Archive for the ‘focus’ Category
Looking back over the last ten years, one piece of equipment keeps showing up – the TIMER. Timers have been essential in our house. There are all sorts of timers – free ones on the computer or your microwave. Timers that come as a function on a watch or a cell phone. Iphones have special timer applications. There are visual timers, timers that buzz/flash/beep, timers that sing. (Here’s a whole page of reminder clocks.) We’ve used timers for all sorts of things – like on Halloween night we set the countdown for 30 minutes and let the kids eat all the candy they wanted. 
That is NOT a recommended use. Here are five ways to use a timer that I do recommend.
Setting a Deadline – This is probably the most negative of the ways to use a timer, so let’s get it out of the way first. Use a timer to specify a time that a task must be completed. You can give deadline for a chore or a part of an assignment to be done. “You must be finished emptying the dishwasher in fifteen minutes.” Or “You have ten minutes to write those three sentences.” If needed, add some teeth and give a consequence if a chore is not completed in the specified time. “Whatever toys are left on the floor in ten minutes will be taken away.”
Setting a Limit – FlyLady (of flylady.com, one of my favorites!) says that you can do anything for 15 minutes. She’s talking about house cleaning, and she’s right. Anybody can stand to mop for fifteen minutes, although for me it is hard! Your timer can be used to point out that the end of a dreaded task or activity is near.
For example, if your child dreads math, set the timer for ten minutes, and tell him when the timer goes off, he can have a break. Set the timer for ten minutes, and tell your kids that you’re all going to work as hard as you can to clean out the car.
Put a timer beside a child who is in time out, so they can watch the end of their ’sentence’ approach. Give a child ‘five more minutes’ of bedtime reading, after which light are out. Limit screen time with the free online-stopwatch.com. My mom used to use a kitchen timer for my piano practice. Use a timer to help kids take turn with the Wii or the computer.
When Ron was two, he used to have a melt down every time my husband left for work. While his emotion was real, he needed to learn to get it out and get it over with. Thirty minutes of a screaming two year old is really too much… Finally, I told Ron he was allowed to cry for ten minutes in what we called our tantrum chair, which was in our living room away from the family. After that, his tantrum had to stop. And it did – especially because he had no audience. (One of my favorite stories is “The Tantrum Chairs”, which tells about how my husband and I almost burned our legs off trying to impress a preschool teacher. It’s a really funny tale of my housekeeping, parenting, and cleaning – um – ’skills’. You can read it here.)
Stay on Task Reminder – When our guys were young, they fought over our Triple Tell Timer, which they could program to beep, vibrate, and/or flash at various intervals. The Triple Tell basically took the place of me nagging them to stay on task.
Challenges – Tell your kids to do as many math problems as they can before time is up. Challenge kids to estimate the amount of time they spend on a task – teaching them to budget their time better. Calculate words read per minute. Keep a record of ‘best time’ for reading, math, or spelling, and have kids try to beat their personal best while keeping comprehension and accuracy up.
To Do Reminders – There are timers – especially watches – that have reminder functions on them. They can remind you of appointments or when it’s time to head to soccer practice. They can be programmed to give reminders to take (or dispense) medication.
My favorite? One of my sons left his cell phone near where I was cooking the other day. At 3:00 it buzzed, and I instinctively looked down to see what the screen said. My son had set himself a reminder: “PRAY.”
A good reminder for us all.
PS The Triple Tell Timer makes a great gift or stocking stuffer. Grab yours today!
Wii for ADHD?
And yes, as I mentioned in the newsletter, part of me remains skeptical, probably because my boys will STILL hyperfocus on video games and do nothing else for hours.
Recently, our oldest came home from college for a weekend, homework in tow. I know the child is 23 years old, but I was happy that he was able to find the assignment (okay, so it was online, but still). I was even happier that he had the correct book.
Ron’s homework was to write a comprehensive summary of three chapters in one of his business textbooks. Talk about boring. He’s pretty interested in it, though. He explained enough to show me he had a good grasp of the subject, although for the life of me I can’t remember what it was.
We had a good discussion about how hard it is for him to write. It’s still hard for him to focus, and it’s still hard for him to get his thoughts on paper. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation:
Ron: “I’m having a hard time with this I can’t summarize it like I want.” Me: “Just go through the chapter and summarize the topic sentence of each paragraph.”
Ron: “How’s that going to prepare me for real life? I want it to be in my own words. I might have to write a business report one day.”
“You’ll have a secretary. And it will be in your own words. Don’t over complicate things! Just get it over with. DO it.”
Good grief. He wanted to rewrite the chapter. It was a summary – not a research paper. The purpose of a summary is to summarize!
I reminded him to go through the chapter and make an outline with all the headings. He had done that already. (Does this that he was listening to me when he was in high school?)
Ron: “Writing isn’t as easy for me as it is for you and Ash.” Me: “Walking into a room full of friends and being friends with everybody in five minutes isn’t as easy for me as it is for you.”
