Canaries in the mine

It struck me, as I was responding to a text about ADHD not being real and that it is just a response to the fact there is not enough time to being outdoors and sitting still for too long...

I feel yes, these are the REACTIONS ... but I feel that my child with a diagnosis of autism/ADHD (not medicated) are the REAL reactions of children... they are unfiltered, genuine, not striving to be an adult or liked by an adult, but striving to be true to themselves...

So maybe, just maybe, we should be listening MORE to the children with ADHD and other diagnoses...
If there are more and more cases (as it keeps being reported) maybe it is because school is becoming MORE and MORE restrictive... these children are the canaries in the mine, warning us that things are going wrong...

Maybe it is TIME to radically change the face of school... not just for the children with ADHD who do not thrive... but for the sake of ALL the children...  to give them a chance to be true to themselves, to connect with their own individual essence of who they are...

Iris Grace seems to have been given the time, space and materials to discover her talents... why are we not affording ALL children this...?

I have been on the phone with my son's mentor... one of many teachers he has... and I want to give a HUGE applause to his teachers, because they are really putting a lot of effort and time into making his and the rest of the children's learning experience a meaningful experience... but it is not working... and it turns out the system has failed both the teachers and my son...
But we will work on this together and try to make it work... I mean you simply don't give up on children, do you?

We have a new prime minister... a new government... will their be changes? Will they be big enough changes... I think most governments are far too afraid to make big changes... but we can hope...

It would be so wonderful if Sweden could be the first to revolutionise its school education on a national level -
 which I think they HAVE to if they insist on school being a legal requirement. The school law talks about the rights of the individual student... but it does not really seem to be working in practice... because that amount of individuality actually requires a different system to work on, it needs more resources, it needs more flexibility for the teachers... and it needs society to value what teachers are doing... so that we all work TOGETHER to raise our children.

So if more and more children are being diagnosed ADHD... maybe it is because the system is not allowing them to thrive... that those children who are true to their childhood make a stand against adulthood and say not yet!
Let children play.
The best learning tool we humans have... 

Reflection
It has been months since I wrote this... so much has happened to my son in this time, and he no longers attends school in the same way... he does not go into a normal class, or have the same hours... after over a term where his self esteem plummeted, his love of school vanished and turned into hate... he is now slowly learning to like school... and therefore starting to find joy in learning again...
Slowly slowly the amount of learning will increase each day... his days will no doubt expand, and hopefully he will spend some time in his class...
BUT it took a parent to shout out loud (and I mean really loud) - to shake the system - so that the teachers and my son got the resources they needed