My 8 year-old son is having severe attention problems!

Well, no guarantees, no promises, but worth a shot: try the opposite tack. Instead of punishing him, support him. This does NOT mean doing work for him or denying the problem or any of those pitfalls — do be careful of those. But try to look at things from his point of view. Find out what is missing, what is going wrong, and give him some backup where needed.

I speak as a parent of a rather difficult child, lovable and bright but doesn’t fit in pigeonholes.

Don’t fill his room up with games and electronics — they are very distracting and time-absorbing; but you can let him have a few things to play with when he wants to be by himself for a while.

One of the other posters here made a great point recently — the difference between responsibility and compliance. Responsibility is when you yourself choose to do something and you take it upon yourself to carry it through, anything from showing up at a job to paying the car payments to parenting. Compliance is when someone else sets plans and goals without your having any input, and then they force you to do their bidding. Schools want compliance and they sugar-coat it by falsely calling it responsibility.

The question is why he isn’t complying — what parts is he *refusing* to do, and what parts is he *unable* to do? This is often very hard to tease out. He may be very obstructive about something, and after much fighting and confusion you discover he is misunderstanding the basics and is very frustrated. Another time he may claim to be unable to do something just to get out of tedium. This takes some work, time, and parental intuition to deal with.

Helping him be more able:
Make sure he is gettiing enough sleep (one reason *not* to fill the room with electronics, which are often too stimulating before bed.) If he is like my daughter who inherits my night-owl metabolism, consider cutting your morning rituals to the absolute minimum, often less than you think is minimum (she hasn’t eaten breakfast since she started school — eating a heavy meal before 10AM upsets her stomach.) Then let him sleep in to the last minute. Obviously if you do this, help him get everything prepared the night before.
Take a second look at his diet and make sure he is getting enough healthy food. You don’t have to go to extremes like cutting out all sugar, but try for a balance. We have allergies so that’s always something I look for too. Try a children’s vitamin supplement.
Get him doing active outdoor sports after school and on the weekend. If it cuts into all the busywork he’s supposed to do for school, so what? It’s not as if the present system is succeeding so well, is it?
Once he feels healthier and happier and more rested and more centered in his body, there will be some energy left for concentration. Also, if he is like my daughter, wearing out some of the physical energy makes it easier to sit still.

Helping him be more cooperative/less frustrated:
**Let him know that you are on his side.** You want him to be happy, and you want him to succeed because failure is not happy. So you are going to work *with* him to try to get him back into success.
— Is he having a personal conflict with his teacher? Can you help him figure out what he is doing that upsets her, and get him to understand that if *he* changes inappropriate behaviours, then she will get off his case? Grade 2 is awfully young, and a lot of kids (and for that matter adults) just decide the teacher hates them without wondering about the other side of the story.
— Talk to the teacher, find out what the child has to change, and also see if there is anything the teacher could change. Is the class noisy or full of motion so a distractible kid doesn’t have a hope? Could he sit in a quieter location? Can he take work home to finish if he gets too distracted in class?
— sounds dumb but it’s ruined many school careers including a relative’s — is he in class with a friend who is a distraction, who eggs him on to troublemaking? Sometimes changing seats can help, sometimes a whole new class.
— physical issues — heat, light (very important for reading), etc. Teachers sometimes make weird decisions about room arrangements and don’t realize that a kid may be in shadow or craning his neck to see the front.
— Make some arrangement that *all* of his work assignments come home in his backpack, and you go over them with him, not to correct and not to do the work for him, but to make sure everything is complete and done the way it is supposed to be. He’s only in Grade 2 for Heaven’s sake — it is OK, in fact part of your job as a parent, to organize *for* him.
— This may seem silly to you, but can he really read? A lot of gifted kids who get “whole-language” or other memorization systems inflicted on them find coping mechanisms to fake it. The most advanced case of this I worked with finished Grade 3 with marks of B and entered Grade 4 with a pre-primer, less than fifty word reading vocabulary — of course he was highly gifted with an adult vocabulary and great logic skills, which helped him even if he couldn’t read a word. Have your son sit down and read *aloud* to you, cold, no preparation, from a book used in his class, but a topic they have *not* reached yet. If he stumbles and stutters all over, or point-blank refuses to do it, you have put your finger on the problem, and you need simply to teach him an effective reading method.
— Same thing twice over for writing. Has his school ever actually taught writing, or have they just left kids to re-invent the wheel as many do? Does he hunch over his desk forcing his entire weight through the pencil — which is naturally exhausting and no wonder work is unfinished. Does he form letters every which way and have to re-think every letter he writes? Also exhausting. If this is the case, he just needs to be taught effective writing methods. I will gladly send you my own notes, and there’s lots of other discussion of writing on this site.
— and again the same thing for spelling. He’s at the level where standard spelling is starting to be expected, and where the dreaded (and proven useless) spelling lists and concomitant threats come into play. Has he been taught to sound out words and to use the phonetic system for spelling, or is it a memorize-and-threaten approach? Again if this is the hassle, well, just teach an effective approach for spelling.
— and the biggie for school frustration, math. Has he fallen behind on things like memorizing tables? Does he understand the basic concepts he’s supposed to be learning, or is he lost in a swamp? Does he feel pressured to fill out worksheets that he doesn’t understand? You can re-teach the foundation skills that he has missed or that the teacher has rushed over too fast.

