At the beginning of the school year, you could give the teacher a letter introducing your child’s ADHD and what it means or you could have a face-to-face meeting. Explain their learning challenges and partner with the teacher to help them. Stay open to communication. You are your child’s biggest and best advocate.
Teachers should always be advised if a child has ADHD.
Get daily updates with both positive and negative feedback. Try not to let your child’s weaknesses overshadow their strengths. It also great to share tips on how your child learns best. You should let the teacher know that your son is an individual and has his own needs just as well as anyone. Try to be involved in your child’s school life. You could give the teachers a print-out that summarizes your child’s condition.
At the beginning of the new school year, I give the teacher a letter introducing my son and explaining, in plain English, his ADHD and what it means.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Key takeaways
- Teachers are often not as informed as parents when it comes to ADHD, so parents should help explain their child’s diagnosis.
- Here are some tips from parents of children with ADHD about how to discuss their child’s condition with school staff.
- Tips include sending a letter or having a face-to-face meeting, debunking stereotypes, and making sure communication is always open.
Explore Focus Foundations
Is your child struggling in school?
Get your free personalized learning roadmap
You describe what you see at home. We turn it into a plan you start this week.
- Answer 5 short questionnaires about what you already notice, 30–45 minutes at your own kitchen table
- Your child sits no test and gets no score: nothing to schedule, nothing for them to dread
- You do the answering, the AI does the writing, and a person reviews it before it reaches you
- Access all 40+ courses instantly: reading, math, focus, processing and more, with new ones added regularly
Why we use AI, plainly: it writes from a knowledge base our team maintains and audits. We work through it line by line and pull anything the evidence stops supporting. The roadmap you get on Tuesday reflects what we corrected on Monday, and a human still reads it before you do.
Your school district must evaluate your child free of charge if you ask in writing, whatever your income and whatever the outcome (US, 34 CFR 300.111 and 300.301(b)). That route takes time and answers a different question than you do. This one starts today, from what you already know.
Your answers stay yours. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not hand identifiable assessment data to outside AI companies to train their models.
A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
