Do you tell the school all of the medications difficult child is on?

[Sara PA]

It is to each their own. But I would never want to NOT tell someone such as a school district that is going to be responsible for the care of my son for extended times any medications that he was taking. This is not aspirin that our children are taking, these are serious medications, not to be taken lightly.

Why? What does knowing what medications someone is taking matter? If he was getting chemotherapy for cancer would you notify the teacher of the medications and dosages? What's the teacher suppose to do with that information? Wouldn't you just tell the teacher he was getting chemotherapy?

And depending on the age of your child, some of these drugs that our kids take are sold by kids at school to others. If I'm not honest with the school to begin with and my stepson ended up selling some of his drugs at school, that would only make matters worse for him and myself. And such as did happen in our scenario, my stepson took an overdose without our knowledge one morning before school of one of his medications. Had his teacher and prinicipal not known of his medications, they may not have reacted as quickly as they did and his life could have been lost.

If a kid is selling drugs at school, he has no defense regardless of whether or not the drugs were prescribed for him. Not even his IEP protects him. And a child so dysfunctional that it is suspected he overdosed on a drug should get immediate medical care regardless of the cause of his behavior.

I understand about labeling a child. And yes there are some teachers that do just that when they hear of a child taking medication. But not all teachers are this way. Lord knows we have had both in our lifetime with my stepson. If that happens then you deal with the teacher and the school district, when and if it does happen.

It only takes one. I only confided in one person at my son's school. That person used the information to exclude him from school. There was no other explanation beyond that man's bias toward "mental health" labels.

 

[TypoJEnny]

I feel that you should let someone know the medications. I know that my difficult children Special Education teacher helped a lot when we where figuring out what worked best. She was great and very informative. My difficult child is currently on the highest dose of Ritalin LA the doctor will allow. This is a little scary to me, but it works with little side effects. I do want to say that his mainstream teachers have asked me if his dose needs to be increased, but after I explain the situation then they understand.

I have a neighbor that asked me about my difficult children medications one day after the school called her and suggested her son be placed on them. She was upset and concerned. I told my neighbor to take her son to a P-DR and have him checked out. Her son was tested and he didn't have ADHD as the school had thought. She took the information to the school and they haven't said anything else to her about it. Basically her son was not getting enough sleep and was acting out at school. (if only that was true for the rest of us)

But honestly I think that teachers deal with children day in and day out. They have a good grasp on children’s behavior and can be very helpful when informed of medications and diagnoses. Unfortunately I have had a few negative reactions from Mainstream teachers, but I just have to remember they are human and may have had a bad experience in the past. I try to inform them as best as possible and hope they have a good heart and won't be judgmental.

 

[Kathy813]

I think that everyone's opinion here is being colored by their own experiences.

The bottom line is that I believe someone at the school should have an updated list of medications ~ preferably the school nurse.

I had a student start vomiting and collapse in my classroom last year. I pushed the emergency button for the school clinic worker and first responders. They immediately assessed the situation and called for an ambulance.

Luckily, they had the mother on the phone when the EMT's arrived and the first thing that the EMT's asked her about was what medications he was taking. What if we hadn't been able to reach a parent in this situation?

I agree that individual teachers don't need to know about the particular medications that their students are taking. This is particularly true in a high school setting where the student might have six different teachers and is old enough to understand the medications and possible side effects. I think I would feel differently about a small child with one teacher.

I disagree strongly, however, that it would color my opinion about the child if I did know. It seems like half of my students are taking ADHD medications and discuss it openly. They are in no way stigmatized or gossiped about because of it.

~Kathy

 

[Sara PA]

No one said it colored your opinion. However I said my son was both gossiped about within the hearing of other students and that the information about his diagnosis and medication was the motivation (if not the stated reason) to exclude him from the school. "Disagreeing" with what I said is the equivilent of calling me a liar.

 

[Janna]

Exactly what benefit is there for the school nurse, let alone the teacher, to know what medications and what doses a child is one for any condition? No one notifies the school when her child is taking antibiotics. Do parents of kids with other conditions send in lists of drugs and doses just so someone knows? Unless the school needs to administer the drug at some time during the day, why does it matter?

Yes, I do. easy child is on Captopril for blood pressure from congenital heart disease. The school nurse does know, and I'm ok with that. She also does not administer his Concerta, but knows he is on it. What if something severe happened to him while he was in school and he had to be trasported to the E.R.? It takes me an hour to get from work to where he'd be. Yes, I want someone to know what medications my child is on.

