Class of '77 Profile: Lauren Chester: coach of a different stripe

By Alejandra Navarro

The confines of first grade, says Lauren Chester, transformed her daughter, Abby, into a rubber band. For Abby, an active child, the structure of the school day was stifling and challenged her abilities to concentrate and control her behavior. "She was stretched so thin just to hold it together," says Chester, "that when she finally got to the comfort and safety of being with me, like a rubber band, she snapped." And with that snap came an explosion of emotions.

Chester soon learned that her daughter had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is characterized by inattentive, restless behavior. "She was a very bright girl who could not focus for any length of time," says Chester. In the late 1980s, before the diagnosis became a common headline, Chester didn't know much about the disorder that made her daughter's - and later her son, Nat's - schooling so daunting. What she learned in workshops, with counselors, and at home working with her children, eventually equipped her with the expertise to begin a second career as an academic coach for ADHD students.

"I had learned so much - I had lived it," says Chester. "It dawned on me that if other parents were struggling as we were, I could do something to help them." She now runs Get It Done from her Alexandria, Va., home, providing ADHD students with the organizational tools to succeed in school.

Chester, who received a degree in sociology from Fairfield and a master's in demography from Georgetown, quit her job as a researcher of international health issues for the World Bank to focus on her children. Desperate for information, Chester attended numerous conferences and workshops to learn everything she could about the disorder. When Chester reached the point that she knew most of what she was hearing, she pursued advanced coaching education at Vermont's Landmark College Institute for Research and Training, which offers focused training for teachers of students with learning disabilities or ADHD. She also joined the American Coaching Association in Pennsylvania.

Currently, Chester coaches 18 students from grades 3-12 on organizational issues, time management, study skills, and test taking preparation. People who have ADHD have a very poor sense of time and thus tend to be disorganized, Chester explains. ADHD students often lose things or leave materials at school that they need for homework. Chester helps her students keep things - particularly paper from school - in order. Chester's daughter would often say, "It feels like a maze inside my head when I'm trying to do my homework." Today, Abby is in her first year of college and Nat is flourishing in high school - successes that were influenced by the advocacy and support of Chester and her husband, Geoff.

Chester also advocates for her clients, attending school meetings to help parents and school officials decide the best course of action for the child. Parents, as Chester knows from experience, must ask for - and often demand - the accommodations their ADHD children need and have a right to have.

Chester's workspace is filled with fun, fidgety gadgets for children and young adults. It's a place where students are encouraged to laugh and take a break to fidget when they need one. She's not opposed to wearing goofy hats and silly earrings to make students feel at ease. "These children struggle in the confines of a traditional school," she says. So while she works to stretch their abilities, Chester also makes sure that none of her students go home feeling like a rubber band ready to snap.