Johny, 7th grade

Johny is 13-year-old boy who is in the 7th grade of his local elementary school. Due to his ADHD,
he was enrolled into „special education class“ in other school that focused on pupils with ADHD
from grades 1-5. After he joined regular class from the 6th grade at his local elementary school.

Johnys school achievement was very good, he was one of the brightest pupils in his class. Although
at the end of the 5^th grade he had to withdrawn from his ADHD medication due to unpleasant side
effects and since then he has hard time remembering things, finishing his schoolwork, and
controlling his emotions. He grades worsened by 2-3 levels in one term. Due to this, Johny started
to feel very frustrated and slowly lost started to lose his motivation. He was even caught skipping
school multiple time.

Johny also forgets his books and materials, is late for school (misses the buss) and forgets about
tests. After negative feedback (about his grades or forgetting materials) Johny gets very
disappointed with himself and angry. He usually starts to cry or scream, throw things around, or
run from class. After few minutes he is usually able to calm himself down with the help of a
teacher’s assistant and continues his class. The same scenario happens when he is asked to work on
his assignment. At first, he gets very stressed out and angry, he has outburst, and after calming
down he is usually able to do his assignment and even finish it well done. He usually does not have
problems with schoolwork itself but has problems finishing it off and does not believe in himself.
Even though Johny adapted very well into new classroom and had many friends at the start, because
of his attitude, some of the classmates started to make fun of him and try to exclude him the
group.

Johny was diagnosed in school counselling centre and should be supported by support measures at
school. He was provided with teacher’s assistant, but besides that school did not provide any other
support and expect parents to “figure the situation out”. Parents were even called in multiple
times (based on teachers’ complaints or other parents’ complaints) and were given ultimatum to
enrol Johny into educational care centre or they will call social services. Parents are aware of
the problems of their son and are trying to support him, but they do not really know how. They also
find the situation quite stressful and overwhelming. Finally, they agreed to enrol Johny first into
boarding program for 8 weeks. Johny also agreed to being part of the program.