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Post by cosmos61 on Dec 2, 2005 17:04:40 GMT -5
My kiddo has the inattentive ADHD. He's in third grade. His only problem is not being able to complete his work in a timely manner. It can take him days to complete a test during his spare time. The teacher says his work is top quality. Anything he does is correct. It just takes him forever to do it. I'm just wondering if some kids get better at completing work when they get older. I just can't see how he's going to be able to graduate some day as he is now. What happens to kids that can't perform? Would he eventually end up in a special ed class even though he is gifted? I'll be real lucky if I ever get a teacher as wonderful as the one he has now.
I've pretty much exhausted the med route. The meds help in that he is able to actually do his school work but not enough that he can complete it. Increasing the metadate dosage isn't an option cuz of the tics and combining with straterra isn't making any difference. Concerta didn't work for us either.
We've been trying the natural stuff to since last June.
I'm really discouraged and worried about my son's future.
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Post by Mayleng on Dec 2, 2005 18:16:24 GMT -5
My ADD/inattentive son gets better every year. His teacher tells me just from Sept to now, he has made major improvements. He completes work on his own now (was a nightmare in 2nd grade, get better 3rd grade and now in 4th is much better). So some things will improve with maturity. However, he still needs to not make silly mistakes. He knows the answers, just don't read the questions properly or can't understand what the questions mean (sometimes even I have problems understanding some of the questions).
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Post by d on Dec 2, 2005 19:55:39 GMT -5
:::Medicated adult ADHDer here volunteering my experiences:::
Don't know how old your son is, but my ADHD dd seemed to become more independent in 5th grade after getting her bearings in 4th, a big year for academic challenges.
As an adult I can be singularly (hyper-) focused on doing the best job possible to the best of my talents & knowledge, producing "excellent" work.
However, procrastination is an art form if you didn't know it. ;D
Self-regulation is not one of my strong points even with meds. The meds help attention and focus, but they do not positively impact my self-regulation & motivation the same way.
Sorry. Most days I am viewed as a successful productive member of society anyway.
What about incentives? Administrative tasks like paying HH bills or answering finance dept questions at work is *boring*, somewhere up there with sticking needles under my fingernails. If someone gave me a treat for fulfilling these tasks (chocolate ice cream?), maybe it would seem less of an endless string of boring chores that have zero immediate gratification.
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Post by d on Dec 2, 2005 19:59:36 GMT -5
Correction. Every day chocolate ice cream treats could become boring (even though chocolate ice cream has been a constant in my life). I'd need more daily variety.
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Post by cosmos61 on Dec 3, 2005 16:48:28 GMT -5
I haven't brought up incentives this year but it's worth a try. I used that alot in first grade. In second grade, he didn't want anything to do with that route. There was a three week period last spring he did very well while earning a guinea pig. Afterwards, it was - I can't work that hard all the time. I don't have this problem but apparantly it takes alot of effort to accomplish ones work when you do have this problem. I'll be the first one to say - my son is very lazy.
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Post by Gillian on Dec 6, 2005 12:13:09 GMT -5
Incentives are always short-lived with my son. He's all gun-ho about it at first but then he gets bored with it and announces he's dropping out of that plan (he's just done exactly that with an incentive plan we had). 'Okay' he says 'I'm out' and that's pretty much that. I don't know what the answer is.
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Post by cosmos61 on Dec 7, 2005 9:50:47 GMT -5
I suggested radio shack dollars for completing a test on time. He wasn't interested but I'll keep reminding him and maybe he'll get motivated. Yesterday he brought home an incomplete writing assignment he had to complete on top of his homework. There were three paragraphs to do (just 3 sentences each). It took him 40 minutes to write each paragraph.   |
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Post by Gillian on Dec 7, 2005 16:29:33 GMT -5
Sounds like us. It's crazy isn't it. I really worry about his future. He figures he'll go to college. Yes, it's a positive goal but I don't really see it happening. He's probably thinking it will be 'party time without Mom and Dad on my back'. Honestly, that's probably what he's really thinking!
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Post by d on Dec 7, 2005 17:16:29 GMT -5
amcfanny, your son is not lazy, he has ADHD.
His ADHD is not an excuse but the reason why he has trouble completing work. ADHD is an output problem and it is affecting his output/performance in school.
It is extremely rare that a 3rd grader wants to displease the adults around them (like you or his teacher). I've never heard of a 3rd grader who WANTS to spend hours on homework either. He is not doing this willingly, he is having trouble with sustained mental effort.
