How to Neutralize a Bored (ADHD?) Boy? The Schoolteachers Dilemma and creative Solution

Jonathan is almost graduating his first year of school. I went better than we thought considering his ever present ADHD symptoms (although we do not have an official diagnosis). All in all he is up to his class level in his studies. He reads tolerably well in Hebrew, recognizes a few letters in the English alphabet and he can compute up to 100. We are still struggling with getting to school on time in the mornings (as both my husband and I are NOT morning people, the understatement of the century..., I sometimes wonder who's fault this really is) and when Jonathan is bored or unsatisfied he may break out into a mood and lash at his teacher. This effect can be enhanced if his routine is broken, which in the summer months of school it usually is.

The first graders are appointed to conduct the ceremony of Shavuoth - the celebration of summer, first ripening of fruit an crops and the traditional date that the Torah (or 10 commandments at least) were given to the people of Israel in mount Sinai at ancient times. The ceremony rehearsals composed of 3 weeks in May in which the children are expected to continue their studies independently with various assignments parallel to rehearsals in small groups. The frontal lesson routine is totally broken.

Jonathan was not finding himself in all this. He did not want to join the dancers and could not keep quiet while the other children rehearsed their lines. His teacher was finding it difficult to get him to cooperate at all. And then, on the second week of rehearsals (after suffering his nasty bouts of screaming and boredom for the first week)  she had a brilliant idea! She assigned him a task that is important on the one hand and affords no rehearsal with other on the other. Jonathan would easily recognize his place in the ceremony without disturbing the other children or the rehearsals and he would feel needed! His role was to declare the ceremony has reached its end (and to invite the audience to stand up for the national anthem). Jonathan had one lie to memorize and was the only child to speak solo. He was exited and felt himself important. We picked the importance message up at home, on cue from the teacher and he became manageable for the rest of the rehearsals.

The parents were invited to the ceremony and I was almost as excited as Jonathan could be. He behaved impeccably during 20 minutes of ceremony, sitting quietly on the side of the stage and singing along when required. Then he started to get smile and wave at me, and made thumbs up signs to me and wiggled about in his seat. Just as I was wondering why he was so exited, he got up, picked the microphone and spoke his line. The sound was bad and the speakers beeped. Jonathan undaunted, simply repeated the line again and everyone stood up for the anthem. Then my important boy put the microphone down on its designated cushion and stood proud and erect center stage for the duration of the anthem! I was busting with pride.

Turns out the school filed it all. I am embedding the video here. I hope Jonathan will enjoy the memory as I will. Unfortunately the anthem part is cut off in the school footage! Lucky I filmed and photographed it myself! Proud mama all the way!

https://youtu.be/eLtTPTUzPP0

Invention, Imagination and Humour

Creative and abstract thinking is presenting itself in Jonathan's humour and advancement in language skills. He now takes action to creating funny situations for his amusement and is also able to create sentences and to express himself pretty well. With these skills comes also that of invention and creating new games and even invent new words. The Experts say it is typical for his age, so I can relax and enjoy the phenomenon.

Putting his shoes on upside down and laughing at himself is a sign of humour Jonathan seams to enjoy repeatedly. Pretend games like mixing salt and sugar in a cake, serving it to mommy and watching me spit it out (all pretend of source) also sends him into fits of giggles. He gets disappointed if I do not “spit” out the food (and I do not if he gets it right-like salt on salad), thus he immediately adds it the wrong ingredient to achieve the desired affect, and then laughs his head off!

Being allowed to be the assistant magician in an activity in kindergarten, also brought the bet out of the boy and the kindergarten teacher said she had never experienced Jonathan so full of laughter, as he was turned into a rabbit and other such imagination magic. Drawing abstract scribes and explaining them is also typical of recent. The interesting thing is that the scribbles of certain things are similar to previous scribbles of the same object. The connection to reality is loose but if I search for it, I can see it ( a shopping mall is a series of lines, loosely resembling the windows rows of a large building). Commentating his drawing live is the latest addition to the beloved activity. Showing me the drawing and even giving to me as a gift is usually the finishing touch, as the boy fished for compliments.

As Jonathan is exposed to two languages, he has an interesting mix of both. He uses both languages in once sentence and there a certain things and activities that are always names in one of the languages. A trip to Germany to visit my husband's family this summer has only strengthened the confusion. Aside from creating new verb forms in Hebrew, Jonathan has enlarged his vocabulary in German considerably and has even invented a new term. The trip exposed Jonathan's special liking of the vending machines, and using them received a special word “Ein Knopfen” . Ein is like “a” in German and is a prefix typical for many nouns. Knopfen is the verb form of the noun Knopf, which means button, its just that the verb Knopfen is non existent in German. But the vending machines have many a button to press... thus Jonathan has formulated a term that clearly relates to the beloved activity of buying a coke or snack in the machines.

Creativity

Jonathan continues to show progress in imagination games and creative solutions. His love of snowstorms is only increased by the success of the flour generated storm, so much that he decided to also have a storm during a drive to his grandma – in the car – the solution-handkerchiefs.

We were driving to my parents' house, about an hour drive and I gave Jonathan a tissue to blow his nose (he does that alone very successfully, as well as wiping his behind after the toilet) and after he was done, he tore it up to little pieces and started throwing them about – creating a snow storm. We stopped to relieve ourselves and I used the opportunity to clean the car. Now Jonathan had no more pieces for his storm – so he pretended to sneeze; the clever little tyke, the idea being that I once more give him more tissues.

It did not work, but it became clear to me that he needed entertainment. So we spend the rest of the ride paying with riddles and imagination and guessing games. What animal is brown and roars (a bear), what color does a water melon have (red) and we also sang his favourite songs.
It is becoming possible to keep Jonathan busy without toys or play things, but it is hard work, I must admit. After the drive was over, I was drained out.

At my parents' Jonathan continued to show creative ideas, he cut a paper into strips and declared that he has made a piano, and I was invited to play along with him. He also helped his grandma baking but this time I did not allow him to create a flour snow storm and thus the mess was somewhat reduced.