Even when she is directly involved and conversing either with the other students or her teacher, her attention clearly tends to wander a bit. it's usually not that hard to snap her back to attention but the pattern plays out again and again at times although it's not always pervasive.
The teacher and even the parents suspected right away that the child has ADD, ADHD or some other attention-robbing variant of such mental disorders or challenges. One major aggravating factor to this equation is that the health coverage that the child's parents have is not conducive to spending a good amount of money on therapy and/or medications or even reliably and clinically diagnosing what is really going on to begin with so the hands of the parents are a bit tied.
However, some relief was garnered when a charitable organization offered to assist in getting Lora diagnosed and, if necessary, treated for anything she might have. It turns out she does have ADD but does thankfully not have the hyperactivity variant of the disorder. After starting treatment, Lora is much calmer and settled and is much more focused on doing her work. It dials her down perhaps a little too much at times but the progress she is making now is of clear benefit to her learning and her mental state. Perhaps the treatment can be dialed back at a later date.
Scenario Four
The fourth scenario is a child named Spencer that is a fourth grader at Linwood Elementary. Spencer is a smart kid but he's a bit of a bully. He will make fun of kids who look different...
It is clear that Spencer suffers from some sort of self-esteem issues but it's not entirely as to what the root of those feelings are and what is the best way to attack Spencer's activities.
One major source of this seems to be the lack of Spencer's parents stepping in and make it clear that such behaviors, tactics and habits are not wrong and are bullying and hurtful in nature even if that is not the motivation of Spencer when he does them. Something else that needs to be made abundantly clear to Spencer is that singling out people that are different in terms of their skin color, hair, or even general appearance is not right either and can come off as bullying, racism or sexism depending on the target and this can be true even if Spencer is not trying to think and act like a bigot.
Even if the parents of Spencer cannot or will not intercede and instill better habits and values, the school must do their part to correct his behavior and punish or at least call him out (diplomatically and discreetly unless the situation demands otherwise) so that he learns, one way or the other, that behaving that way is not proper. Allowing it to continue unabated is not permissible and if the situation gets too advanced, Spencer should probably be separated from the other children or even expelled if the bullying and criticism gets violent or too incendiary.
*all names of students and schools are pseudonyms -- no real names used