Sounds like he needs more help from you and from the school. Unfortunately, he is not going to magically develop skills to overcome his ADHD without support and guidance. Too often, we expect our non-ADHDers to magically develop these good school habits - the ADHDers are handicapped relative to their non-ADHD peers here (that has to be the most horribly written sentence ever!). If the teacher is cutting off his homework after one hour, why is she sending home uncompleted school work on top of homework? Makes no sense for her to modify/accomdate on one hand but not the other. Is he on a 504? That support probably needs to be legally documented.
He also needs to shown how to allocate his time on homework meaning he needs you or someone to work with him - when my dd was in 3rd grade she could not complete homework unless she was sitting in our presence and we could re-direct her, encourage her to attend to it. Yes, it stunk (big time) but it got better over time and I believe our showing her how was part of that.
Also, incentives and motivation are a funny thing with ADHDers. Raising ADHDers is a mental challenge in that you have to keep 2 steps ahead of them & their thinking. Being consistent about keeping 2 steps ahead of my dd helped too.
My dd is of superior intelligence and gifted in reading and writing. That is quite a feat for a remediated dyslexic ADHDer. She has been classified sp ed in the past and is currently on 504. She has a great sense of self and at age 12 advocates for her needs. For me, a confident resilient kid is what this is about. Labels are simply labels, an end to justify the means. Early intervention helped her dyslexia and the ADHD tremendously.
If he continues on this path, one of several or a combination of things may happen. School will get harder for him, particularly 4th grade, first year of middle school and first year of high school - expect some "crashes" ahead. If he doesn't crash, he may do mediocre in school with his ADHD cancelling out his giftedness. He'll have lots of questions and frustrations if that happens, so his sense of self-worth will go down. Eventually, he may tune out if he hasn't already by telling himself his teachers and your opinion of him doesn't matter bc he may feel he can't do anything right. None of these are good places to be for kids, particularly with the crazy pre-teen & teen years ahead of him.
I hope this post is recvd by you in the spirit it is intended... one ADHDer (me) helping another ADHD (your ds) out. I wish nothing but the best of intentions for your ds and you.
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Post by catatonic on Dec 8, 2005 10:16:48 GMT -5
Yep, this is what has happened to my son this year, as a 6th grader starting middle school. It took him until about the past month to really get a handle on things and begin functioning successfully. But he is FINALLY showing the ability to complete his homework independently, although he still forgets he HAS homework and does need a lot of guidance for large projects.
Throughout 3rd, 4th and 5th grades, he had to do his homework sitting at the kitchen table while I cooked dinner. He just couldn't do it independently, and even with me monitoring, it could take forever.
What I found was that he had a terrible time with figuring out what needed to be done, making a plan and executing it. It wasn't the work itself, which was easy, it was the skills required to figure out where to start and where to go next.
What helped him (and me) the most was to go over his work with him and break it down into small, specific steps. For example, if he had a math worksheet, a social studies map, and a science chapter, we'd make a list of the tasks and then break them down and then assign time limits. His goals would go something like...
1.) complete math worksheet - must be done in 20 minutes
2.) color map - 10 minutes
3.) get social studies book out and label map - 10 minutes
4.) draw key for map - 5 minutes
5.) read science chapter out loud to mom - 20 minutes
6.) give mom science book to review vocabulary words - 10 minutes
7.) get out a piece of paper and answer end-of-chapter questions - 15 minutes
8.) put books and other materials back in backpack - 5 minutes
This way, there is some break time between tasks, because my son can't sit and do an hour of homework without getting a drink of water, going to the bathroom, feeding the cat, flossing his teeth, watering his snail, etc. I found that spending 10 minutes with him going over his homework and making THE PLAN saved me an hour of nagging and listening to complaints about too much homework and how do I do this and that. I would simply tell him it's time to start the map now, you have 10 minutes to finish coloring it. Then set the kitchen timer.
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Post by cosmos61 on Dec 8, 2005 11:56:45 GMT -5
I appreciate all the words of wisdom and sharing.
He does have a 504 now and the teacher did say only spend an hour on homework. Her request to complete that assignment did not fit in here at all but we did it. I sit right beside him at the kitchen table and prompt him all the way through his homework. I did not do that for the writing task. I did give him breaks between paragraphs. I did write the time he took to do it on the paper so hopefully she won't make such a request in the future. She is normally very good at letting him do a minimal amount of work and is the one that requested the 504 for him.
I just hope deep down that this ability to write and complete school work is something that will improve over the years. I always tell him as long as he's doing his very best I'm not going to angry about any of it and I love him to pieces just the way he is. I don't want to see his self esteem hurt either. I also let him know periodically that if he ever wants to home school we will. So far he prefers going to school. This has been a good year for us overall. Last year we were scraping bottom with a teacher that believed he was being lazy and wouldn't cut him any slack. I do understand that he's not being lazy in school work. (But - I believe he really is lazy when it comes to helping out around the house and taking care of himself.)
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