Parental involvement in education: the key to improving school attendance in children with ADHD? by Christine

Despite knowing the immense benefits of school attendance, many parents can relate to the battle that ensues when trying to get their child ready for school. Parents of children with attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) might ask themselves, ‘what can I do to increase my child’s attendance at school?’. Parents may worry that their child’s absence at school due to school requests to stay at home, problematic behaviours, school refusal etc. will affect their child’s academic performance. Such concerns are warranted as school attendance is generally considered essential for academic progress, which is a powerful social determinant of health and long-term educational attainment. Research findings that children with ADHD are 3 times more likely to be held back a grade and 2.7 times more likely to drop out of high school before graduation (Barbaressi et al., 2007) highlight the importance and urgency of this issue. In this blog post, I aim to explore school absence from the perspective of a researcher and offer some insights into whether parents being more involved in their child with ADHD’s education is the key to improving their school attendance.

Is not attending school really that bad?

For parents, allowing their child to miss a few days of school may seem like a solution to the meltdown or emotional outburst at hand, but it might be the beginning of a pattern of school absence. School absenteeism, which is defined as missing 10 percent or more of the school year (Gottfried, 2019) is an important social determinant of health that has been greatly understudied in children with ADHD. Of the approximately 194 school days in a year, that is 19.4 days of learning and opportunities for social and emotional development that are missed. Research suggests that children and youth with ADHD, particularly boys, miss more school compared to their peers without ADHD (Classi et al., 2012; Kent et al., 2011; May et al., 2021). This may pose a significant challenge for the education of these children. The educational journey of children with ADHD can be fraught with difficulties due to cognitive challenges such as impairments in memory functions, increased distractibility, and slow thought processing speeds (Mohammed et al., 2021). These difficulties already heighten children with ADHD’s risk of underachievement, but when combined with chronic absenteeism, these children may struggle with reaching their true academic potential. But, why are these children missing more school than their neurotypical counterparts? There are a myriad of reasons why a child is absent from school, but research has shown that 41% of these reasons are parent driven for typically developing children (Hancock et al., 2018). For neurodivergent children, the answer to this question is less clear. Considering the research suggesting that supportive parental involvement education is associated with academic achievement in children with ADHD (Rogers, 2009a), addressing school absence may require focusing on parents to reduce these absences.

Is parental involvement in schooling beneficial for children with ADHD?

As a neurotypical child, I recall dreading parent teacher meetings because of how involved my parents were in my education. While their absence was missed at school events because of their busy schedules, my parents made it a point to know when I had tests, how I felt about each school subject, the friends I hung out with at lunch and what extracurricular activities I liked. Previously, their interest seemed excessive, but the more I research the benefits of parental engagement in schooling, the more grateful I am for their involvement. Families with children with unique learning needs, such as those with ADHD may struggle in these areas. I asked my aunt to describe what navigating the school system is like with a child with ADHD. She said, and I quote, “Being a mom of a child with ADHD is tough...I’m always worried he’s being left out...I try to stay involved, but it feels like I’m constantly at loggerheads with the school.”

Parental involvement implies a parent’s dedication of resources such as time and effort for their child’s development. Parental involvement encompasses a wide range of behaviours performed at home or school, from homework-helping (home-based parental involvement) to participation in school activities (school-based parental involvement). There is a plethora of benefits of parental involvement in education for both youth with and without ADHD. For example, in children with ADHD, supportive parental involvement is related to higher academic achievement (Rogers et al., 2009c). However, it seems that there may be obstacles for parents of children with ADHD to reaping these benefits. According to research, parents of children with ADHD perceive more teacher demands than parents of children without this diagnosis (Rogers et al., 2009). Given the inattentive behaviours commonly seen in these children, it might be that parents are interpreting comments made by teachers about their child with ADHD’s behaviour as excessive demands on their time and energy, which may already be depleted. It is conceivably difficult for parents of children with ADHD to foster positive relationships with their child’s teacher and attend school events when they do not feel welcome.

So, how can parents and teachers get around this obstacle? A practical method that has demonstrated its effectiveness for youth with ADHD in research is the use of a daily report card (DRC) system (Iznardo et al., 2020). A DRC system involves setting behavioural goals which are monitored daily by teachers. Information is recorded on the child’s ability to meet said goals. Parents sign the report card at the end of each day and when a child’s reaches a predetermined level of success, they are rewarded. This system proactively addresses behavioural problems and may improve communication between families and schools by building positive rapport and providing parents with opportunities for school-based involvement. Clearly, school-based parental involvement and parent-teacher relationships are both significant for children with ADHD’s schooling, but is this the answer to the high rates of chronic absenteeism seen in this population?

Is parental involvement the missing puzzle piece?

The short answer is maybe. There is no one overarching answer to school absenteeism in children with ADHD. The solution to school absence is just as complex and varied as the reasons for school absence. The long answer is that targeting chronic absenteeism may require a four-pronged attack involving not just parents but also educators, practitioners, and policymakers. The paucity of literature on this topic, necessitates further research on the link between parental involvement in education and school attendance in children with ADHD to inform interventions and programs that seek to improve absenteeism. My current research explores this very question, so I hope to add to the knowledge on this topic. While I cannot presently answer whether parental involvement is the key to improving school attendance in children with ADHD, investing time and being more involved in your child with ADHD’s education is certainly a step in the right direction.

By

Christine Okigbo M.A. B.A

Dr. Maria Rogers