ADHD?-If so what do I do about it?

[aisling_7]

I have a student who is six years old.  She seems very bright.  My oldest daughter is four years old and can pay attention longer than my 6 year old student.  Now I am ADD myself, but I have never encountered this level of hyperactivity.  When I was little I might fidget of kick my legs, but I could at least stay in my seat.  I swear this little girl doesn't stay on the bench for more than 2 min at a time, if that!  You would think that being ADD myself, I would have all sorts of ideas for teaching her, but I don't.  I know some might think she should wait before taking lessons, but I think she should continue as she is very bright.  She is fond of patterns, and tells me in detail about her school experiences.   I don't know how to teach someone who won't let me finish a sentence!

Help!
Jackie 

[lagin]

Hi, my teacher had a similar experience that she was just telling me about.  This little boy could handle about 5 minutes of sitting though! .  What she did was give him a "special" chair, and when he came to his lesson, he went there instead of to the piano bench.  Then he was allowed to share with my teacher about his week.  The first time, she said, he talked for like 13 minutes strait, but then could sit for the rest of his lesson.  If he was really wound up, she would sometimes read him a bit of a story and then he would talk.  His attention span increased tremendously.  All's he needed was someone to give him some attention, and he stopped acting up in an attempt to gain it.  Every case will be different, of course.  But maybe this will help.

[00range]

Have him sit upside-down, and then when he can't, give him some drugs to "solve" his problem.

[aisling_7]

That's what slowly dawned on me during tonight's lesson.  I know that she lives with her grandparents, but she "gets to see her mommy and daddy sometimes."    She lives w/ one pair of grandparent during the week and another during the weekend.  It is the weekend grandma that is giving her lessons.  I think she does need to unwind, because friday is her transistion day.  Seems like a lot for a 6 year old.

Jackie

[aisling_7]

OOrange, I do not recommend drugging children.  Nor would I say that this child has a problem.  She is probably gifted.  I think if you will read my post you will see that I had a problem w/ holding the child's interest.  Now I do believe it is time to dismount the ol' high horse!

Jackie

[jeremyjchilds]

I have a student with Adhd...

She is very very bright, but tough to motivate and she finds it tough to concentrate (for obvious reasons)

I teach her the same way I would tech another student, except that I teach her one hour lessons because it takes twice as long to get her to concentrate between (very random) digressions....

[00range]

OOrange, I do not recommend drugging children.  Nor would I say that this child has a problem.

I apologize if I jumped to conclusions, diagnosing children with mental "diseases" as a means to drug them is something I passionately disagree with. I'm glad this isn't the case here.

Now I do believe it is time to dismount the ol' high horse.

Again, I apologize if I came off as pompous; it wasn't my intent. B)

I think if you will read my post you will see that I had a problem w/ holding the child's interest.

Have you asked the child whether or not she is interested in playing the piano? If so, what'd she say?

[aisling_7]

No problem!  Her interest is obvious.  Today she did better than last week, but she seemed discouraged when she left.  Oh well, start over next week.  I started her on some folk pieces out of the suzuki book, but she didn't seem that interested.  I guess I need to focus on her emotional well being first rather than trying to give her money's worth.  Next week, I will focus on trying to let her settle and calm down, before I start cramming things into her head.

Jackie

[leahcim]

Is the lack of jobs in mental health the reason the practitioners are teaching piano these days?

Kudos to you if you can find a way of teaching a fidgeting 6yo. But I think you need to draw the line at diagnosing and then asking how to treat her.

[diegosmom]

Since she can't stay focused on one activity for long periods of time, then I suggest breaking up the 30-minute lesson into short segments with varying type of activities. 5 minutes on a short piece, then 5 minutes answering a theory workbook, then 5 minutes listening, then 5 minutes another piece an so on. It's sort of like switching the TV channel every so often when they get bored.

And yes, they'll talk and talk and talk your ear off, since they're very talkative. You won't be able to shut them off, but you can shift the conversation to discuss the music instead: what do you think of this song? it kind of reminds you of a choo-choo train doesn't it? and so on...

[maryruth]

Oh, I've got one just exactly like that.  She's playing songs that are only 16 measures long and her attention span at times is about 4 measures...It can be quite frustrating.  You've just got to work around it...

