Executive dysfunction?

I’m just a parent, but I believe this is the same as what is called “motor planning” and dyspraxia. I have a gifted LD daughter who has received private OT services. Her improvement has been tremendous, but she’s still slow in completing assignments on time. She also has other LDs in conjunction with the motor planning.

Executive function refers to the ability to plan, regulate yourself etc. It maybe related to ADHD. Other parents have posted links about this on the parenting board.

I have found some great articles on executive dysfunction at http://www.tourettesyndrome.net/. Do a search using the term “executive dysfunction” when you log on to their site.

I recognized my son when I read the article “Lazy Kid or Executive Dysfunction”.

Let’s see, about all of the middle school boys seem to share this affliction and I haven’t seen much improvement in high school boys. Please don’t look for another reason. You have to expect him to do the work and you have to tell him that if he doesn’t, what his consequenses will be. Out of a class of academic 30 11th high school students in my English class, at least 15 never study and come to class with homework. It is a real middle and high school problem. I think that the kids just get so tired of doing so much busy homework in elementary school that they are burnt out when they reach high school. Again, please don’t look for a label, just let him know what you expect and stick to it. Also, make sure the responsibility is on him doing the homework, not you. Don’t let it become a battle every night. Tough love works wonders in these situations, but you have to stick to your guns and not give up to him.

“I think that the kids just get so tired of doing so much busy homework in elementary school that they are burnt out when they reach high school.”

I’m hardpressed to understand what you’re saying here. You believe the problem to be in the system itself - that students are ‘burned out’ by the time they come to you in Middle and High school? It’s an interesting point and one worthy of thought.

But then why ask parents to address it through consequences for their child when it’s a problem in the system of school? Why not fix the problem in the system?

What you’re saying is that school, as currently done, is flawed then but you look to parents to force children to perform in a flawed system. If the system is flawed, work to fix it. School is supposed to serve the best needs of children and their learning. It’s not supposed to limp along and have its teachers accept its problems and encourage parents to accept its problems as well. We are supposed to fix those problems where they exist.

Are you a teacher as am I? Your advice to this parent strikes me as unconscionable. I admire your honesty in pointing out a problem in the system but am confused as to why you would encourage a caring parent to conform to a flawed system and and encourage a parent to punish their child for the problems of the system.

All Shay is saying is that lack of motivation is a relatively normal state of affairs for many teenage boys and because it is so prevalent among boys it isn’t necessarily valid to look for an LD as the cause.

As a mother of an undermotivated teenaged GT son, I’m more inclined to view my child’s lack of motivation as being caused by seeing the world only in the present moment (unmotivated by future-directed goals) and defining his independence by testing boundaries and testing authority. Can’t say I like it much, though! Ours is testing the boundaries so much that we are going to have to set some consequences.

Our whole system of schooling children is a well-defined “box” that is really a pretty rigid set of rules about when and what children will learn and how they should behave in the process. As adults, we have all bought into the concept of this box and hope our children will stay within the defined constraints of the box until they graduate. Some kids find motivation from their own accomplishments and flourish within the box. Others are just frustrated by the constraints of the box.

I am just saying that I think that the homework system is a problem, there are books written about it. It may be unfair, but you still as a parent have to work, within the system, and try to get your child to do the homework. There are a lot of unfair things in the world but until they are changed, you have to deal with them. I personally work in a school in which almost every student works, and way beyond the legal limit of hours. They are working to help their family survive. In this situation, I don’t give homework. Why should I persecute a student because he has to help keep the family afloat. I also have another reason that I don’t give homework and this is because I am trying to break bad reading and writing habits and I don’t want them to continue to do those habits at home. At the end of the year, I do give an assignment for a 3-5 research paper in which most will be done at home, study hall or basic skills class.

I’m not a homework teacher either and I would agree that homework can be more harmful than helpful.

What you say in this post makes much more sense than your other. I agree that parents serve their children well if they try to have them do their homework but, rather than consequences, I’d suggest the parent offer the good reasons you offered me.

“There are a lot of unfair things in the world but until they are changed, you have to deal with them.”

That is sadly true and would strike an empathetic note with a child struggling with their homework.

Our whole system of schooling children is a well-defined “box” that is really a pretty rigid set of rules about when and what children will learn and how they should behave in the process.

I’ve never heard it put so well before. If though the ‘box’ causes a lack of motivation, shouldn’t then the box be redesigned for those students? If the process of schooling causes frustration, isn’t that counterproductive to learning?

If a lack of motivation is a normal state for middle schoolers, perhaps we need to rethink middle school.

As for the box thing. It is a shame that while most successful adults are rewarded for thinking/working ‘outside the box’, our kids are punished for the same tendencies that could instead be harnessed for their success.

My husband is adhd and he never accepts that “that’s how it’s always been done”, he comes up with stuff all the time for work. Amazing when you consider he is working in a large tradition oriented place as the military. Of course the downside of that is that it feeds into his workaholic tendencies. No such thing as overtime, you work til the job is done.

I agree something needs to be done so that our learning different kids will be seen as ‘kids who learn on the spectrum’. My best guess is that this would have to originate in teacher and ed. admin. programs in college. Get rid of the mindset that the ld and adhd kids are just ‘lazy’ or that these issues don’t exist. Go into education with the mindset that all kids can learn, just not all in the same way at the same time.

It amazes me that kids are expected to be all the same when we know that all people are individuals with different strengths and weaknesses. Sort of the idea that kids aren’t people until they finish school.