Published on 18th of November, 2024
The preschooler who won’t sit still at mat time, the school child struggling to learn to read who gets frustrated and ‘acts out’, the teenager who fidgets and can’t focus: all of these behaviours might once have been characterised as ‘naughty’ and ‘rebellious.’
For many children, this behaviour meant getting offside with teachers and dropping out of school early, the negative consequences of which could last a lifetime.
These days, there is a better understanding of how behaviours like this might be the result of neurodiversity – a brain that’s wired differently from the norm. Neurodiversity is an umbrella term encompassing a range of differences in brain function among individuals. Neurodiversity encompasses autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia (which affects the ability to read) and dyspraxia (which affects movement and co-ordination).
With good understanding and diagnosis, and with appropriate supports, parents and teachers can help these young ones to learn and to thrive.
All of the Mission’s teams who work with tamariki (children) and rangatahi (young people) are alert to neurodiversity among those with whom they work.
Our Social Services team has expertise in offering home-based parent education about ADHD. This involves helping parents of neurodiverse children to understand that their child’s brain function differs from that of more neurotypical children. Perhaps their child is quick to experience sensory overload, when sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touch can be overwhelming and lead to behaviours that parents can find challenging to address.
The team helps parents to respond in affirming ways to calm the child and manage the overload. Team lead, Kallysa Hollis says, “It’s about responding to children in a relational way, understanding what is behind the behaviour. We support parents to learn new skills about relating to their child and work with them to identify what extra support they might need.” Sometimes this experience leads to the parent realising that they too are neurodiverse. This realisation has been life changing for some individuals, and transformative for their parenting.
Aratupu Preschool & Whānau Hub kaiako have also developed ways to work with neurodiverse toddlers, helping them and their whānau to manage emotions that sometimes get very big and to handle sensory overload. Calming moments through the day are an important part of this. For example, Aratupu’s weekly waiata sessions have seen toddlers who usually wouldn’t sit still for mat time, joining in to sing with their friends and whānau.
Meanwhile, the Child Wellbeing team has been thinking about neurodiversity in the context of their Wise-Up programme, one of CMM’s most popular group programmes. Wise-Up helps 8- to 10-year-olds who have low to mid-level anxiety, or who struggle with difficult emotions.
The team is now looking to build on this success with an additional programme which will be more suited to neurodiverse children. For these young ones, who may have trouble focusing or sitting down to write in a workbook, the new programme will offer more activities and movement focused content and will pay close attention to emotional regulation – helping young people manage when their emotions become overwhelming. The new programme will be piloted in Terms 1 and 2 of 2025 and peer reviewed before it is rolled out.
New programmes require resources and are costly to develop. You can help us to create tailored workshops to help neurodivergent children feel accepted, valued and understood by giving a gift today.
To help, select Group Programmes from the list at www.mmsi.org.nz/donate
