Getting Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to School on Time

Abstract

This article details the school-readying routines Western Australian mothers employ in their efforts to dispatch children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder off to school in a timely manner. A grounded theory of instilling an awareness of time emerged from the data. In seeking to instill an awareness of time, mothers reveal their experiences of dealing with the chaos that arises out of their children's untimely actions from the point of waking them to the point of getting them out of the house and off to school. In an attempt to eliminate sources of stress contributing to the chaos mothers reflect on their children's idiosyncratic concept of time and analyze the mismatch between their and their child's attitude toward time management. The article concludes by detailing strategies mothers put in place to instill in their child an awareness of time and to establish a workable school-readying routine.