John Booth: 0:44

Your early diagnosis really kind of calls into question, you know, who am I? And I think that's natural for anything over time you make a piece of it because you are who you are, but you didn't have the space and the support. You're not someone with ADHD. You're just someone to actually use as part of your mental makeup.

Simon Currigan: 1:02

Welcome to the school behaviour secrets podcast. I'm your host, Simon Currigan. My co host is Mr. Shackleton. And we're obsessed with helping teachers, school leaders and parents and of course, students. When classroom behaviour gets in the way of success. We're going to share the tried and tested secrets to classroom management, behavioural special needs whole school strategy and more all with the aim of helping your students reach their true potential. Plus, we'll be letting you eavesdrop on our conversations with thought leaders from around the world. So you'll get to hear their latest evidence based strategies before anyone else. This is the school behaviour secrets podcast.

Emma Shackleton: 1:42

Welcome to Episode 10 of the school behaviour secrets podcast. And today we've got an interview with john booth on the subject of ADHD. And he's got a fascinating perspective to share with us in a few moments. I'm here with my co host, Simon.

Simon Currigan: 1:58

Hi, Emma, our guest today is John Booth. Now John is a personal friend of mine. And he has a really interesting to your insight that we as teachers should find really valuable. John has a son who is diagnosed with ADHD but he also received a diagnosis of ADHD later in life. And that means he can tell us what it's like to experience ADHD on a day by day basis, but also a little about the struggles of parenting a child with ADHD in the home that most teachers will never see. John's very open, very honest, even raw at some points in this interview about his own personal experiences and how getting a diagnosis of ADHD changed the way He looked at his earlier experiences at school.

Emma Shackleton: 2:41

So if you've ever wondered if ADHD is a real thing, or if kids with ADHD are pushing the boundaries or just being lazy, listen to this interview with john booth. I'm sure it will make all of us evaluate the way that we work with children with ADHD.

Simon Currigan: 2:58

I'd like to welcome our guest to the show john booth. Hi, John.

John Booth: 3:01

Hi, Simon.

Simon Currigan: 3:01

John has a perspective that I know that you're going to find interesting and valuable in terms of how you approach teaching kids with ADHD. John was diagnosed with ADHD later in life as an adult, and he's also the parent of a child who has ADHD. So he's got a dual perspective here, meaning that he's able to tell us exactly what the condition feels like. But also give us a glimpse into what it's like parenting a child with the condition. So after this conversation, you should walk away with an understanding of both the child's experience in the classroom, but also the adults experience working to support their child in the home. Okay, john, you ready to kick off?

John Booth: 3:38

I'm looking forward to it, Simon.

Simon Currigan: 3:39

Thanks for coming on the show. As teachers, we work with kids who have a diagnosis of ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but they often find it hard to explain how it feels or how it affects them in the classroom. Can you tell us about how ADHD affected you when you were at school?

John Booth: 3:57

I think the way I'd actually like to answer this question is coming from two perspectives. So I'll try and tell you what it felt like at the time and kind of what I was going through what was manifesting in me, and then get a little bit of reflection on it as an adult post rationalise it, I guess, as a kid, I did well at school, and I was quite bright. I did okay, my GCSEs and A-levels. But I do remember school being really troubling and a really difficult period for me. And in a way when I reflect I know everyone has their struggles at school, but I think it was more profound with me. And I think a lot of this is down to my ADHD from a kind of very basic perspective, I was found it really difficult to concentrate in school. And how this manifests was that I was probably more mobile in my desk, I had restless legs, I'd mess around with my pens, I chew things, I now understand that those are very clear manifestations of just the restlessness that come to ADHD. I really like to chat and talk. I think this might be a combination on my personality. I'm fairly gregarious. Also, I think it was because I favoured discussion and kind of received learning lectures over kind of sitting down and writing exercises where you could be less engaged, less mobile, and less vocal. Another thing I think that I experienced when I was at school was that I was always forgetting my PE kit and my lunch and my books. I always leave the house in a rush, which meant that I was leaving the house cloud pressure on me and quite a lot of stress. I wasn't leaving the house in an orderly way, getting to the bus stop. You know, I was always half leaving or running back forgetting keys. I never felt like I really had a relaxed or established routine before school. There's never any issue with the core thinking that I have, or kind of conceptual understanding. You know, the big stuff was easy for me, but I really struggled with small details. I struggled with spelling and still do. My handwriting was always untidy, I viewed those things at the time I viewed them as unimportant. When I was very, very little, at one point I was diagnosed as having issues with my reading, potentially with dyslexia. And I was very fortunate that I had my who was actually a junior school teacher that pointed out to my mom, when she was going to school is that I was actually missing conjunction words. So I was skim reading and going through sentences very quickly. So I could get some meaning very quickly. But obviously, that's not an ideal way to learn to read and write.

