Getting children with an attention disorder to school on time: Mother's perspectives

Dr Myra Taylor, Prof Stephen Houghton and Prof Kevin Durkin

This article details the school-readying routines Western Australian mothers employ in their efforts to dispatch their child diagnosed with ADHD 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 move through four distinct processes. Initially, mothers reveal their experiences of dealing with the chaos that arises out of their child’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 child’s idiosyncratic concept of time and analyse the mismatch between their and their child’s attitude towards time management. The article concludes by detailing strategies mothers put in place to both instill an awareness of time in their child and to establish a workable school readying routine.