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June 9, 2026 13 mins

A psychiatrist has further explained the differences with those diagnosed with ADHD and the slight tweaks that could be implemented at the school level to help with their development - but we put it to you: suggest ideas to feature at schools that would assist those with ADHD and allow them to channel their focus...

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Robert's Entertainment is.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's Robin, Kip and Koryo. It's on demand the podcast.
So we started talking about this on the air today
and got so many calls about it. We figured we
needed to.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Divert it to the podcast that people had a bit
more time to tell their story. So if you missed it,
there's a psychiatrist by the name of doctor Johnny Gonzales
who he just came up on my feed and it
really sparked my mind to go, well, what happens to kids?

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Haven't listen.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
I'm a psychiatrist. If my kids had ADHD, here's a
career advice I would give them.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
And it's not what you think.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
ADHD is not a focused problem. It's an engagement problem.
Huge difference. Some of the most successful people that I
know have ADHD. They're laying of work, tech, sales, real estate, medicine,
and they all figured out the same secret, the secret
tap into the chase. Once you're engaged, the hunters aren't
don't stop until the job gets done. You need jobs
that are high urgency, high novelty. No two days are

(01:01):
the same. Warning though. The trap the administrative work, organizing paperwork.
That's where ADHD careers go to die. Medications can help,
but ADHD is less of a disorder and more of
a mismatch with the environment. Fix the environment.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Fix the environment.

Speaker 5 (01:16):
Yeah, yeah, so that's what we wanted to do. We
wanted to go.

Speaker 6 (01:18):
Okay, if with all the experience we have in Brisbane
of people dealing with kids with ADHD, if we could
fix the environment, if we could create a school that
these kids really flourished in.

Speaker 5 (01:29):
What would it look like?

Speaker 6 (01:30):
Cassandra out of Hexlee tell us what would an ADHD.

Speaker 5 (01:35):
School look like?

Speaker 7 (01:37):
It's actually my daughter who would like to share it
with you one moment.

Speaker 6 (01:40):
Okay, okay, Hi.

Speaker 7 (01:44):
I have an idea for your I'm the perfect school
for i'm ADHD kids.

Speaker 5 (01:49):
Okay, what's your name first? And how old are you?

Speaker 7 (01:52):
Charlotte? And I'm ten years old?

Speaker 5 (01:56):
Great Charlotte, tell us your idea?

Speaker 7 (01:58):
Well, I do like we have like we should have
hammocks hanging from the roof and we can swing back
and forth on them and we can on the regulate
ourselves and like peanut bulls, then we can roll back
and forth dictating and like you can get like how

(02:19):
flush your brain works? Like down on the paper before
you forget it. I do that for one of my
assessments once.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
So hammocks hammocks, So you can sit in the hammocks
swing around a bit while you're listening. And then and
and peanut balls was the other idea. So what so
you can roll stuff on like just use your hands.

Speaker 5 (02:36):
Okay, it sounds like great.

Speaker 8 (02:39):
Your brain while you're actually trying to think of the answer.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Is that right?

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 8 (02:45):
Charlotte's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 5 (02:48):
Emma ad A Hammett. What's your idea?

Speaker 9 (02:53):
A forest school? Yeah, well, yeah, taken to a forest. No,
the best place for eighty HAHD kids is in the outdoors.
You can learn so many things of the outdoors. I'm
a teacher of many years and I myself have recently
been diagnosed, and my two teenage girls have been diagnosed.

(03:14):
They were diagnosed a bit earlier. My eldest was EIGHTYHD hyperactive,
and my witch she's four chairs and all thoughts, and
my youngest is inattentive, so she's a bit off with.

Speaker 5 (03:28):
The fairy song.

Speaker 9 (03:31):
I have a classroom where most of the kids in
my class are diagnosed, so out of eighteen, I have
a good. Ten to twelve of them that are either
diagnosed or going through diagnosis.

Speaker 6 (03:42):
Out of eighteen kids, you have twelve. Yeah, wow, yeah,
so you know, you know what you need to do.

Speaker 9 (03:51):
It's bonkers.

Speaker 7 (03:52):
I bet it's great.

Speaker 9 (03:53):
It's great. No, no, no, yeah. We built a couple
of them. Decided they wanted to build this cubby out
of lots of boxes. Unfortunately, it became a bit of
a fire hazard, so we had to move it out.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I started putting up second and third stories.

Speaker 9 (04:12):
We're going to get into trouble for this, but.

Speaker 6 (04:14):
Emma, can you teach like maths while you're building a
box car?

Speaker 9 (04:19):
Absolutely? They have to know that the strongest structure is
a triangle, you know shape, so you're working from that,
and you know English, there's so many things. They were
decorating their boxes with words and you know, keep out
and you know what the box is for, and there's sentences,
there's language, there's communication, there's Yeah. I had one little

(04:40):
girl who just enjoyed sewing, so she was so little.
Little people while she was sitting there, amazing, like it's
ingenious on how the ADHD brain and multitask at once.
Apparently just he can't sit still and there's you know,

(05:01):
it's not his fault at all, and he just walks
around the classroom, but he'll chime in every.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Show of.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Being embraced, embracing.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
We have a beautiful.

Speaker 9 (05:13):
School that embraces it. So we have a little room
called the Star Room. It's similar to the previous caller.
And yeah, kids that need a break, they will just
go down there and do something intensive. And lunchtimes can
be a bit overwhelming if their engines are running too high,
if they're having social issues. But yeah, I think you know,
teaches out their desperate like me to change the system

(05:37):
because it's a system that makes them fit and listen
and follow, and it's such a it's such an ingrained system.
But if we can kind of move the system a
little bit to go to write, these kids are brilliant.

Speaker 5 (05:50):
Where is this magical school, Emma? Can you tell us?