—finally, is the gifted program a good fit for him? Some G&T programs are great, and others are pressure-cookers. Of course you wnat him to get the best but what is the best is not always an easy question.

Good luck and feel free to talk to me any time.

Dear Lost parent,
I have a similar child who is also LD. He has mild tics and we are considering straterra, so my first question is if you had any tic related problems with that medication. (I’m sorry it didn’t work for you.)

You also mention the whole gifted topic. My LD son is also gifted and I’m wondering if part of his inattention is boredom with the repetitive nature of the teaching which is really effective for remediating his reading issues. Kind of a catch 22, and I wonder if he would benefit from a gifted/ld program - if such a things exists.

has your child been evaluated for learning related issues?

I don’t think I can really add to what Victoria and Karen have already mentioned. My dd was a lot like this also. Behavior modification was not helpful. I’m wondering if the behavior mod extends to school? And what the focus is of the behavior mod. Is he being rewarded along with the consequence of loosing possesions? I know that when we changed our focus and began to look at our job as to help our dd build successes and strageties, things did change for her, even before medication. But it wasn’t on one end, it was a combined effort with me and the teacher. I would have to ask the teacher how dropping him from the gifted program is going to address theses issues. If he is zoning out and loosing track of the teachers lectures and discussions- what about the teacher moving about and placing a hand on his shoulder, or checking in with him with a question like “are you with me everyone, Joe, how about you?” I know, from experience, a child that feels helpless, like they can not control or fix a problem, they will indeed give up. I also know that sometimes, even as an adult, when I am feeling helpless or hopeless, I can accomplish much more if I have the confidence and a little guidance from someone else. He may still need limits and consequences, like no tv or games until homework is handed in and checked by mom or dad. But I can tell you, when we stripped my dd of all her toys and fun, all I did was to strip her of what was important to her, and I stripped away something else, although I don’t have a word for it, but the result was that she didn’t care, about much at all, and especially herself. I just kept tightening my grip, and she kept loosing her will. When we (and I mean me, my husband, and her teacher) took the position of how can we help you, things began to change. Good luck

Thanks to all of you for such indepth and wonderful comments. All questions/ideas are welcome. I’ll give you a little more info so that you can see where we’ve been and where we are heading.

We lived in another school district until the middle of 1st grade. He was having an excellent time and his reading skills were soaring. His teacher was tough but kind. He did have problems focusing and paying attention but he seemed to keep it together.

When we moved to the new school district - he was immediately labeled as an average student due to their distain for the the old school district. I had to have a little “chat” with the counselor regarding their smug attitude. Sure enough, they tested him and he was actually ahead of the top 1st grade class’s curriculum. The teacher was horrible. I have several friends that are elementary school teachers and they were very upset with her behavior. The first week he attended the school, the teacher sat him in front of all the other students and timed his reading. He became very upset and scared so he didn’t finish the reading in time. (Remember, this is first grade!). It took us months to get him to start reading again. I was furious but the ISD thought the “timed reading” pilot program was a step ahead of all other ISDs. I explained that there are repercussions to timing beginning readers and they laughed at me.

This school is well known for their attitude of superiority - even among their own ISD. This year they again placed him in the gifted/talented program because he did score in the gifted range on all but one test (a verbal questions test). Withing a few weeks, I received a call from the GT teacher regarding my son’s handwriting and inability to sit in his chair correctly. They had sent him to the principal for these reasons!!! I too had to have a talk with the Principal and teacher. I provided them with ADD information and explained that poor handwriting was not unusual for an ADD child. I had to remind them that he is also left-handed and he sits on his legs to make writing easier. This was not acceptable. I explained that I was disappointed in their program and would take it the the superintendent if it progressed further.

Since then, the teacher and I have learned to work together and have developed a good relationship. Each day I write a little note to him reminding him of the little things he needs to do and telling him how proud we are of him. We also have a code word that means “We love you.” The teacher also started writing notes when he did his work well. She has learned to tap him quietly on the shoulder to redirect him. It all worked well for about two months and then BAM!!! It was worse than ever.

He has been moved away from a particular student (bully) as both the teacher and I felt there were some issues there (he threw a chair at my son during the afterschool program). He also has a privacy board that he can put up to keep from being distracted (all the students have them). We have tested his reading comprehension and he is reading at a fourth grade level with complete understanding. He is able to spell new words with ease. He is a math wiz and loves to do math problems (especially in the car).

He had straight A’s and now they have dropped dramatically. He just doesn’t WANT to do the work. “It’s boring”. He has started making sloppy/silly mistakes and forgets to put his name on the papers. I don’t know what to do. I hope this LONG message will help provide more information as your feedback has been so great!!!! I’m late for an appt so I’ll check back later.

Oh - we did leave books, math puzzles, puzzles, etc in his room. Just took away the cars/playsets/electronics.

THANK YOU!