“I just can’t get it from my brain onto the paper. I can talk about this until I’m blue in the face, but when I try to put it on paper, I blank out.” At this point, we’ve moved from a discussion to a rant, and he’s procrastinating. “That’s called a screen, bud. 21st century. Look at it and type.”
Ron still is frustrated by his difficulties. He still procrastinates. He’s still disorganized, although not overwhelmingly so. Ron still won’t do things that really would help – like speak his thoughts into a recorder, then transcribe them. Ron still works best in short spurts. He’d set a goal, work madly until he met it, then stop and play a video game or get something to eat. Ron is learning, and enjoying the learning, but not the studying. But at the end of the day, Ron is succeeding!
During one of the his breaks, I read him the story I’d written about one nightmare of a weekend when he left one of his assignments in his jeans pocket – and I washed it. It’s an hysterical story, one that will sound way familiar to you. Read it on the blog at http://www.adhd-inattentive.com/114, and you’ll understand I can write things like Waking Up from the Homework Nightmare.
Anyhow, while I was reading I left out his name, and when I finished, Ron said, “Who was that?!”
You’ve come a long way, buddy.
PS If you’ve not read Waking Up from the Homework Nightmare, you really owe it to yourself to grab a copy before your next homework nightmare begins!
Last week in the newsletter, I mentioned that all of our kids had come home for the weekend – Ron with college homework in tow. While he was taking a break, I read him an article I wrote back when he was in the tenth grade. Read, it, multiply it by four, and you’ll understand why I’m able to write stuff like Waking Up from the Homework Nightmare and Focus Pocus!
“Did you wash jeans? My Algebra assignments were in my pocket.”
Sure enough, crumpled up in the trash was a freshly laundered yellow sticky note, with penciled assignments too faded to read. So he pored through the Algebra II text, hoping for clues. No luck. My suggestions to call a friend were rebuffed, but finally, he gave in.
He asked if I had Ryan’s number, then went leafing through the phonebook to find the number. He needed her dad’s name, which I supplied, but she wasn’t home. So he went through three more absentee friends. He even called his youth pastor for another friend’s number. Nothing. An hour had passed in vain.”Change subjects. Do something else.” His Physical Science assignment was on a piece of paper in his Geometry book, which he couldn’t find. I had seen it in the car, and sure enough, it was there, soaked through, lying in a puddle of water that had leaked from another brother’s water bottle. The assignment still wasn’t to be found.
An hour and a half are now lost.”Go clean your room. You can call your friends later tonight.” So he goes upstairs, only to be distracted by an errant yellow jacket. He comes back down, insisting he shouldn’t be upstairs cleaning. After I warn him that my sting is more lethal than that of any bee, he comes back to get a flyswatter, but wastes more minutes describing the insect to me.
After much banging about, the insect is dead. It’s not a yellow jacket, but a large hornet. He proudly shows the creature to me, then threatens his brothers with it. After talking to the bird (the one who can burp), he heads back upstairs to work. His room, to his credit, gets done.
He also doesn’t mention he has any homework besides the mystery assignments. Since I don’t know he has more to do, he somehow figures he doesn’t have to complete it until Sunday.
So, Sunday afternoon rolls around. I have a meeting at 2:30, so after church we go out to eat, then the rest of the family waits for me. Of course, the homework is left at home. After I remind him, and then insist, he calls his friends to get his assignments. His friends are still gone, but I’ll bet their homework was finished.
At home, he finally makes contact with one friend, who gives him the Algebra homework. He also discovers that at some point he has lost his Geometry sheet, which is makeup for work he should have completed last week, and work he could have done on Saturday.
So I pore through his bookbag, and discover Latin papers wadded up in the History notebook, which is also full of Geometry notes. I’m overwhelmed by the disorganization. I discover a sheet that lists Tuesday as the due date for his Geometry notebook check, although he insists his teacher says it is due Thursday. I also go through all the drawers in his room. While he finishes his Algebra, I sort all his papers into subjects. I haven’t helped him all year, so I feel like I can help him in this without being an enabler.
It is now 11:30 pm on Sunday night. His Algebra is finished, almost. He has lost …..Oh, my gosh. I couldn’t have timed this better. As I am typing the above paragraph, he walks in. “Hey mom, you know that Geometry worksheet?” He doesn’t mention that it’s the one I just spent two hours looking for. “The reason I couldn’t find it was that it wasn’t a worksheet. It was a problem in the book. Can you come help me with it?”
So what do you think? Should I boil him in oil or feed him to the sharks?
PS If this story sounds WAY too familiar – sort of like a nightmare – then you need to read Waking Up from the Homework Nightmare. It’s our story of how the madness ended – and we woke up!
Here are some of the helpful hints from Focus Pocus – 100 Ways to Help Your Child Pay Attention.
