A third grader whose teacher mentioned ADHD

Hello Zongyuan 🙏

I’d like to ask you to look at my child’s academic performance.

Born in 2016, [redacted]

Yes, he’s in third grade.

I’m not sure if this is something people look into at this age, or if it’s appropriate to check now.

Oh, yes, exactly, what you said is so right. A few days ago his teacher called me, saying he can’t sit still in class, and sometimes he talks to himself, muttering under his breath. The teacher was a bit upset that day, and asked if he might have ADHD. Actually, his kindergarten teacher also brought this up before. I even took him to the children’s medical center, booked a specialist appointment to get him checked. The specialist said he is completely normal, and that because his IQ is not low, he just has some trouble sitting still. It’s not ADHD, though his attention might wander a bit. That’s what the specialist told me at the time.

I just read the analysis you sent, it’s really accurate. My son is just very active and mischievous, and he can never sit still at school. His teachers also say his attention wanders easily. And actually, since the start of this school year — in first and second grade, he was still pretty top of his class, both in class performance and in studies. Overall he was doing quite well. But especially starting this semester, I’ve felt that, whether it’s because of me, or his own reasons, or the pressure I put on him at home, he seems less interested in studying. Sometimes when I say something, he even talks back to me.

It’s just like you said — I’m the one who mainly manages his studies, but he’s not very afraid of me. He’s more scared of his dad, but his dad doesn’t really get involved in the details of his schoolwork. So my discipline actually has very little effect on him.

I can also see that his logical thinking feels slow when he does Olympiad math. Starting from third grade, Olympiad math gets harder. I’ve noticed that with more difficult problems, he either doesn’t understand them or isn’t willing to dig into them on his own. When he runs into hard problems, he tends to back off instead of thinking them through or working them out step by step.

Our family’s education ideas are actually not consistent. I’m quite strict about his studies, because the environment is so competitive right now. I hope he can aim for a good middle school through selection, which means he has to learn a lot of extra material outside of class. But the grandparents think he’s our only child, and I’m pushing him too hard. Sometimes they say things right in front of him like, ‘don’t be so strict’ or ‘he doesn’t need to learn so much’. I think that affects him too, his motivation and initiative to study. And there was also a change in teachers — this semester, they got a new English teacher. The old English teacher was a woman, very detailed in her management, and quite strict with him. She would remind him right away if he got distracted even a little in class. But now they have a male teacher.

After switching to this male teacher, he’s generally less detailed in his management, and he doesn’t criticize things immediately. I guess his teaching style is different. So this teacher change has also had some impact on his English studies. As for friends, there hasn’t been much change on my end — he still sits with the same deskmate and hangs out with the same good friends as before.

As for his health, he’s had rhinitis for the past few months, and his nose gets stuffy easily. He also had digestive issues before, stomach problems. We took him to the hospital and had him take Chinese medicine for a while to调理. But the rhinitis hasn’t gotten better. I’m planning to take him to see a doctor again during winter break. As for instruments, he started learning drums in middle kindergarten. But since third grade started, academic pressure has been heavier, so we stopped this semester, he’s not taking lessons anymore. And for sports, I signed him up for basketball classes before, but because of schoolwork, he’s barely gone to any basketball classes this semester.