I had an end-of-summer recital last weekend and I wasn't sure my little student would be ready.  She played "the Siamese Cat Song"....I knew that during her lesson we had to get through the whole piece about 6 times or more or it wasn't happening at the recital....She'd play the first phrase..."We are Siamese if you ple-eeze" and then stop and say...."Um, I got my Halloween costume picked out..."  "Excuse me it's August?! Oh, well, next phrase please"....."We are Siamese if you don't please"......"Can I pet your cat?"   "What?! Let's keep at this song, shall we?"  Finally, I said, "I know, if you play this all the way through you can do 10 jumping jacks!"  She says, "No, thank you."  I say, "Okay, how about you play this song all the way through and you can do a hot-lap around my entire house?"  She said, "Really?!  Okay...."  By golly, the kid played the entire song and then she ran through my entire house and back to the piano and played the song again.  We repeated this process for 15 minutes!  She had the song learned.  When her mom came in to pick her up I had the student play what we'd accomplished.  Her mom was amazed.  She said, "Wow, how'd you do that?"  I said,  "Hot laps". 

You just really have to experiment and sometimes you've just got to let them get the wiggles out of their system.

[aisling_7]

leahcim,


I wasn't asking how to treat her; I was asking how to teach her.  Besides I believe that teachers should be familiar with common learning issues such as add, dyslexia, etc.  It is not like I am diagnosing schizophrenia here!  These are learning issues not personality disorders or mental illness.

Jackie

[leahcim]

Fair enough - there some stuff here for you to read then https://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm

There's quite a bit about how "symptoms" you might have seen could not be ADHD at all - and even some of the circumstances you've described could be the cause, but I'm not going to diagnose her via you

Since the initial question is "ADHD? If so what can I do about it?" - I'd say speak to her parents / carers about that and find out if it's isolated or a problem in many situations - they'll probably want to do something, like remove or dismiss the question mark for starters - and then you can apply your expertise to teaching someone with dyslexia, adhd or cooties in her underpants, whatever it is making her fidget

But yeah, like I said, kudos to you if you find a way of _teaching_ her.

[eastcountypiano]

I have also heard of letting the child suck on a piece of sugarless candy, which is touchy because some parents might not like that.  I have not tried it but I remember reading about it.   Since I teach very young kids, sometimes they are jumpy and I tell them to stand at the piano and play.  I've used it for my own son and when I see him turning and twisting on the chair  and pausing his playing to skirm, I tell him to stand up and all of the sudden he's playing.  Now that he is 71/2 the skirming has mostly stopped.

My lastest read on ADHD kids is that they are beginning to believe that giving them more breaks to run around while in school is making all the difference for them.   

You can see their little eyes start to glaze over when they have reached their limit and when I see it, I switch to stretches, coloring or flash cards, then back to playing, I certainly going to remember the hotlaps, in case I ever need to use that idea.

[joyfulmusic]

Hyper children are often the bright ones.  They talk over you, play notes while you're talking, etc.  I had one recent new student who was in the habit of singing the notes he was playing.  What I did with him was to set aside time in the lesson for him to sing while I accompanied him... we did Rockin' Robin.  It took him a couple of weeks to break the habit but he did.  And I've gotten lots of smiles. I try to note what it is the child is wanting to have happen, and find a way for us to make it happen together.  That said, however, some kids are just not capable of concentration and focus enough to have a decent lesson.  So be it.

[possom]

I have also heard of letting the child suck on a piece of sugarless candy, which is touchy because some parents might not like that.  I have not tried it but I remember reading about it.   Since I teach very young kids, sometimes they are jumpy and I tell them to stand at the piano and play.  I've used it for my own son and when I see him turning and twisting on the chair  and pausing his playing to skirm, I tell him to stand up and all of the sudden he's playing.  Now that he is 71/2 the skirming has mostly stopped.

My lastest read on ADHD kids is that they are beginning to believe that giving them more breaks to run around while in school is making all the difference for them.   

You can see their little eyes start to glaze over when they have reached their limit and when I see it, I switch to stretches, coloring or flash cards, then back to playing, I certainly going to remember the hotlaps, in case I ever need to use that idea.

