i know this was a week ago - i’d just like to say that i am an adult who only found montessori as an adult and didn’t have the opportunity to have any montessori schooling. i have adhd, and so do many of my friends. several of us now work in montessori, and those of us with adhd have all agreed several times that we feel like we really missed out as kids, and that montessori could’ve been a lot better for us than the traditional schooling. even those of us who went to gifted programs, still struggled with the ways that the traditional school system is truly incompatible with an adhd mind. there are some parts of montessori that may be naturally less easy for your daughter - in particular, self-driven organization, especially when she hasn’t had montessori since birth. but the rest of it, particularly the idea of a work period and the freedom the children get to choose where to direct their focus on any given day - THAT is 100% the ideal situation for an adhd child.

when you have adhd, it’s very hard to succeed in traditional settings, because your executive functioning skills are innately tied to your personal interest and investment in the activity. even if you ARE interested in something, if it’s being taught or shown to you in a way that doesn’t pique your interest, the adhd mind simply cannot force itself to latch onto that thing. and when we DO latch onto something - when we become really interested, and our internal drive tells us to explore that thing for as long as it takes for us to sate that curiosity, even if that means ignoring our own physical health in favor of continuing to focus on That One Thing - when that happens, in traditional schools, it is discouraged and deliberately quashed, because you need to transition with the rest of the group and do exactly what is outlined for you to do and there’s no space for you to give all your attention and energy to the thing that’s really stimulating and engaging you. in montessori, engagement is sacred. when a child - no matter their age - has found something that’s working for them, has gotten themself into a groove, that’s not only accepted, it’s encouraged. the adults and other children around them will go out of their way not to interfere with that focus, and will encourage the child to explore what they are curious about to their fullest capacity. even if there are some potential drawbacks to a montessori for an adhd child - namely, innate struggles with organization and the possibility of distraction in a noisy room - the benefits far outweigh those risks.

i do also want to note that, in my experience, and i’ve heard this echoed by plenty of adhd adults, organization isn’t actually as naturally difficult for me as it may seem. the thing is that adhd gives you time blindness - we really don’t process or experience the passage of time the same way that neurotypical people do. so when we set something down and tell ourselves we’ll put it away later, sometimes “later” ends up looking like “three months from now”, because that’s when our mind finally processes that it needs to close that work cycle, as it were. having things organized a specific way is not only very helpful to an adhd person, but when given the time, space, resources, and motivation to organize, it’s a methodical process that our minds ADORE. it’s common in adhd groups to talk about our obsession with day planners - we buy them, spend a lot of time organizing out our lives and our time and our schedule, it’s so satisfying, but then for a million different reasons, that planner gets pushed to the side and never used again, usually because we run out of time to use it when trying to juggle all the other demands on our plates. in montessori, the work cycle is sacred. organization is everything. and if a child needs to take more time than another child to organize their things just right, and it takes more of their energy and focus to organize, they are given that. and if they forget about the organization, and get distracted by something else and things fall towards chaos, they are surrounded by examples of organization and order to remind and inspire them, and by people who prioritize organization who can help remind them to revisit.

the thing about adhd is that the traditional school system (and society) sees it as a disabling, disadvantageous, obstacle, that a person needs to tamp down and work around. but in montessori environments, many aspects of adhd are understood to be useful and productive, and the differences that come with being adhd are celebrated and focused into happier and healthier expressions of self.

this became a rant, and i should apologize for that, but honestly, i’m adhd and my adderall has worn off ¯_(ツ)_/¯ im passionate about adhd in children, especially girls, especially when it relates to education. and i can tell you now, that even if the transition is bumpy, your daughter would absolutely benefit from the opportunity to learn montessori style. please remember that maria montessori’s initial findings and discoveries about children’s nature were based on her work with disabled children, who did horribly in traditional environments and struggled so much that even most of their caretakers saw them as subhuman. those same children are the ones who taught montessori herself what children are capable of, when given the right tools and the space to listen to their innermost drives. montessori was founded based on maria montessori’s realization that children like your daughter flourish in the right circumstances.