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Tag: school

Why Won’t My Kid Do Homework??

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Among my clients past and present, one of the biggest issues seems to be homework. Not just for younger kids – this extends from the elementary grades, all the way through college.

It would be difficult to find a kid who LIKES homework (excluding fun projects). But ADHD kiddos in particular seem to have an aversion to assignments that outmatches their neurotypical peers. Why is that?

  • Lack of dopamine – completing homework generally does not give someone a major dopamine boost. In ADHDers, whose dopamine is already compromised, this makes doing homework less attractive than…well, almost anything. Homework is boring!
  • Reward system differences/time blindness – kids with ADHD don’t respond to negative consequences as a motivator. This means that telling your child “if you don’t do your homework you will fail the class” doesn’t have the impact it would have on a neurotypical child. Furthermore, due to time management executive function challenges, using a future impact to convince an ADHD child to do their work is ineffective. ADHDers tend to have two time periods: now, and some other time. And some other time is vague and not really a factor.
  • Additional work due to incomplete class assignments – ADHD kiddos, whether due to lack of focus, lack of interest, or not attending to/understanding directions, can have difficulty completing classwork during the class period.They may then be tasked with completing the work at home. This is not given instead of homework; it is added to the homework load. So ADHD kids can, on any given night, have double the workload of neurotypical children.
  • Challenges with planning and organization – many kids – and adults – with ADHD lack the ability to plan and organize their assignments. This is due to executive function weaknesses, including non-verbal working memory challenges. So when your child comes home, all they see is this massive mountain called Homework, which they find intimidating. Avoidance is a natural response to this.
  • Not knowing what they need to do – with my clients, I have found that every teacher has their own way of disseminating information. Some use Google Classroom. Some expect students to copy homework assignments from the board, into their planners. Some yell out, at the end of class, “do the problems on page 9 for homework!” This inconsistency is anathema to a child that already has issues with organization. 

So yes, there are real reasons relating to your child’s ADHD for being less than thrilled about homework. But homework exists anyway. What can we do?

Here are some strategies to try with your ADHD kiddo, gleaned from my years as both a teacher, and an ADHD coach:

1 – Speak to the child’s teacher(s) – if your child is struggling with getting their homework done in a reasonable amount of time, or if your family’s wellbeing is being challenged by nightly homework battles, your first stop is the teacher. There is no way for the teacher to know what goes on after school without someone telling them. If your child is older, they can have a conversation with the teacher. Advocating for themselves is a life skill they will need as they get older.

2 – Help your child plan out their homework – Every day, have an adult (you or someone else) sit down with your child to develop a plan for getting their assignments done. This means going through Google Classroom (if being used), notebooks, and planners to see what has been assigned and when it is due. Be sure to ask your child if they have any additional classwork to finish up. If your child is older, it is still important for them to complete this planning stage. Perhaps emailing it to you is a good way to have accountability without your direct participation.


3 – For larger assignments, help your child plan out the steps to completion – This includes determining what actions are necessary (so, rather than putting “book cover” on your list, include a verb like “draw book cover”), and creating deadlines for each step. Again, having your older child do this and emailing it to you works well. This is basically outsourcing non-verbal working memory.

4 – Designate a space for your child to do their homework – This does not have to be a desk in their room; in fact, being away from everyone may lead to turning to other, more dopamine producing activities (aka videogames). Setting up at the kitchen table consistently can work, as long as there isn’t a ton of distractions and activity.

5 – No screens before or during homework – Many of us feel sorry for our kids, and want to let them have a little fun before going back to work. However, once they are on their phones or watching TV we have lost them, and the pull back to homework becomes substantially more painful. Screentime, in whatever form you choose, can be the reward for homework completion; it is not necessary or advisable before or during homework time.

6 – Try body doubling with your kid – Body doubling, an extremely successful ADHD strategy, involves working at the same time, in the same place (in person or virtually) as someone else, but not directly working with them. So, for example, sitting at the kitchen table while your kid does homework, you can be paying bills, doing your own work, or even just reading. It helps to keep both parties on track. You can do this with your college student on Zoom – bonus points for having contact with your kid!

There are many, many more strategies living in my ADHD Homework toolbox – these are just a few to get you started. Please reach out if you need more help!

 

Five Things To Do (& Not Do) Before School Starts

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It’s just about August. And after that…well, you know.

I’m really not trying to be a doom and gloomer. But, ready or not, before you know it, that big yellow bus will pull up to the corner. So let’s talk about what to do – and not do – before that happens. Let’s meet this head on!