I’m wondering what your son has to say about this all? Is it simply that the work is too easy? Is he only doing poorly, grade wise, due to incomplete assignments but still doing well on tests? When he does do the work is it correct? Is he understanding the concepts? Have they tried challenging him a bit more? Maybe it is just getting too easy and he simply doesn’t want to be bothered. That said, it still doesn’t mean that you have to accept his behavior. Easy or not, bored or not, his job is that of the student and he needs to be turning in homework with his name on the page. Is there someone else that could sit down and talk with him to determine if this is a little case of oppositional or defiant behavior or if there are challenges that he is trying to hide from by not doing the work? Beyond that, I’m at a loss. It just seems like a red flag is waiving when there have been no real problems like this until now.
You mentioned in your original post that your son can’t take meds due to tic’s. Did he get them while taking stims or does he already have a tic disorder that has eliminating the possibility of meds? Either way, I use to spend a lot of time on AOL’s ADHD boards, which are very active, and there was more than one parent that had their child on stims in the presence of a tic disorder. There has been some research, or observations, that suggests that stims can be given safely with tics, and that the tics can actually improve. I’d probably want to see a pediatric neurologist though to determine the possibility of stim use if it’s ever an option for you in the future. Just a thought, something to maybe keep in the back of your mind.

Not every child, ADD or not, is ready to work independently in the second grade. Your son likely because of his mild ADd coupled with his young age doesn’t seem ready or able to work independently. In which case, it doesn’t matter how much time he’s given or how many toys are taken away.

What he needs to be given is structure - not independence. Someone needs to sit down with him one on one and stay with him while he works. He needs to be helped - not with grasp of concepts - but with staying on task until it’s finished. He can be encouraged while working and tasks are often easier to complete when we have company or a coach at our side.

As it doesn’t sound if his his teacher understands that simple truth, the people sitting down with him will likely have to be you or someone you hire. I had to do the same for my own son. And to this day, I do dishes much faster if I have a little company around me.

Your son is 7 or 8 years old. Just because he can’t complete tasks in isolation doesn’t mean he isn’t worthy of trust or his toys. Schools make too much of homework these days and too little of the fact that your son grasps the concepts. If they fail him because of the homework alone, that suggests the school does not value his good grasp of concepts at all. Schools would do better to have a separate column for homework grades and another altogether that shows a grade for the child’s grasp of the concepts - small wonder your son is becoming angry and frustrated. He deserves all As for his grasp of concept but the school only focused on what he’s not getting done - not on what he is successfully learning.

Good luck.

I have enjoyed reading all of your responses. They have helped me to view the issue in a different light.

Today my son brought home the papers he didn’t complete. He was so upset. We went through them together to find out where he was having trouble. I found several concerns:

1. My son doesn’t take the time to read a story before answering the questions. He guesses! What’s even worse is that the story is printed on the top of the paper!!!! He just skips it and goes straight for the questions.

So, I had him read some new books outloud. No problem with reading new words/concepts. Then I asked him questions and he could answer them without looking at the book. This leads me to believe that he is rushing and trying to finish his work with as little effort as possible. Taking shortcuts.

We have discussed re-reading questions and double-checking answers on many occassions. He agrees to try but never follows through.

2. His math work is excellent but he has lost several papers. He can’t tell us what happened to them. They should have been in his desk. The teacher reminds him to sign his name and place the paper in his notebook each time she passes work out. No go on that either.

3. He does not read all the instructions or all of the question. He just reads the first part of the question and assumes he knows what it is asking. His answers were right for the first part of a question but wrong when taking all of a question into account. Again, in a hurry and trying to shortcut everything.

4. He has been told on numerous ocassions to print. Whenever the teacher is out - he uses cursive. Of course, he has to re-do the work and take points off for being late. He just love writing in cursive.

5. His printing is very light and anything that has been erased bleeds through the new answers. I’m not sure how to teach him to write more effectively. (This is in-line with a prior response regarding correct writing and posture.)

My son is a true negotiator and has asked that for each day that he “tries his best” and completes his work in a timely manner, he could take one toy back into his room. Since this seemed like a positive reward system, we agreed. Today he pulled out his Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. I hope this system will work - it’s now up to him to get back/give back his toys. He seemed to feel that he was in control of the issue and it was almost like a competition.

By the way Sara, you are right, I think sitting with him in class might help. Tonight I informed him that if he continued to have a hard time focusing, I would be glad to come and sit with him in school for a few days. Since he thought that was way too embarassing, he begged me to give him a chance this week to prove he could try harder. I’m not sure if I should have been insulted or not. The look on his face was priceless. Especially when I told him how much “fun it would be and that I could give him hugs when he was having trouble!” Boys…

Again, thank you all for your thoughts. If you have any more, please feel free to share - I do not get insulted by thoughts and suggestions. Not one of the responses has failed to give me better insight into this issue. I’m so glad I found this site (ok, I could do without that Brian guy rambling on about nothing, but there’s always one in the crowd!).

Karen,

His tics actually improved while using the Strattera. That was wonderful. Strattera has worked well for some of the children we know and not at all for a larger group. If your child can tolerate it and it works, that’s a prayer answered. No stimulants!

Victoria,

I am printing out everything you listed. Thanks for sharing. In fact, I printed out all the responses as I was overwhelmed at the amount of info and suggestions. It was awesome!

OK, the skipping ahead to answer before even reading the question is very, very common. I swear some teachers even reinforce it — speaking of the timed-reading foolishness, what does this teach if not rushing without thinking?