Simon Currigan: 6:15

So it sounds like you're able to do the big picture stuff. But when it came to sort of the close detail of things, that's where the condition tripped you up. How did that affect the way you felt about being in the classroom and about your learning?

John Booth: 6:27

I think a good way to describe it is that I would swing from being kind of really interested in subjects and really enjoying the initial engagement with them. And when they were new and fresh, but then swing very rapidly to kind of having no interest. I think it created a just general inconsistency to my kind of learning and how I approached school. I think it undermined those things that has positives and created actually quite a negative thing. When I look back as an adult, I really, really hated going to school, I found being at school very difficult all the time. I remember having a kind of an argument, my mom saying I don't understand why I have to sit in assembly and then have someone preach at me. And my abiding memory of school is the pressure.

Simon Currigan: 7:07

In what way?

John Booth: 7:08

I think the pressure manifests itself around homework the most, in as much that I struggled to do homework, I struggled with the concept of it, I resented its intrusion into my free time, I resented the kind of constant pressure of never, it never been finished. So even I finished my homework I there was always more coming. And even now with like a full time job, and two young boys and a marriage and a mortgage, I'm able to disconnect and relax in a way that I was never able to at school. And the relief I have and had when I finished my degrees at university, when finally homework was gone, assignments, after hours were gone was palpable.

Simon Currigan: 7:45

If you could go back in time, what would you have wanted your teachers to know about the kind of challenges you were facing?

John Booth: 7:51

I would have wanted them to know that, you know, whatever they were saying to me about concentrate, or pay attention is that however tough you were being on, though being on me is nothing compared to how tough I was being on myself. It's weird, being bright, and being told you're bright and do my exams, and then finding the entire course of your time at school a struggle, if you're bright, and you're doing well. It shouldn't be at the cost of perpetual struggle. So whatever you're saying to kids in terms of observing, if they're not paying attention, or struggling with small things, if they have ADHD, it's because they are struggling with so much more in the background. Your brain is constantly processing a myriad of information that's just not useful for you at that time without a diagnosis and that techniques. And without medication, you've got no way to kind of filter that out.

Simon Currigan: 8:41

It sounds draining

John Booth: 8:42

It is constantly draining. When I first actually had my medication as an adult, I remember kind of sitting down at work, and then looking up and looking at the time and the picture that immediately jumped into my head that I felt like a cheat. The picture I had in my head was athlete's toe, big tractor tie around their waist and they they're running down the track for resistance training, I genuinely felt that tire be taken off me and that the medication I had had and a lot a part of me that I didn't deserve to have access to. And I raised this in my psychologist. That's what normal people think. Like they don't have to fight themselves to sit down to do work.

Simon Currigan: 9:21

Did it change the way you looked at other people?

John Booth: 9:22

Yes, I hope it's made me more empathetic generally. And I think the process of going through a diagnosis and having therapy and understanding your own struggles. It's made me more interested in how the human brain works and how it affects us every day.

Simon Currigan: 9:36

Could you tell us a little bit about how you received your diagnosis later in life? Can you tell us about what happened and what the journey was? And when did you suspect that you had a ADHD?

