My almost 12 1/2, 7th grader has been having a difficult time keeping track and completing homework assignments. We have a 504 that allows an extra day with no penalty to turn work in. The problem is— he simply uses that extra day to procrastinate and still gets overwhelmed and turns things in late. He has a study skills class this quarter, and he uses that, again, as another reason to procrastinate. We have an algrebra tutor for him and he has it all worked out that since he doesn’t have algebra on Wednesdays, he can do Monday and Tuesday nights’ homework with his tutor on Wednesday, and still get everything turned in by Thusday when he again has algebra. So, the kid has more management skills that it appears…
The problem is— he is imature, and all he can think of is that he wants to play, and he will do just about anything to get out of homework to do it. Just this week, he lied (for the first time) about having done a paper, thinking he would do it in Study Skills today. Problem was- Study Skills was the last period of the day, so he won’t be able to turn the work in until tomorrow.
My question is— is it ever time to back off? We are battling over this constantly. I feel like the homework police and have to question him regarding every assignment. I am totally frustrated and so is he. He says he wants to handle this on his own, but when we turn it over to him, the calls and notes from the teachers start regarding missed assignments. When the grades come in, my son is discouraged about the low grades, most of which are simply because he didn’t turn work in. We have the option of putting him into a resource program at another school, but we really hate to take him away from the friends he has had since Kindergarten, and we are not really sure that resource is the right thing for him. He is quite inteligent (IQ 118) and is at grade level as far as reading, etc. Any advice?
he needs structure
I am an ADD coach basically for many of the kids I tutor. I have kids who occassionally get in over their head and we start bailing. The thing I have noticed is that I can NEVER let down my guard with them. WE form a UNITED front between the student, me, the parents and the teachers to keep these kids on task and target. It does get better with maturity, but they need to be taught organizational skills. Anita Archer’s Skills for School Success is a good one to teach organizational skills. Another book that I really like is 7 Habits for Highly Effective Teens. This helps kids see what they need to do to be successful and why. That book helped my son quite a bit. Perhaps a contract that the teacher, you and he has to sign everyday would be of benefit. The contract would have his assignments and if he did them or not. Perhaps he could choose a reward and a punishment for his Good Behavior. I have a son who needs me to hassle him all the time. My daughter on the other hand is very organized but still struggles with her attention.
Re: Should we back off?
Does your son want to be successful in school? Not every student does. If not, the question becomes do you want him to be successful in school and how far are you willing to go to help him achieve that?
Some students this age harbor an underlying belief that if just let alone, the problem will be ended as they see the problem as the pressure that they feel. What they can’t understand or know is that in modern education missed work is a big deal. In my day if we didn’t do homework, we got low grades but no one chased us down for the work.
Things are different now in schools, for better worse. Missed word will, as you say, result in letters home, phone calls, special reports, and lots more pressure and disapproval from teachers.
If your son thinks, as many of my students do, that they’ll be able to sit in the back of the room and take the bad grades, he’s wrong.
You might want to consider having this conversation with him. Is that what he wants? Does he want more pressure or less pressure? His current path when let alone will result in more pressure on him (and on you).
The “back off” theory is usually advocated by those who believe that when the student is let alone to fail, they’ll “wake up” and start to do the work on their own. That all they needed was a big “wake up call”.
It sounds to me as if his life and yours would be better served at the resource program. Perhaps you’d consider making a ‘deal’ with him - either he lets you support him and help him get on top of his work or… he’ll need to move to the resource program where they’ll provide support to him.
My greatest concern would be that a lack of success in school can ‘embed’ a make a young person doubt themselves and their capability.
I’ve worked through these issues with my students and my own son.
Good luck to you and your son.
Re: Should we back off?
Thanks for your replies. In my heart, I know we can’t back off— it is his future at stake. He doesn’t have the maturity or long-sightedness to realize how all this adds up, so I know we have to do it for him.