The problem is that “answers” are being reinforced and rewarded, and thinking skills are not. This is a difficult issue that goes down to the basic philosophy of the curriculum and the teacher.

Your son sees and hears what is going on around him, and he sees and hears praise for filling in a lot of paper and filling it in quickly. He doesn’t seem to be seeing or hearing praise or rewards for depth and originality of thought. So he gets a lot of paper filled in quickly, he skips the boring and rpeptitive stuff that is too easy for him, and now he is frustrated because he is being criticized for doing exactly what he has been taught.

When I work with tutoring students, I spend a very large amount ogf time telling them to stop, slow down, look again, what were you thinking? At first they get quite upset about this — it goes against the grain of everything they’ve learned in school. In most cases after a while they really get into it and enjoy our sessions. You can try doing this with your son.
Make sure with the teacher that **all** his work comes home for review, period. If necessary go and pick him up at school and search his desk yourself and check with the teacher he hasn’t thrown out an assignment (if he has, fresh sheet and do it all over.) Get his day’s work out at home, skim it quickly, and if he has clearly just rushed through, have him start over at the beginning reading it aloud to you. Stop him each time he skips over something. The first day or week you do this, he will get really angry about it and tell you it’s unnecessary and try to avoid it. After a while he’ll settle down and grumble his way through. In a while, maybe as little as a couple of weeks but maybe longer, he’ll start doing things correctly at school so he doesn’t have to re-do them at home. Don’t quit!! You have to keep supervising until correct work becomes a habit. While you are doing this, also discuss the stories and math problems and science facts and vocabulary, and explore all the new ideas that come up — make the schoolwork actually educational rather than hard labour, and show him that there is some value in this.

As far as the writing, is his cursive really clear and readable? Try to avoid the fond parent’s eye and be objective — if it takes a trained Martian translator, well, the teacher has a point.. If it is readable, why the heck not cursive?? This is exactly the opposite of the problem that 99% of the parents have here, that the school insists on cursive after mid Grade 2 or Grade 3, and the kid sticks to printing. Try hard (it is often terribly difficult) to get the teacher to realize the “different” is NOT the same as “wrong”.

The pencil and erasing: I have a campaign against pencil. Want to join the movement? Many years ago everyone wrote in pen, period. Then cheap pencils became available and were used by small children to limit the mess with inkwells. However, by Grade 3 you graduated to a pen, and by high school you used a pen for everything including math. My math grades jumped from C and B- to A+ the minute we changed to pen — I could finally see my own work. Teachers now insist on everything being in pencil so you can erase. I always ask: so you’re *intending* to do it wrong? Why not think first, then write? If you make a small mistake, is it a sin to cross out? And by the way, can you show me in what apocryphal book exists the eleventh commandment “Thou must write all numbers in pencil”? - it’s not in any scriptures I have. When I work with kids, I almost always see one minute of writing to four minutes of erasing — is it any wonder the work takes five times as long as it’s supposed to? I throw away the pencils and use free-flowing pens (rolling writers or fine markers or fountain pens) only — and kids’ speed of writing increases instantly, readability increases within a few hours of tutoring, and resistance to/difficulty writing drops rapidly as the kid actually learns to write rather than erase.

If you can’t get them to swallow pen, at least dump all the erasers including buying artist’s pencils without erasers; try a 2B soft for darker writing *without* harmful hand pressure. Small mistakes can be crossed out, and larger ones thrown away and re-started. Paper is cheap and a year of school repeated is very expensive. If the teacher complains that it’s “messy”, ask whether she prefers his former not doing the work at all or his new doing the work with a couple of corrections. Keep pushing on the logic.

if you want my notes on writing, email me at [email protected]

Talk to your son about the necessity of doing things that are sometimes repetitive and boring in life. He is obviously very bright, but that doesn’t mean he knows *everything* — and he will lose out by not learning what is available to learn in this class. Remind him what my teacher told me beginning Grade 1 — the teacher may sometimes be wrong, but she is still the teacher, and you do what you are told. You can bring problems home and talk about them there.

Victoria,

All I can say is “Wow”! I agree about the pencil issue - we should start a movement. It all goes back to “If you expect mistakes you get mistakes.” Since his school district refuses to allow pens in elementary school, I’m going to start having him do practice work in pen. What a simple yet ingenious way to help a child stop and think before writing the answer. You must be an amazing tutor.

The timed reading program is beyond comprehension. It seems that the school district is unable to see the total picture. I understand that they want to make sure that a child reads fluently. However, they have refused to note the side effects of such a program, even with feedback from the teachers. I’m not in education, but even I can see the drawbacks of this program.

I understand that schools are over-populated and under-staffed. I know that some parents have failed in their responsibilities to instill morals, ethics and responsibility in their own children. I see it every day. I deal with the “I’m entitled” attitude all day long and the consequences of actually saying “no” to these people. Yet our school districts have adopted quick, easy fixes that need long-term solutions. When problems are brought to their attention, they balk. An ADD child is everything they fear: bright, self-reliant, independent thinkers, see the bigger picture, etc… What a horror they must be to the system.

