.g. Sit still for all lessons is not going to be easy for a child with ADHD. Linked to this have we explained why a rule exists?

2) Do we regularly talk about how people are different in a respectful way and show representation in our books and materials and in our conversations about who are role models? A social story about ADHD in the book corner could be helpful.

3) Do we regularly talk in front of other children about all the positive things the ADHD child can do? ADHD children are already very aware of their differences and are often corrected multiple times a day/week implicitly or explicitly. They need to know and others need to hear about their many strengths and contributions and the contributions of people with ADHD to society.

4) Are the children in our class aware that people listen in different ways, think in different ways, calm themselves in different ways etc. Do we explicitly teach that this is okay? e.g. my son often runs backwards and forwards 3 or 4 metres while thinking. He isn't annoying anyone or trying to act out he is literally processing ideas. Do we model acceptance of these behaviours and talk positively about them. If you haven't already check out stimming. Stimming is movement, patterns and actions used to stimulate the senses.

5) Children with neurodiversity demand a higher level of teaching. This means we have to adapt and think creatively to engage them. For example, while our neurotypical learners may go along with a boring lesson and not complain to loudly about it a child with neurodiversity might tell you quite vocally or through their actions that the lesson or material is boring. In our teaching we can model the value of creativity by adapting our lessons and saying to the students " I thought of a different way of doing this, usually teachers teach it this way, but I thought this way would be more interesting." For some examples of how I have adapted Montessori to engage my ADHDer have a look here.