What if Dylan gets Lithium toxicity during class? How would the teacher know what was going on with him if he started getting the shakes? What if he had problems? The drooling, the slurping, all that stuff from the Abilify last year, how would they have known that was from that medication if I never told them he was on that medication?

Sorry, Sara, I can't agree with you on this one. I do agree maybe not everyone needs to know, but the person that is ultimately going to care for your child in the event of an emergency should absolutely know everything your child is on.

 

[Kathy813]

Sara, I was speaking as a teacher addressing those who had expressed concerns that letting a teacher know that their child was on a particular medication would color a teacher's opinion about a student. I was simply trying to give some perspective and reassurance from a teacher's point of view.

I actually agreed with you that individual teachers really don't have to know the specifics.

Whatever happened to you and your son in the past had absolutely nothing to do with my answer to this thread. I was speaking only from my expertise in this particular area. I'm sorry that you had an experience with an educator that left you so bitter about public education.

~Kathy

 

[totoro]

You ladies have given me and husband SO much to think about!!! I really do appreciate all of the honesty and passion... for us and this being such a new thing going into public school, well you know we can all read and think we know what to do. But so many of you have had obviously every type of experience that can be possible as far as this topic is concerned!!! I had not thought of all of the aspects prior to this post.

I might even ask her teacher what she prefers and what other's have done in the past just to see what she thinks???

So many things to think about and it is only Kindergarten!!! I still have to buy all of the stuff on the lengthy list!!! Thank goodness K does not care about clothes yet!!!

No back to school shopping here!!!

 

[Sara PA]

In no way did I attack anyone in this thread. I made no comments or insinuations about Ms Magnolia or her stepson. I asked some questions (questions which Janna had no problem answering), pointed out a fact about IEPs with regard to students selling drugs and offered some of my own experiences.

I am appalled at the way I was attacked.

 

[CookieMomster]

I too am at "battle" with this issue. My daughter doesnt want much of anyone to know she is "bipolar"... BUT the mommy wants her to be qualified for Iep/504 or something to prevent the teachers from holding her to a higher standard than her peers as they have. I know in the past with my step son... we told them his prescriptions and the teachers used that as an excuse..
But...you have received some good advice...The Nurse/or whoever would be responsible for getting him/her medical treatment would need to know this.

 

[Sara PA]

Sara, I am sorry that you had a bad incident with the school regarding your child. What happened is unethical and you should have sued the pants off the district and got the people involved fired.

It wasn't one bad incident, it was a series of bad incidents with two school districts. We actually moved from the one where my son was illegally and fraudulently excluded and ended up in the district where they had the conversation about him in front of other students.

by the way, the vice principal who railroaded my son -- and five other boys -- was transfered to a less desirable position before the year was over. And then to a less desirable one. And then he left the district. Prior to his bad acts regarding these boys, he was in line to be principal at the high school.

As for suing, there's no point. I couldn't find a lawyer willing to sue But I couldn't afford it anyway. And the school districts know that most parents won't find lawyers and if they do, can't afford to outlast the districts delaying tactics. My advocates lawsuit was still going on 4 years after her son graduated; she sued to get him a Word Smart when he was in sixth grade.

However, you are coming off extremely judgemental to anyone that wants to inform the school that their child is on medication. It is coming off that anyone that chooses to inform the school is out of their mind.

Judgmental? Perhaps. If so, my judgement would be "naive", not "out of their mind". I was naive once, I trusted. My son got badly burned. I am far from being the only person whose child got burned because she trusted school district employees with that sort of information.

No, my son is not on medications; but I do believe wholeheartedly, that it helps to inform people that will be around your child during the hours they are in school. They are responsible for our children while they are in school; therefore, they should be informed of ANY medications and dosages for that medication. Teachers can inform parents of possible side effects. Teachers, when they are ethical, are your best help when it comes to medication reactions.

I think Kathy will support me here: Teachers can report behaviors or changes in behaviors; they can not determine if those behaviors are side effects of medication. Teachers don't really need to know what those medications are and in what doses to be able to report behavioral changes. In the same way, teachers should deal with all children who are sick, abnormally sleepy, getting rashes, etc the same way whether the problem is caused by a medication, a virus, a toxin, etc. It really isn't their job to determine if the problem is medication related or not. I really don't understand what teachers are suppose to do with information about specific medication and dosage.

 

[busywend]

I am locking this thread.

I can appreciate the different experiences that people go through. I also appreciate that we can all have our own opinion. In no wya should anyone ever try to convince anyone here that their opinion or experience is the only way to think. That is precisely the value of the board - many different opinions and our ability to choose our best path for our children.