I too was an ADD child - without the label or medicine. The classic “If you would just put a little effort into it, you would make straight A’s.” My parents didn’t believe I needed to go to college as I should just get married and be a good wife and mother. So school was not important in our home - as long as I brought home decent grades and followed the rules. It wasn’t until the last semester of my senior year in highschool that I woke up and realized that what I wanted to do required a degree. I went against my parents wishes and enrolled in a college several hours away. That’s the positive side of being ADD. When we set our mind to do it, we do it. Now I’m the parent with an ADD child. I don’t want to make the mistakes my parents did. I want my child to have good study and work habits, try his best and remember that there is a future out there for him. I want him to know I care and believe in him. The things I didn’t have as a child.

From your comments, are you saying that in a way, he has learned more than what was actually intended? Did he pick up the overall behavior required and not just the small steps expected? Is his problem that he can’t slow down and do the work or that he has learned the bigger lesson of “the faster the better”? That’s a completely new way of looking at this issue. Maybe he isn’t a failure (not that I ever thought he was)… I wonder how his teacher would react to such a thought?

Have we been looking at ADD as a problem when instead, it is a higher level of thinking that is not accepted or understood. What if these type of people used to be the considered the “wise men” in history, and not the “out of sync” they are considered today. Is there any study on this? Or maybe I’m just being too hopeful that ADD is something more than just a disease to be laughed at or denied. If we didn’t medicate all these children so that they could “fit in”, what would our school systems do? Maybe all the parents of ADD/ADHD (without ODD) students should start a movement to see what the school systems would do if the children were allowed to be real…

Some very intriguing thoughts. Hmmmm….

Well, today I have to worry about him being “in sync” - so I had better work on that first. Thanks again for the response!

Just incase someone reading this thinks I’m against med’s. I’m not suggesting that a child that is in need of med’s to focus, perform, etc… should stop taking them. I’m talking more about the kids that take the medication to tone their behavior down, to fit in.

However, I do wonder why children, like my DS, find subjects boring and zone out. Is it because they do not know how to apply themselves when a subject becomes harder or needs more attention? Or is it because the way it is taught is too slow for some ADD/ADHD students? They lose interest and their train of thoughts before the other students?

I’m one of those people that can’t stand repetition. It drives me nuts. I got it already! So my suggestion regarding lack of meds is more in line with seeing what is actually going on with our present school system before assuming it’s just our children. There sure seem a lot of us out there. These kids existed since time began, how was it handled before the 20th/21st centuries?

Part of my son’s issue (just one part mind you - there are many factors) is I think its not intuitively obvious to him what his job is at school. He’s in 4th grade, and even last year I had to tell him explicity that his job was to listen to the teacher and learn the material even if it didn’t appeal to him.

This is a kid that is attracted to big ideas, but on his own terms.

Big ideas on his own terms…..

Sounds like a future entrepreneur to me….

Beth

That’s mine also…I always say, ‘DS is an extremely SELF-DIRECTED person’! This may be necessary for their skill set — my son is definitely a driven creative type, and that drive to do it his way may someday fuel his success as an artist. BUT…where he is weak, is in compliance! Not in an oppositional way, but where compliance conflicts with his weak areas, and therefore compliance is impossible. (sometimes due to frustration and his emotional reaction to his own difficulties even more than the task itself.)

The trick is, not to squash that self-directedness…but teach them that they MUST follow orders to a certain point. For my son, I try to put the task in ‘real life terms’:

1) That is an important skill for the grownup world — all grownups have to do that. You are finding it difficult, because it IS difficult — even if some people find it easy! But we will keep working, and by the time you join the grownup world (= HS graduation) you WILL have grownup skills.

OR.. the ‘subversive’ version, for ‘academic task’ things I disagree with the validity of, but we MUST do to get through this class/school in general:

2) That is something we must do, because part of school is learning to follow directions. If you start out as a cartoonist (HIS BIG DREAM) you might have to work at first drawing someone else’s ideas, or copying someone elses’s art. Either that, or you may have to do a different job, and practice your art in your spare time — you will still need to do what your boss wants you to do, and do it HIS way. Doing what you MUST at school, builds that skill…

I find that when I put it back on HIS terms, it seems to help him ‘just do it’. Often, his emotional (spell that BAD!) reaction to school/academic tasks are more a hindrance than his actual ability. This year (Gr. 5) he is finally able to really see this, and I am getting more out of him than ever before. We learned this recently with 3 digit multiplication with regrouping, and with long division. We got ‘R’ for both these strands, becasue he just couldn’t get to independent production in a test situation, but I am still feeling like we made real progress, since his ability to understand his own blocks has increased so much…

I feel that our children suffer more from being ‘square pegs in the round hole’ than anything else — actual ‘disabilities’, I mean! I never REALLY understood the term ‘systemic discrimination’ until my son was in second grade. The whole system is designed (has been for centuries) by people who DON’T think or learn as he does, and then when he doesn’t think or learn as they do, they have a bunch of tests that prove HE is the problem — he is disordered! Why? Because he doesn’t think or learn as they do…and they run the system…!

Well, at least we have only 7 (or so!) years to go…looked alot worse in Grade 2!

Elizabeth and KarenN - I agree with your comments!