Speaker 9 (05:54):
I can. It's Saint Jocom's at Holland Park School I currently,
but I've worked in lots of schools and they're in
the UK where I spent a bit of time working.
They have forest schools, so lots of the little ones
get to stay outside in the environment to learn before
they move into the classroom, which is.

Speaker 6 (06:17):
Yes, Steina does that a lot too, Stina. And and
what's the other one. There's one at Victory Pocket. They
also do at the outdoor teaching.

Speaker 5 (06:25):
But thank you so much, thank you Linda at Lake.

Speaker 8 (06:31):
What's your what's your ideas for you know, the perfect
Hasty schools. Well, there is a school in Brisbane called
Mastery Schools Australia and my my daughter goes there at
the moment and it's an absolute godsend. So what they
do their their their teaching method is direct instruction, so

(06:56):
and that's they've developed. So yeah, a lot of research
has gone into this, and so it's four kids with ADHD,
but also kids who have kind of fallen through the
cracks of mainstream schooling and this school catches them and
tests them and then breaks them up into puts them

(07:17):
into little mini groups and raises meet somewhere they're at
and then raises their their skills from there. So it's
it's absolutely amazing. So it's a direct instruction with the
star method. So they all have to sit, talk, track,
answer together and then show respect and they all so
they all constantly engage in their learning. And I have

(07:38):
ADHD and I have actually done. I went to teach
the parent evening and I was blown away because I
thought if I was taught in that way when you know,
as a child was ADHD, I could have had a
bloody PhD.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
Yes, well right that.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
It's starting to happen though, isn't it that we're starting
to embrace it and find a way to turn it
into a superpower rather than this, you know, something that's
being ostracized.

Speaker 8 (08:06):
Yeah, that's right. And as a president of ADHD and
the two kids, everyone, you actually do you think stupid?

Speaker 5 (08:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (08:18):
Yeah, do you know you've all got to superpower?

Speaker 5 (08:21):
Thanks Linda Jordy out of an Allah.

Speaker 8 (08:23):
Hi, Hey, how are you good?

Speaker 5 (08:27):
Your fourteen year old daughter? What happened?

Speaker 3 (08:29):
She's actually been diagnosed with ADHD. And I can say that.
A school in the south side of Brisbane, Senior Campus
at Akasha Ridge, The White School.

Speaker 9 (08:43):
Why is it?

Speaker 3 (08:44):
The letter the letter?

Speaker 9 (08:45):
Why?

Speaker 3 (08:45):
What?

Speaker 7 (08:46):
Yep?

Speaker 3 (08:46):
The letter? Why? It used to be the They used
to have a different name, but they've changed it. There's
now called just the White School. Okay. They're really good.
They deal with a lot of kids with ADHD, autism,
things like that, and they have special programs to help
them cope. They have the four teachers in the classroom

(09:09):
that if any kids you get a little bit out
of hand or just something bothering them, they can take
them out, sit them down, talk to them, find out
what to do to be able to help them out
to get through it and be able to go back
into class so they're not disrupting the whole class. They
do a lot of different programs where my daughter's actually
graduating a host therapy program today. Wow. And I would

(09:36):
literally turn around and say Junior Campus at Akasha Ridge
and Senior Campus to Parkinson that the best teachers and
stuff you can get. You know, they still have that
there's no uniform, but they have big policies on what's
appropriate to wear. They do have guidelines to follow, but
they have a lot of support programs. They even bring

(09:58):
in headspace to help him out a lot.

Speaker 6 (10:02):
Yeah, great, thank you, that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
Anyone that needs to just look it up White School
and if they do, mention that they heard it on
ninety seven three, that I've mentioned the school and that
the staff there will look after them very well.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Okay, okay, thanks, no.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Worries to have a good day and go ninety seven three.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
Tanya out of Scarborough.

Speaker 6 (10:31):
What would you like to say about the perfect school
for kids with ADHD?

Speaker 10 (10:36):
Hi, Robin Hi Everyone. I have a child that has
high level autism with an intellectual disability and he attends
a special school on the north side of Brisbane. A
lot of children actually will initially attend a special school
with an ADHD diagnos It's usually coupled with a few
other feats. The unfortunate part is that the interior for

(11:01):
a special school, which is a wonderful environment, to allow
smaller classes five to seven children that very focused support,
they don't have the capacity to meet all of the
children that, as we know, have ADHD or some other
intellectual disability.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
As in varying levels.

Speaker 10 (11:24):
You mean, that's correct. So my son is high level autism,
he's in the two percent competency, which means that he's
not able to attend a mainstream school. Can I just
say that this is not a choice you would make
for your child, and a lot of people when they
are forced to be move out into that mainstream schooling

(11:44):
is that it's terrifying because the safety of a special
school is very is different and you feel a bit
more comfortable, and then they're going out into this world
where they're not understood and ADHD in particular, as you
would no, Corey operates at a different frequency. So when

(12:05):
you watch these families have to leave the special school environment,
which is not a choice you would make. I can
tell you that personally, it's heartbreaking. However, when they go
to the mainstream schools, some of them have special needs
departments head of special education services within those schools. But

(12:25):
again you're dealing with twenty seven to thirty kids where
there used to be one to two children that may
have ADHD, and now they have between five and seven.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, yeah, and there so.

Speaker 10 (12:37):
There's no easy fix. I think there definitely needs to
be something in between special school and mainstream school for sure,
and give these families an opportunity, because when your child
has a disability, the whole family is disadvantage. Of course,
of course, financially, yeah, everything. So I just wanted to

(12:59):
share from a different perspective that disabilities are all different.
But I feel there is a place we just have
to find it.

Speaker 5 (13:07):
Thank you so much, Thanks guys, Bye bye.
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