John Booth: 9:44

I remember kind of seeing documentaries in the 90s and I think it was around the discussion around medicating children in the states with Ritalin I remember the kind of being a public outcry should children be medicated I don't remember then thinking - those symptoms sound like something I've got, you know, I can't concentrate. I find it difficult to sit still. When I got my diagnosis, there are kind of two things that I was diagnosed at the age of 43 first thing was that my mother was dying to enter a very long illness about two years. And what happened was I kind of had a breakdown at work. And I went to my doctor and I was physically rundown and not being able to deal with things that I noticed my behaviour is more erratic at work and all that defences and rituals that I put in to manage my ADHD without knowing it. So all my rituals about leaving the house and making sure anywhere my keys were or writing lists or going through preparation before meetings to kind of work out my nerves. I did that myself. My techniques. Were massively draining. And I just got to the point when I was travelling with work seeing my parents at the weekend, and the stress of my mom dying and raising two children is that I no longer had them mental energy to expand on the rituals that were holding my day to day functioning together, and they just started to collapse. I first noticed. The second part of it was that my eldest son was having difficulties at school, my son's like me bright energy was struggling with certain lessons. When he asked for him to be observed in class, we wondered whether or not the stress of his grandmother's illness was affecting him, please, Hank, I spoke to my wife, she mentioned what his behaviour was like in class. And my wife said, that sounds a lot like my husband, you know, not sitting still kind of high energy talking full of ideas, not knowing what to do next. It was my wife actually, that first said, I think my son's got ADHD, and I think my husband's got ADHD. And so when a combination of me struggling, and having therapy and support work came together with that diagnosis, I mentioned it to my psychologist, and the psychologist said, Yeah, john, we're about two or three sessions away from you coming to that conclusion yourself. So I actually got my diagnosis initially through my son. And that's actually quite common. Now, I found out that parents of my generation I was born in the mid 70s. It's through their kids having a diagnosis that they're coming to grips with, and begin to understand that they have ADHD.

Simon Currigan: 12:08

We do see that quite a lot, actually, in our line of work.

John Booth: 12:10

Yeah, it's really hereditary. There's also very strong correlations with things like forceps delivery, and also if your parents smoked, and I was both of those things as well.

Simon Currigan: 12:20

Did it change the way you've used your earlier experiences? Did you kind of reinterpret them more? Look at what happened to you in a different way after getting the label?

John Booth: 12:27

Yeah, it is, in a way. I don't know if you're familiar with Mo Mowlem, and she was English polition.

Simon Currigan: 12:33

She was the Northern Ireland secretary, wasn't she?

John Booth: 12:35

Yeah, well, Mo Mowlam was diagnosed and eventually died of a brain tumour. And when my Mo Mowlam found out about her diagnosis, one of the things that Mo Mowlam said is that the chemo was on the frontal part of the lobe, which moderates behaviour and, you know, can make people more spontaneous or more direct. And Mo Mowlam said one of the most challenging things for her was, and she struggled with the initial part of like, how much of Mo Mowlam was Mo Mowlam? And how much of her was actually the the physiological changes caused the psychological change in her and that's kind of quite similar to your ADHD diagnosis initially, because you think well, would I be gregarious with it? Would I be spontaneous? All the things that I like about myself? Would I be creative and things that worked really well for me in my career as a kind of friend and husband and Dad, you know, spontaneous and fun, creative or things I think I have a lot of those are definitely attributable to ADHD, bad behaviours, you know, compulsions, I sometimes like a bit too much to drink. people with ADHD have a much higher entity for substance abuse, you kind of think, Well, you know, is that attributable to my ADHD? So I think your early diagnosis really kind of calls into question, you know, who am I, and I think that's natural for anything. Over time you make up step because you are who you are. But you do need the space and the support. You're not someone with ADHD, you're just someone that ADHD is part of your mental makeup.

Simon Currigan: 14:01

I just like to take a pause from the podcast for a minute to say that if you're finding this podcast useful, then you'll love what we've got waiting for you in our inner circle programme. The inner circle is your one stop shop for all things behaviour. It's a comprehensive platform filled with videos, resources and behaviour inspiration to get you unstuck with classroom behaviour. It feels like having a behaviour expert on call 24 seven. Our online videos walk you through solutions to common behaviour problems, step by step whether it's the best classroom strategies and tactics, behavioural special needs or practical resources, the inner circle has got you covered. And just like Netflix, you can turn an inner circle subscription on or off whenever you need to get the behaviour answers you've been looking for today, with inner circle, visit beacon school support.co.uk. And click on the inner circle with Jeff near the top of the page for more information. And now back to the podcast. So it sounds like it's a piece of the jigsaw that helps you kind of understand who you are?