7. For multi-step tasks, have kids pair a task to a finger. If you want your son to pick up the bathroom, empty the trash, feed the dog, then sweep the front porch, have him ‘put’ one task on each of his fingers. Then have him count back to you – as he holds up the first finger, he says, “Pick up the bathroom.” On second finger, he should say, “Empty the trash.” This will help him remind himself, and ensure that he heard you in the first place.
13. Pick your fidgety child to be the ‘server’ at dinner. Give them the honored task of refilling drinks, grabbing the serving fork for the green beans, getting the ketchup from the medicine cabinet – er – refrigerator, mopping up spills, and serving dessert. This is a great time for your child to acquire some valuable life skills, too. Don’t forget to express your thanks.
32…..NOTE: The fight isn’t worth it. If you have to fight with your child to get dressed – dress them yourself. It takes 60 stressless seconds. (They’ll learn how to tie their shoes before college, and if not, they can wear flip flops!) We always fought over making beds. Consider using a sleeping bag instead of sheets – a trick still used by our two who have moved away. Or consider leaving their bed unmade – a trick our other two still do at home.
48. Ask for explanation. If you ask, “Do you understand?”, a child will almost always answer “Yes.” They may want to please you, they may think they understand, or they may just want to be done with homework, but they may not really grasp what they have learned. Instead of asking if you were understood, ask your child to explain the concept to you.
61. Take a picture of the assignment board. Most kids have cell phones, and many kids have camera phones. Get permission for kids to be able to take a picture of the assignment board. Or the teacher can take the picture and then email it, upload it a webpage, or even Tweet it to parents. This is a lot easier than trying to type in assignments on a teacher website.
73. Teach a child how to flow with a conversation. Your child abruptly changes the subject because she is not really listening to a dinner conversation. Stop her, and ask your daughter what was being said before she spoke. Chances are, she can tell you – she heard, but didn’t attend.
She must be taught to recognize that although she is talking, she isn’t participating in a conversation. Ask your daughter to make an appropriate following comment. Explain that it’s important to have a conversation – one person talks, then the other person answers, then another person until the subject is finished.
For example: Ron: Today at school, this kid threw up all over the floor in gym class.
Joe: I won the race in PE today.
Mom: Joe, what did Ron just say?
Joe: Ummm. (Looks to the ceiling to recall.) Some kid threw up in gym.
Mom: What’s the next sentence in that conversation?
Joe: Could you see what he ate for breakfast?
Welcome to my life!
PS Don’t miss the special offer of getting Focus Pocus with a bonus copy of Waking Up from the Homework Nightmare!
Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder all have one thing in common – the inability to sustain and focus attention. But every child – ADHD or not – occasionally has problems staying on task and avoiding distraction.
As parents and teachers – we try to conjure up ways to help them focus. As if they were magical spells, we say such things as, “Listen!” “Pay attention!” “Stop daydreaming!” “Think!” “FOCUS!”
But the spells rarely work. To complicate things, once we find a trick that works, the magic wears off, and the clock strikes twelve. As a result, we are constantly looking for new hints, new strategies, and new ways to charm kids through that next session of homework or that next hour of math.
I’ve been there over and over again with my boys, my students, some of my friends, and even myself. With all of our attempts at alchemy, we did find a few things that worked.
“Focus Pocus” lists one hundred of our very best hints on how to help kids pay attention. They’ll help parents, they’ll help teachers, and most of all, they’ll help our kids.
Of course, none of the hints are really magical. None of them will work all the time. But chances are you’ll find at least one that will help you with the challenge you’re facing today. Tomorrow I’ll post some of the hints from Focus Pocus – 100 Ways to Help Your Child Pay Attention . You can read them all by getting your guide today!
PS Don’t miss the special offer of getting Focus Pocus with a bonus copy of Waking Up from the Homework Nightmare!
“With math homework we modify doing odds or evens if there are more than 10 questions. Also we just implemented a “dot” system. When she is doing classwork, she has to check in after doing X amount of problems and if she stays on track and finishes it in class she gets Dots. This encourages her to keep focused and helps the teacher know when she is struggling and needs help. The Dots are then sent home for us to use on assignments. We then uses the dot’s on homework. One dot for one question she doesn’t have to do. For example, if she has ten math questions, but earns five Dots in class, she only has five problems to do.”
Even without the Dot rewards, this is a great system. For many children, the dots themselves are reward enough. Another good idea for this is to mark the intervals on the paper. If, for example, five questions are a Dot set, put a highlighted mark after question number five. The mark makes a goal, and reaching that goal gives a sense of accomplishment.
NOTE: This great hint is from a discussion on Facebook.
Visit our website at http://www.goaskmom.com.
Staying on task is HARD. Trying to write this, I keep getting distracted, and I don’t have ADHD. To help bring attention back to the task at hand, our family LOVES a little gadget called the Triple Tell Timer
For more great hints on how to help your child focus, visit http://www.goaskmom.com/that_works_adhd_inattentive/focus.html.