The School Keeps Saying "Stay Out - They Have to Do It On Their Own"
By the upper elementary school grades, the message parents often get from the school is their child needs to do schoolwork on his/her own without parental support. For many children (those that can do work on their own), that's exactly what should be happening.
Such children write their assignments down, take out their assignment book at home, do what they have to do for the evening, plan for the amount of time it will take, and stay with the task without too much interruption. When finished, the assignment goes back in the book bag for the next day. The child hands in her work the next day and hands it in without too much strife.
How nice!
Sometimes I feel like I can lead a parade of families of children who are the opposite of what is being described. Such children have tremendous difficulty getting started on a task and sustaining effort. For these children, telling parents that the children are old enough and need to do it on their own, leads to considerable frustration.
Much of my professional time is spent trying to coach parents in understanding how challenged their child is with regard to these issues. Too often, parents will fall to, "she’s just not trying hard enough."
The child’s problems are seen entirely in motivational terms.
The point is not to view the child as overly disabled or handicapped. However, looking at the skills of initiating, organizing and planning, the fact is many kids start to show these skills pretty well by middle school, but many do not. For those who do not, the ritual battles that ensue on a nightly basis can be horrific.
When the child has great difficulty with a sports skill, such as hitting a baseball, the mentality should not be "well you’re 11, you should be able to hit a baseball." The appropriate mentality would be conveyed by a supportive and patient coach - "Hey, let's take our time. Let's break this down. Let's make this simpler for you. Let's practice this at an easier level, so that you can start to hit a baseball."
The same mentality should apply to children and their organizational deficits.
Tags: learning disabilities, executive function deficits, organizational problems, shut down learners
Comments
Children and homework-any age
The problem with just letting your child do their homework alone, then turning it in at school, is that if the child did not understand the concept, you, as a parent, have no idea that your child missed out on a core concept early on until you get the report card at the end of the quarter, semester, etc, and see a low grade. Once the homework is turned in, the child often never sees it again, and not one teacher we have ever had has ever gone back and explained to each child what they did incorrectly and how to fix it. Homework is just another box to check of for some teachers, though by no means all of them.
My son works very hard, but at 10 years old can write as well as a preschooler and not nearly as fast. I have had to come up with alternative ways to make homework work for my child, from creating computer generated documents to keep math problems lined up, to color coded paragraph tables in Word with comments explaining what to put in each block, to scanning in the school's homework page and making it computer compatible, to telling his teacher he will be working for X time and what he finishes, that is IT for homework that night, done or not.
Parents with children who do not fit into the school mold need to make sure they do not get bullied by the schools into trying to make their square peg fit into a round hole. Square pegs are great the way they are, no whittling required.
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