John Booth: 15:09

It's more of a piece of a jigsaw that explains why you feel like you do or what your mental process is, I guess in the way that you might compensate. If you had an injury, if someone had physical disability of some sort, they will compensate in in life and they'll understand that you know, there are limitations on that. Whereas when you have a cognitive disability, and one like ADHD, which actually is in some respects, quite hidden and it's very easy just to have labels, what people call their general personality, makeup, what the label helps you understand this, how your brain works, and it's the start of the journey today, managing, accepting that I think that the labour and the diagnosis helps with.

Simon Currigan: 15:49

If you had received a diagnosis earlier in life, and you had the knowledge you had now about compensating for those difficulties, how they have affected your experience as school and growing up?

John Booth: 15:59

I think this is the area that we most want to get right for our son who has ADHD, because I don't want him to have the monkeys on his back that I have, I don't want him to have to, like not know, or struggle with why his thinking isn't what he wants it to be. I don't want him to have to struggle and form, quite frankly, damaging rituals, or behaviours of self administration, like the blame that I applied to myself and push myself. It was punitive, I punish myself when I got things wrong, I punish myself when I forgot things. And it's that's quite natural reaction, because what you're doing is you're trying to correct behaviour. And you know, it's very hard to correct behaviour kindly when you're a kid, because all you think is, well, I should stop doing this, you know, often you just take off to stop things, the thing that would be different with me is that I wouldn't remonstrate it myself, I wouldn't have had the stress that I had, when I was going to school, I'd have actually been able to make sense of why at certain times, I wasn't ready to think or I needed certain conditions to help me think in like a clean, tidy desk, so I have less friction. Before I start work. If I'd have had my diagnosis, I'd had a series of techniques that are directly related to my condition, I'd have had an understanding of why I was thinking like that. So I wouldn't be grappling with the additional stress of what's wrong with me and the questions of why am I not fitting in? Why do I feel different. And then I think eventually, with a diagnosis, I'd have had the opportunity to have medication. And the benefits of medication are profound, and almost universally positive. I think the studies show that ADHD is the most treatable and most effectively treatable psychological learning disability. So I've had those three things in place, which has made school more enjoyable. And I've gotten more out of it. And I've also know myself better. And I think that's really, really powerful. And I'd be much happier at school, which is what we want for our child.

Simon Currigan: 17:59

What's been the impact of medication in terms of being able to work and focus? How has it changed things for you that way?

John Booth: 18:05

Night and day difference? Absolutely. Night and day difference? What ADHD as your brain is constantly seeking stimulus, and it will create sound stimulus if it doesn't have it. So that's why lots of kids with ADHD have intrusive thoughts. It's why they just blurt things out.

Simon Currigan: 18:19

I think there's this myth isn't there that people lose attention, but they don't their attention shifts.

John Booth: 18:24

There's also that kind of concept of hyper focus which people with ADHD can have, they can be incredibly focused, which is why from an outsider's perspective, it must be difficult to know, we can sit there and engage in this but not this, what that medication does is actually it gives your brain the stimulus, which means that your brain is able to actually focus on what's in front of it. The medication is basically an amphetamine derivative, and it's just designed to give you your brain that level of stimulation and seeking medication was at the white noise, which then allows you to reach that sense of quiet and focus without fighting your physiology and your psychology. And once that happens, your brain is much more normalised.

Simon Currigan: 19:03

Has this affected your relationships with other people?

John Booth: 19:05

Yeah, has one of those personal things I'll say today, and I think that's kind of hardest to admit, is it affecting our relationship, my eldest son, the one of the things, as a dad, I was getting quite shouty with my eldest son when he was forgetting things when he was not paying attention when he was getting stressed before he went to school. And I now understand the thought about it and talked about in therapy and talks about it with a cognitive behavioural therapist. And basically what I was doing is I was responding almost violently to the behaviours that I saw myself that I thought he needed to eliminate. So when he was standing out in the crowd, and just shouting or chatter boxing, or when he was fiddling with things, or when he couldn't sit down, or when he I knew he understood something and he just had no recourse capability to kind of deal with that task. I was being really stern with him and not understanding and even now it's still quite triggering to see him do stuff but a lot of it was I just tried to stop him from having to go through I went through I was trying to help him fit in or I was trying to help him avoid the pitfalls and forgetting things and you know, the struggles that I had so having the diagnosis for both myself and him it's been an absolute gift in that respect. The most profound change has been with my son because it's given me a kind of doorway to understanding of him and him to me and and we are both more relatable characters to one number. Similarly with my life as well you know, there are certain things that you know, people with ADHD can sometimes be less empathetic. I find it very hard to focus on what people are telling them, which is really important when you're married and that undermines your capability to empathise, relate, and if the information is not going how do you change your adaptive behaviour? Or how do you compromise with someone that's really, really difficult with ADHD and with my diagnosis and medication and who is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and support in that area? Yeah, I don't think I'm the perfect husband by any measure. But I'm certainly easier. I mean, how to highlight things like I cannot concentrate, or understanding that you need times in the day to be quiet and recover and giving yourself that makes you more relatable and makes you an easy person to be with. So from a behavioural point of view, my immediate family, I think, really felt the benefit of me getting my diagnosis.