I’m glad to know that it does improve with maturity. My DS has had two great days and is so proud of himself. I know he will have bad days, but if we can keep our eye on the big picture, we should make it.

Yes, my DS definitely walks to his own drumbeat. He is not defiant nor oppositional, just has his own agenda and has a hard time letting go when asked. He is not as much an artist as my daughter (ADHD and absolutely her own person). However, he loves to draw rockets, planes, etc. He loves math, Yu-Gi-Oh!, movies, computer games, riding his bike and chasing frogs. He is a whiz on computer games. Scary! At least he is well-rounded.

My DD is only in kindergarten and believe it or not, she is an exemplarary student. Can’t get her to sit still for 5 seconds at home or church!!! She loves to run around the house acting out her favorite animal or movie character. The girl can run faster on her hands/feet that most kids can run on just their feet. The questions she asks her teacher at school have been the source of much amusement. She is a whirl-wind of drama and energy. I can only imagine what problems we’ll have once she gets older. *Sigh*

Do any of you have trouble getting your kids out the door in the morning? Any tricks that help?

Mine dawdled every morning for the three years of primary school. She wouldn’t move to get to school, and she didn’t want to stay home, and she absolutely didn’t want to be homeschooled as I offered at regular intervals. She loved being with other kids and doing all sorts of things, and she hated her teachers and the schoolyard bully.

I fell back on the usual parental screaming, and no, it doesn’t work.

The situation finally cleared up when we moved to a different school system with more individualized work that suited her learning style; she wasn’t good but wasn’t quite so conflicted.

In high school she discovered she could do even more fascinating things by going to a “zero period” *before* regular classes started, at 8AM, and she kept up with it for four years.

The first two years of university she kept it up by herself, but then got unmotivated again; I am praying for a return.

So yes it does get better, although relapses are possible. And screaming is natural but has little effect other than relieving the pressure.

Getting my kids out the door has been easier this year than last. Last year my daughter came home from school, threw down her bookbag and announced she was quitting school. It was only kindergarten! She loved her teacher and we didn’t know she really had a problem so we kind of blamed it on her unusual very strong and quirky personality. Her teacher talked to her about it at church (we are lucky to attend the same church) and she agreed to go back. Plus we told her the career choices for a kindergarten dropout are pretty bad. Anyway, the point of all of this is that her feelings about school were another clue that there was a bigger issue. This year everything became evident because of reading difficulty showing up right in September. Now that she is getting special help and we know and are dealing with the ad/hd she has a much better attitude about school! It’s much easier to get her ready to go because she wants to go! However, I have to admit she was very happy to have a snow day today!

We also find that it helps greatly to have everything ready the night before. Lay out the clothes and all bookbags packed!

Getting out isn’t that hard, but that’s because my husband and I manage it together and giev DS few choices. He isn’t reluctant to go, but is just slow to do everything.

This year he has a dress code, so whoever wakes him up reaches into the appropriate drawer and grabs a solid color shirt and solid color pants. EVerything matches . Hands it to him and heads down to make his breakfast. Come to think of it, he does manage to get dressed in a reasonable amount of time. (he’s almost 10, but at least we don’t have to sit in the room to make sure he gets dressed anymore!)

Then its a quick succesion of food, tooth brushing, hair combing and out. He uses the bathroom right next to the kitchen so when he comes out I can ask ” did you brush? ” He only remembers about 50% of the time. yikes, what’s going to happen to his teeth when he’s at college?

Yes, that is one thing you learn quickly with an ADD/ADHD child. Screaming only makes them slower. If my daughter is in a good mood when she wakes up - everything goes smoothly. If not…

She is the sweetest child I know. Best hug giver ever. Quirky, artsy, with a great sense of humor. But when she’s in one of those moods, the world seems to stop. I didn’t think we would ever get out of the 2’s and 3’s. Talk about not making up her mind. It would take 10 minutes to pick out the colored cup she wanted. We had to go to 1 color cups just to be able to eat. Thankfully, ignoring her tantrums worked wonders. We haven’t seen a big one in two years. (She never did throw one in public - thank goodness.) I had several mothers tell me that their second child was much more difficult during the preschool years but turned into a gem at the age of 4/5. That’s exactly what happened with DD.

DS doesn’t resist getting ready, he just dawdles and piddles. We cannot turn on the TV in the mornings or we’ll lose him. He may have gotten dressed an hour earlier and still not have his shoes on no matter how many times we point it out. He’ll head off to put them on and something else will catch his attention - and the thought will go right out of his head.

JenM - your daughter sounds like a hoot! I know it was a signal of a problem but her way of annoucing it was great. Hope you don’t mind that I thought it was cute. She sounds very much like my DD. Its hard to get mad when they do things with such flare.

Victoria - Six years of good habits are still there - just hidden for a little while. I had a drop in grades around that time - my attention had been distracted by my future husband. I was also tired of school and two more years seemed like forever. However, by the end of my junior year, I realized how short my time was and got back into the groove. My senior year was the best year of undergraduate school.

KarenN - I don’t know if this will work for you but it’s been successful for us - so far! I’ve explained that there are sugar bugs on their teeth and they will hurt their teeth if we don’t get rid of them. They really brush their teeth!!!! They don’t like the thought of the sugar bugs eating their teeth. They also don’t want to have a shot at the dentist’s office if they get a cavity. I don’t know why it’s works so well, but it does.