He admitted to me this morning that it is not that he “can’t” keep himself organized and get things done and turned in— it is that he doesn’t want to. He wants to come home and forget school and play. So, he comes up with any excuse he can think of to avoid the homework. I have noticed that when he wants to bring a certain skateboarding magazine or gum or something fun to school, he takes the time to write it on his bulletin board the night before so he won’t forget. So, I know he has the ability when it’s something that is important to him. So far, the homework isn’t.
We are planning on me picking him up at school on Fridays and, if homework is missing per his teachers, via his planner, he will spend Saturdays on it. Maybe this will help…
Re: Should we back off?
AC,
One thing to bear in mind is that kids with ADHD just aren’t as mature as their age-peers. One “rule” I have seen is that you should subtract two years to come up with the true “age” of a child with ADHD. Another thing to remember is that we all tend to avoid things that are hard, boring, unpleasant or unrewarding to us, but people without ADHD are much more able to buckle down and get the job done. According to Russell Barkley, ADHD is primarily a disorder of self-control rather than a disorder of attention. THose who have the disorder are lacking in the essential ability to stick with the hard stuff, especially when there is (or seems to them to be) nothing rewarding about doing it. When a child with ADHD is highly-motivated, he will be able to sustain effort much better than when he is not, just like the rest of us. Unlike the rest of us, though, it takes a lot more to get highly motivated when you have ADHD. Also, most kids with ADHD have absolutely no idea of how to come up with a system for being organized or how to stick with that system, once it is devised. They need to be explicitly taught how to do it and to have a grown-up checking daily to make sure everything is getting done. They need to be told where to put their papers, where and how to record assignments and when and how to turn them back in. One thing that worked very well for my oldest son (now 14 — not ADHD but definitely unorganized) was to buy him a PDA for keeping track of everything. He was motivated to use it because he thought it was cool and it was easy for me to check to see whether he was writing things down and what assignments needed to be done. You can buy a pretty decent PDA for about $150. A lot of money, I know, but we found it to be worth the investment. We also instituted a system whereby all papers received during the school day went into an expandable plastic folder. Each night, we would sort through them together. My son was willing to do this because it was only minimally harder than his preferred method of stuffing them willy-nilly into his back-pack. Homework went back to school in the same folder, eliminating the “I did it but I can’t find it” problem. Finally, I make a practice of calling every afternoon to inquire what homework he has. Our rule is that he must do some when he gets home and the rest after dinner. This leaves time for bike-riding, video games or whatever. We use similar methods with my youngest, who does have ADHD, except he uses an electronic organizer that has a built-in keyboard (only $30). My kids have become much more able to keep track of themselves since we instituted these practices and these days my role in the whole process is more form than substance. I’m quite sure though that left to their own devices they’d both still be flailing around, meaning to do better but never quite figuring out how.
Andrea
Personally, this is not the time I would back off. However, I *would* pick my battles.
That IQ alone is not going to get him very far, either academically or in life. Break the responsibility task down — and take a look at Lee Canter’s (or is it Cantor?) _HOmework WIthout Tears_.
Self-discipline and memory and organization are things lots of ADHD kiddos struggle with. SOme kids can sort things out and eventually figure it out on their own — but too me that’s one of the hallmarks of a “genuine” ADHD kiddo — the consequences don’t cause improved memory or organization, so the kiddo is self-disciplined for a week or two… and then things fall apart again.
Talk to him about how important this skill and these good work habits are. He wants to handle it on his own — you want him to be able to! Come up with a plan so that he can. OTherwise, I can pretty much *promise* you that what he will learn is … that he is disorganized and doesn’t get wrok handed in. And he’ll keep getting those disappointing grades.
Lying would make me rather furious… and when I calmed down, I think it would cost him half an hour of “sit and study” time for a week. IF he doesn’t have homework to do, I’d make it up.
When I taught resource, I had kids who never had any work to do — so there were alternative assignments. Some of ‘em are on my website (resourceroom.net) — nice vocabulary development, times tables practice, all kinds of enriching activities. If he doesn’t have any assignments, he can spend “homework time” on those. Or, he could get out the calendar you keep at home that has all his classes and look through that bookbag and figure out what’s due when and guess how long it’s going to take, and tackle it.