Simon Currigan: 21:20

Most of the people that are listening to this podcast, our teachers or school leaders or counsellors, we will see the impact of ADHD on kids in the classroom says the obvious stuff like finding it difficult to concentrate and moving around the impulsivity. But what kinds of things might we not see that are happening at home about how the child dealing with the pressures at school that you would want teachers to know about?

John Booth: 21:40

My son is almost like a card carrying example for this. At school, my son is always described as like an engaged learner as a supportive class member. Teachers have you know, unprompted, said, I really enjoy teaching him, he's really engaged and has a really positive attitude to learning. Before it's diagnosed, it was his enthusiasm that was coming out, that makes him just great to be part of class, when I asked him or give him something new, he's straight in I want to do what I don't see, the amount of cognitive load that's required to function in a classroom for kids with ADHD cannot be underestimated. The stress, the anxiety, the total focus, just to get through the day. And so when you come home, in your safe space, you're much more emotional, your emotions are less regulated, you're angry and frustrated, because you've been bottling this up all day, you've been struggling all day, if you come home from an activity, we've struggled all day, and then in the morning, let's let's just dust yourself off and go straight back in. And you don't know why everyone else appears to be just, you know, strolling through the day you're fighting. So you don't see the anxiety, you don't see the anger, you don't see the blame. You don't see the sadness that comes with that. I'd say that whatever you're telling kids to do, I believe that they want to do it. It's just their physiology, their psychology, they're just fighting themselves with ADHD, if they're not medicated, or fair, they have an extreme case. And so that's what teachers want to see they want to struggle, they won't see the impact on family members, they won't see the load that those children are carrying.

Simon Currigan: 23:19

What would you say to teachers or other educational professionals who are dubious that ADHD is a real thing, you know, who deep down suspect that the child in their class is just lazy or deliberately pushing boundaries on purpose? What would you say to them?

John Booth: 23:32

I think this is the most important question you asked. This is actually the one I wanted to prepare for the most because I think it's the thing that I'd like to personally say to teachers who have that. First of all, I'd start with I'm not an expert in this area. But as a layman, I'd asked teachers to view ADHD in the same way that they view dyslexia in the outwardly it could be an excuse for you know, for low reading skill, or an excuse for not trying hard with reading. But actually, what dyslexia is what ADHD is, it's a neuro genetic disorder is a scientific term is it's a neuro genetic disorder. Like other neurogenetic disorders, it can have a profound impact on learning behaviour, and emotional behaviours. And kids and people with ADHD, their brains just work differently. their physiology is different. There's active and clear science to point this out. And I think that not understanding ADHD, and not approaching it sympathetically. So even if you're not convinced the science, I would ask them to apply the the empathy that's required for them because people have ADHD, their learning outcomes in our life outcomes are potentially very, very dire. 25% of the prison population could be identified as having a diagnostic criteria for ADHD. American psychologist, Dr. Russell Barkley, and he refers to ADHD as the diabetes of psychiatry in as much that is a chronic disorder, which must be managed every day, it must be managed every day, because it's not the diabetes that kills you. It's the secondary harms it does. So with diabetes, you have a damaged gi side damage to your liver. ADHD has those other impacts. So teachers that don't mean ADHD. First of all, I refer them to the science and say, Please look at the science. If it teaches deep down believe that it's some kind of cover for other things. I asked them to refer to it in terms of how the education profession has looked at dyslexia over time. We refer to it with the same empathy and understanding and know that you'll be on the wrong side of history. If you judge these conditions and make a negative judgement. I think most it's something that are empathetic and great people. But if you're struggling with it, go back to your kind of core principles. have empathy and look at a child that is struggling. And if they have the ADHD diagnosis work with him, because I can tell you now whatever is happening to them in the classroom, and whatever you're doing from the classroom is nothing to what they're going through personally and privately every day.