We had a dress code at the old school. I miss it!!!!

Ok, this is off topic:
By the way, has anyone had problems with new jeans? Every pair I buy have holes in the knees within 2 - 3 wearings. The kids are on their knees less now than they used to be. One wearing and the knees are already faded. Is this happening to anyone else?

I buy my son the pants from landsend that have double knees. They also have elastic waists but don’t look babyish - another benefit.

My son is a future scientist and could tell you great detail about why he should brush his teeth. But he cannot remember to do it once he’s in there alone. Thank god for fluoride.

Lost parent, I am not at all offended! We all enjoy my daughter also! You never know what she’ll come out with next! Many times we want to laugh but we can’t let her see that!

Just wanted to say that she refuses to wear jeans. She’s always been very particular about what she wears and she doesn’t like the way they feel. She wears sweatpants on most days.

This leads me to believe that he is rushing and trying to finish his work with as little effort as possible.

If he has a mild ADD, even a mild one, he’s not seeking necessarily to avoid the effort, it’s that it takes him a great deal of extra effort to stay on the task. Are his assignments being modified in any way for him - do they take his ADD into account when planning lessons for him?

We have discussed re-reading questions and double-checking answers on many occassions. He agrees to try but never follows through.

2. His math work is excellent but he has lost several papers. He can’t tell us what happened to them. They should have been in his desk. The teacher reminds him to sign his name and place the paper in his notebook each time she passes work out. No go on that either.

These things you’re describing are not uncommon for very young children and for very young children with some ADD, even more common.

3. He does not read all the instructions or all of the question. He just reads the first part of the question and assumes he knows what it is asking. His answers were right for the first part of a question but wrong when taking all of a question into account. Again, in a hurry and trying to shortcut everything.

I’m a little uncomfortable with the phrase ‘trying to shortcut’ - does he have ADD or not and young children are naturrally in a hurry - they have lots of energy.

5. His printing is very light and anything that has been erased bleeds through the new answers. I’m not sure how to teach him to write more effectively. (This is in-line with a prior response regarding correct writing and posture.)

Get him a ’ gripper’ for his pencil. I’m surprised his teacher hasn’t suggested this already.

By the way Sara, you are right, I think sitting with him in class might help.

I think Sara may have meant sit with him at home to help him with his work - not in school.

I find it interesting that he prefers cursive. Despite alot of negative feedback I’ve heard here on cursive, my son prefers it, as does every child I’ve met at his school thus far. (the school is for dyslexic children)

The school teaches cursive and has the kids do all their work in cursive starting , I think, in 3rd grade. What blows me away is that my son is in 4th grade, and despite OT, tutoring and a wide variety of pencil grips devices , this school has been able to improve his grip and handwriting in 4 months. They started pulling him out for additional handwriting help and the results were immediately noticeable. Its like magic - I have no idea how they did it.

Karen,

I am amazed at your son’s love of cursive. I have had to push my son’s teacher to not insist on it. It reduces him to tears!!

Jen,

My 13 year old daughter wouldn’t wear jeans until this year. But, even now, she likes the very soft ones and likes lycra in them. I think eventually fashion pushes their comfort zone.

Beth

About the clothes thing: my daughter started dressing herself, both the physical act of putting the clothes on and the process of choosing what to wear, at eighteen months old (Did someone say something about strong personalities there?). She has always been intensely independent, and has no tolerance for uninvited touching (not an easy baby!).
In kindergarten, she designed clothes — she took me to the sewing store, chose the pattern and the options she wanted, chose the fabric, and had me make it up. At that time she liked old-fashioned full dresses, and I made matching bloomers for active kids.
By high school graduation she was into classic simplicity and we did the same process for her prom dress, reminiscent of John Singer Sargent portraits.
All of her clothing has always had to be in soft cotton with no scratchy or rough things digging in. As I have horrid memories of 1950’s crinolines torturing me, I agree fully. The little-girl dresses were in cotton with adjustable elastic in the back of the waist, and the prom dress had a cotton lining.
When she was a toddler she had a bunch of soft corduroy (well-washed) overalls and Tshirts and a bunch of cheap soft jogging suits from the discount store. She looked nice and felt happy and it was cheap.
One of her friends had a real “thing” about clothing. They went away for a year and by the time they came back, the girl had gotten so extreme that she wore the same pull-over Tshirt style dress every single day for the whole year — her mother had to wash and dry it at night. Anyway when I was making some things for my daughter, I made up two sets in different colours and gave one to the friend. These were the first clothes she would wear besides the one dress, and she said they were the only things that didn’t hurt her skin. So, the method works.
Later on my daughter went into loose jeans and baggy Tshirts like all the other kids at school. I was fine with that as long as it was decent and we shopped at the discount stores.
When she got into going out with boys, around age fifteen, yes, things changed literally overnight. The size of the Tshirts changed from 14 to 8 :lol: The jeans got tighter too. For years she wore one-piece bathing suits to cover her bad appendix scar (three weeks of peritonitis, looks like a second navel). When she was about seventeen and had a serious boyfriend, whom she is still with, she became more confident and less shy and suddenly burst out in bikinis like all the other girls. :roll:
She still insists on soft and mostly cotton and no rough edges, but yes, it does change and kids find a way to fit in.

