The excerpt below is from our webinar Challenging Behaviors of Children with DMD. Thank you to our guest psychologist Dr. Natalie Truba of Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Click here to listen to the full podcast episode.
One of the main goals of school is to help support kids in learning what they need to learn and how they need to learn it. And the things that these kids with Duchenne need in order to succeed are going to look quite different from the other kids.
…the things these kids with Duchenne need to succeed in life are going to look quite different from what the other kids need…
So, if that means they get the most out of school from being there 4 hours a day there, then they need to learn how to capitalize on that time. They need to learn how to self-manage and how to get other things done at home because they’re going to have to be functional adults one day.
As adults, they will need to be able to discern whether a work or volunteer setting will be compatible with their needs. They need to know how many in person hours they can manage a day. They need to know how to divide up their responsibilities between home and in person hours. The bottom line is that they need to know how to function without feeling overwhelmed…
The school setting can be incredibly overwhelming from a sensory standpoint for these kids. They’re just asked to do things that are really unrealistic at times. When you know how these boys’ brains are processing information and not really regulating well, and then we put them in a very overwhelming setting and they’re not learning at the same rate as other kids, it’s obvious that these kids are just overwhelmed by so many things.
Authoritarian teachers are just not good matches for the boys – you know, teachers who say, “I run a tight ship. And this is like this. And that is like that.” A classroom like this is not an environment where a kid with Duchenne will thrive.
Along those lines, a teacher who believes in punishing and punishing harder needs to be avoided. Punishing is actually the very opposite of what you should do. In fact, using punishments is harmful advice for managing these boys. It just makes the situation worse.
You need a teacher who will work with you, the parent. Ideally, a teacher who will believe you to begin with and do the things you ask them to do for your child. Then the school, you and your child can all avoid a lot of heartache.