Simon Currigan: 26:01

So if you're a teacher listening to this podcast, what's the one change or mindset shift that you think could make a big difference to a child with ADHD in their classroom?

John Booth: 26:10

I'll go back to my kind of personal experience, because my son's school has been brilliant. So I think the one thing that worked really, really well for us as parents, and for my son was at the start, and the end of every school year, and in the middle, actually, we'd have a current meeting, which wouldn't be the school report, or his, I think we call them handover meetings, we'd sit down with his new teacher and explain my son has ADHD. And that, you know, these are the things he struggled with in class. These the techniques that worked for him, even developed his own kind of vocabulary around it. So describing these feelings as fizzy gave us him at all on a shared vocabulary with his teacher and understanding that that's what he's going through at the time. So I think from a practical point of view, I think having a close down meeting with parents having a chance to talk about and relate those small things to them, has removed multiple friction points throughout the year that could have otherwise arisen. So it's given them a shared vocabulary. It's given them both understandings of what you know, the boundaries are. So my son knows that he can take breaks but not indiscriminately. So it'd be great if teachers can sit down with parents and children are teaching and talk about the specifics of how their ADHD affects them. And so having discussions around you know, kind of what they find particularly challenging, and developing those kind of communication methods, that mutual understanding, and you know, sharing joint techniques that work both ways. And teachers have come back and told us things are working class as well. So having that meeting, the start, the middle of the year, and the handover between the new teachers and teachers new teacher, have been really, really productive. And I think he's only benefited. Awesome. And I think it'd be really good way for them to be supported, and fast support to mature and change as they change.

Simon Currigan: 28:01

I just like to say thank you for coming on to the podcast, and being so honest about the difficulties that you've faced, and what it feels like in terms of your personal experiences having ADHD. And I'm sure lots of our listeners will find that interesting and useful in the way they manage ADHD and support kids with ADHD in the classroom in the future. Thank you very much.

John Booth: 28:22

Thanks for having me on time, and I really hope I've done the topic justice.

Emma Shackleton: 28:26

That was so fascinating. What I find particularly powerful in that interview was John's description of going on medication. So he said, when I first had medication, and I concentrated for three to four hours, I felt like I was cheating. And the medication unlocked a part of me that I didn't deserve to have access to. And my psychologies told me, that's what normal people think like.

Simon Currigan: 28:51

Powerful stuff. If you suspect a child in your class is showing behaviours that may be consistent with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or another condition. We've got a free download called the SDN handbook that can help. It will help you link behaviours with possible causes like autism attachment or ADHD. This is not about making a diagnosis for our kids because as teachers we're not qualified to do that. But to kick start the process of linking those classroom behaviours with possible causes so we can get the right help and intervene early. It's a free download, go to beaconschoolsupport.co.uk. Click on the free resources tab near the top and then scroll down and you will see the SEN handbook also, we will drop a link in the episode description.

Emma Shackleton: 29:37

And in the next episode, we're going to explore the topic of why some children get angrier than others. Why is it that some children explode at the flick of a switch or go from zero to 100 as some people put it, whilst others have very little problem regulating their emotions at all. So if you're working with kids who have difficulty with strong emotions, make sure you tune in.

Simon Currigan: 30:02

Finally, if you like what you've heard, and you don't want to miss that episode next week, open your podcast app now and press the subscribe button. This will encourage your podcast app to automatically download each and every episode of the school behaviour secrets podcast when it's released, so you never miss a thing.

Emma Shackleton: 30:20

And finally, if you found today's episode helpful, spread the love by leaving us an honest rating and review on Apple podcasts. This really does make a huge difference to us because the more ratings and reviews you give us, the easier you make it for other podcast listeners to find the show and join our family of listeners.

Simon Currigan: 30:40

Thanks for listening to school behaviour secrets. Have a great week and we look forward to talking to you again in the next episode

Emma Shackleton: 30:46

bye bye