I’ll have to get those jeans… He came home with both knees blown out - second time this week. I just bought the Levi’s a month ago. Arghh…

DS loves to write in cursive but the ISD will not let them until 3rd Grade. DS says it is easier to write and doesn’t hurt his hand as much. That does make sense.

If you ever find out the secret for his improved handwriting - please let us know!!!

I think Victoria had a good idea with the practicing in pen. He will have to slow down and think before writing. We started doing the rough draft for his current event in pen and then the actual report in pencil. He really seems to pay more attention to what he is writing.

Oh, I forgot to mention that my DS has always had problems with how his clothing felt. Tags, scratchy jeans or shirts, etc… He has a very low tolerance for things that touch him. He has improved quite a bit over the last few years. He won’t sleep inside his sheets, but sleeps on the top of one and uses a soft comforter as the cover. (My DD is the same way.) He even uses a stuffed elephant pillow instead of his regular pillow. I’m not sure how many more washings that thing can take.

I remember times that I couldn’t fall asleep because I could feel each and every wrinkle in the sheets. I also don’t like tight or scratchy clothing. I guess they come by their quirks honestly.

Both of my children change into sweats as soon as they get home. My son has to have his shoes off but loves to wear his socks. I am constantly reminding him to put on shoes before he goes outside. I don’t know how he can wear socks outside without shoes. Yuck. My DS is the opposite. She can’t stand shoes or socks. It can be 50 degrees outside and she will wear shorts and go barefoot. I have to constantly check on her to make sure she is wearing warm clothes outside.

Send her up to visit me — the way to learn to enjoy the 0F weather we are having today is to survive the previous week of -15 F with wind — 0 F feels positively pleasant :wink:

I have a soft tuque made of polar fleece, “magic” stretchy gloves with no seams and plushy fabric (My daughter however always preferred loose mittens) and a snowboarder’s windproof coat with a soft quilted lining. If possible take her with you when shopping, and see if you can find things that are less irritating.

PS — and what’s so wrong with shorts when it’s 50 F ? We often go up to 90 F and even sometimes 100 F in the summer here, but in August it can often cool down a lot at night; if you don’t want to change two or four times daily you take it as it comes and leave the shorts at 50. :) Perspective is everything!
As one doctor put it, if the baby isn’t red or blue, then the temperature and clothing are OK. If she shivers violently or catches colds, that’s another thing; I have a kid who turned blue and caught ear infections every time she swam until age seven. :cry:

For some children with fine motor difficulties, cursive can be easier because making the rounded letters is easier for them than the lines and angles of printing. Other kids with the very same sort of profile find it impossible to learn. The key is to explore the options and see what works best for your child. Some kids do very well with D’Nealian printing, which is a sort of pre-cursor to cursive.

The school district we are now in uses D’Nealian to teach printing. My older girls used something else. I thought it was strange and kind of cumbersom (sp?) to use, but he made the transition to cursive writing easily, just by following what his sisters were doing, before being introduced to it in school. I can see where a child that does better with cursive may also do well with D’Nealian, if the teacher is so insistent on printing.

I had a chance to meet the handwriting teacher at a recent school event. She’s an old fashioned teacher who insists that they sit up straight and hold the pencil properly. Beyond that I don’t know what they do, but it is working.

The school also likes cursive b/c it makes reversals nearly impossible. Plus my son always made his letters by stroking from bottom to top, which is more appropriate for cursive than printing anyway.

[quote=”Lost Parent”]I hope someone can help us. Our son is in second grade. He is a great kid and the teacher really likes him. However, the teacher cannot get him to finish his schoolwork on time. She’s given him days/weeks to complete an assignment without results. His straight A’s are falling to C’s.

He knows the subjects and has no problem grasping ideas and concepts. However, he just doesn’t seem to care about good grades or completing paperwork anymore. He constantly zones out, forgets the instructions or loses his papers. He is starting to become frustrated and angry. His self-esteem is starting to drop. We are using behavior modification with very littlel success. In fact, his room is now devoid of all toys/electronics until he can rebuild our trust (at the counselor’s direction). Nothing is working!

He has been diagnosed with a mild case of ADD. However, due to the aggravation of his minor tics, he cannot take stimulants. We tried Strattera and were very disappointed. Not only did it not work, he threw up at school every morning (even on the lowest dosage!).

We don’t know what else to do. He is starting to get very upset about going to school. He will be pulled out of the Gifted/Talented program due to his dropping grades.

We are scared that if we don’t get him the help he needs now, we will have more serious problems as he gets older.

Is there any hope out there for this loving and caring child?

Mommy of Two[/quote]

A couple of suggestions,

It’s second grade he can easily catch up. Besides his self esteem is more important that marks. Do you really beleive he is ADD?

As nice as you think his teacher may be I would suggest you show up and monitor his class.

My guess is he is bored or they are teaching things that an 8year old is not developmentally ready to learn. Schools love doing that. Either that or they don’t know how to teach kids.

He could be depressed. Depression symptoms can look like ADHD in a child. Has he been seen by a mental health professional?