Here we go, in no particular order:

1 – If your child is starting a new school in a district that is new to them (or a new private school), DO contact the school.

Reaching out to the school’s guidance office can be really helpful, in the cases above. You can make sure the school has all documentation relating to your child (IEP’s, Section 504’s, behavior plans). While these documents should travel with your child, there can be delays; you want to be sure that the school is aware of your child’s ADHD and other learning differences. 

2 – DO NOT try to meet with your child’s teacher(s) prior to the start of the school year.

I know, I am flying in the face of articles you may have read. But as a retired teacher, I can tell you that teachers are not only incredibly busy getting ready for all of their students, they are probably doing so on their own time. If you’d like to email the teacher(s) to introduce yourself and your child, that’s fine. But meetings should wait until the year is underway. PS – teachers are professionals. They are required to read IEP’s and 504 plans prior to any student walking into their classroom – and they do.

3 – DO include your child in school supply shopping.

Believe me, I am well aware of the pitfalls of shopping with a child, with or without ADHD. However, school supplies are the tools that your child will use all year. They should have choices where possible, including having Fantastic Four folders or a Barbie pencil case. Furthermore, your child will be more apt to use and take care of supplies they have chosen. So Staples, here we come!

4 – DO start to incorporate morning and evening routines, and earlier bedtimes, before the year starts.

Summer is a time of freedom – playing outside by the light of fireflies, sleeping in, ice cream for breakfast. While we don’t want to cut off the fun before we have to, bringing back routines a week or so prior to the start of school will make that first day go much more smoothly. PS – if your child has been having an ADHD “medication vacation,” consider starting on back on medication before the first day of school. This will enable them to adjust to how they feel when on their ADHD meds.

And finally….

5 – DO NOT end the summer before you have to.

Kids work hard during the school year. ADHD kiddos have an even rougher road. While it is great to mitigate the “summer slide” with fun activities that have educational benefits (cooking together, playing board games, taking turns reading a book together), forcing workbooks and other schoolwork on your child during the summer is not, in my opinion, fair. Schools do assign summer work, and getting that done with a few weeks to spare enables your child to have summer last right up until it’s gone.

So enjoy the rest of the summer! Just keep one eye on that corner; that school bus is on the way.

Neurodiversity, From The Inside

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In honor of Back To School, today’s blog post was actually written by my son. It was his Diversity Statement for his law school applications, written seven years ago (he has since attended law school and become an attorney). 

While I know it’s impossible for me to be objective, this essay is one of the most poignant pieces of writing I’ve read about ADHD. On the one hand, it hurts my heart to think about my son, a little boy, struggling with feeling so different, and being made to feel just…wrong. But on the other hand, I am so proud of him, of the person he is (and was all along), of how he has battled the struggles of ADHD, and continues to persevere. He is one of my heroes, and I feel blessed and lucky to be his mom.

Scattered among my old papers and school supplies are dozens of painstakingly crafted childhood dalliances–trail maps of fictional ski resorts drawn in my free time, hundreds of loose-leaf pages of notes and classwork from my academic career, the words therein corralled by extensive marginalia and doodles– reminders of the all the time I spent in my own little world.

Since my preschool days of apathetically watching my classmates entertain themselves by scouring the floor together collecting staples, I knew that I had a talent for getting enthralled in my own thoughts at the expense of the outside world.  When my kindergarten teacher excoriated me for being “rude little boy” and spacing out during math, or when my ninth grade history teacher scolded me daily for asking questions that had already been answered, I wondered why my peers had no trouble focusing in class, relating to others, or being “normal.”

Finally, I discovered the name of my affliction; ADHD.  But I was surprised to learn that this was more than just a daunting obstacle.  Certainly I would need to offset my focus problems with color-coded school binders, and by ensuring that my homework was complete before watching TV–and I have continued to employ similar strategies to this day.   My doodling habit, far from distracting my easily-misled mind, has become a means of stimulating creative thinking and focusing my scattershot thoughts on the task at hand.  Yet I have also found that ADHD causes me to selectively and intensely get absorbed in the things that actually interest me.

This “hyperfocus,” a component of ADHD, gives me the opportunity to turn things over in my mind in a unique way, and  has caused me to develop a unique perspective. So whether I was telling my friends about the Loch Ness monster in third grade, or finding nuances in situations for use in my sketch comedy class, I can draw conclusions that others might not, and use these seemingly quirky observations as a bridge to others, instead of the wall it once was.