Thanks for this  my son has ADHD and am going to try it along with all of the other things, he is currently on eye Q oils (has been for 2 years), a cup of coffee (amazingly this works - to do with speeding up the brain activity and therefore balancing the physical activity) and unfortunately recently very low dose medication. This on top of a very strict routine at home and consistent parenting right across the board.

On the subject of teaching, i'm afraid I can't help much, there is no way I could get my son to play the piano and he made it clear from an early age that he didn't want to (he's now 9). The school he attends has tried different devices to help but most of these seem to be focused on good behaviour when his problem is not that he's naughty, but that he can't concentrate for longer than a couple of minutes.

Good luck with it though, I may be teaching a pupil with Aspergers syndrome shortly so may be back here to ask advice with that 

[frichmondj]

I am an adult and have been diagnosed with ADHD.  It ws very obvious as a child.  One thing that sometimes happens and is not a bad thing is that they can also hyper focus when they find something that they really love.  You may find that the student will practice more intensely than your other students and that as they grow up and learn to cope that they will work past their normal potential.  ADHD can be a plus, it just takes a little adjustment.  We tend to be chatty, interupt, and flighty.  It isn't meant to be rude and can be an embarrassment to us.  We are engaged and listening more than you think.  As a matter of fact the reason we interupt is because we have mentally already finished your sentence in our heads and are answering what we think you will say or are moving on to the next topic.  Just think, as hard as it is for you....................much harder for them.  Have patience and I think you will be rewarded with a wonderful student.

[keyofc]

I have a student similar to the sound of your description.  I did not think she would last any longer than a year, but she is on her third year.  As time progressed, she has matured a little, but still very hard to keep her attention for a long time.

Some of the things I do that have helped are:
1. Give her five minutes to be the teacher - and find what mistakes I make.  I make the same ones that she does, on purpose, of course.  Oddly enough she finds them when I make them and it really helps her play better. (I don't do this all the time, or she would take advantage of the lesson.)
2. I have her walk out the rythym instead of clap it when she gets restless.  We are still working on music - but she is getting physical energy worked off a little.
3. I constantly tell her to focus on one measure at a time, and she really does try many times.
4.  I give her a goal sheet with concert tickets as the prize.  Cheap tickets at a community college.  She works very hard at this.  I make sure the goals are impressive.
5. Sometimes I record her so she can do something different, but mainly for the sake of charting her progress.
6. If it is a day where none of the above work, I close the music we are playing.  We work a little on her workbook.
7. If none of these work, I talk to her parents...but usually they do work.  Hope this helps

[bernhard]

Some excellent advice in this thread. This is something else that I do (for all children not only the “diagnosed ones”) that you can add to everything said above:

I have a “mucking about” sheet. It is a table with entries for:

1.   time the lesson started
2.   time the lessons ended
3.   How many minutes were spent at the piano
4.   How many minutes were spent mucking about.

During the lesson I use a timer set to 5 minutes. Every time they stop playing to muck about I stop the timer. When they go back to the piano, I restart it. We aim at more time at the piano then mucking about. If they succeed in doing that, they get something (gold star, badges, etc.). If they actually manage to spend just 5 minutes (or less) mucking about and the rest of the time at the piano, they get a special “good girl/boy certificate” printed in gothic letters in diploma paper (you can get those in stationery shops) and a big fuss is made of it, when the parents come to collect.

After a few lessons, just by hearing the blip of the timer being switched off, they tend to refocus again (yes, I know, Pavlovian conditioning, but it works!).

This sheet is also good because it shows progress (or lack of) over time. We may think that a student is hopeless, and dread the time of his/her lesson, so we cannot really evaluate the situation objectively. Having actual data on mucking about time will show if indeed the student is hopeless or if progress is being made.

On a side note, I think that there is a lot of overdiagnosing in our society. Everyone now who has a behaviour that is not mediocre or in conformity with some “norm” (that usually benefits corporate business) is immediately diagnosed with some condition or other (e.g. Einstein and Glenn Gould had Asperger’s). For a salutary redress of balance I would suggest you have a look at:

Thomas Szasz – The manufacture of mental illness.

And of course, diet is a huge contributor.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.