Archive for the ‘school’ Category
After the post about Ron and his college homework, you’re probably ready for some positive hints on homework…and thanks to Alana Morales – here they are: Three Tips For Managing Homework Headaches!
In my neck of the woods (or desert, as it is), we are gearing up for the second quarter of school. This semester, I have experienced teacher battles, homework nightmares and medication debacles. All in all, a pretty normal school year for an ADHD family, wouldn’t you say?
One of the things that I have found myself doing is reevaluating my homework processes and making changes based on the day, the subject and the kids. A large part of the homework battle with ADHD kiddos is getting the homework home and then back to school. Part of this is finding out if they even have homework. As frustrating as this is, it is an essential skill to work on, because without the homework, there can be no grades. Here are some strategies that you can employ to make sure the homework makes it home:
1. From School To Home. – Use some sort of daily agenda. Have your student write down their class agenda and homework daily and if they have trouble doing this, ask the teacher to check it and initial off on it every day before your student leaves school. If they are having additional trouble with this step, ask the teacher if you can show up and write down the assignments for a few days or once a week and continue this until your student gets on track. (Kayla’s note: Check out the PAC-kit for this!)
- Make a homework folder. Sometimes homework gets lost in what I like to refer to as “The Abyss.” You may also know it by it’s more common name – the backpack. If your student has some organizational issues, make them a homework folder. Then, ANY work that is to come home can be put in this folder. My recommendation is to make the folder as difficult as possible to lose – make it a bright color or even a character folder. And plan on having several backups for the inevitable time it gets lost, ripped or otherwise unusable.
- Pick a study buddy. This is a person in the class who is responsible and can be called on the phone if your student ever misses an assignment or has a question about an activity.
2. At Home. – Make sure you have a designated homework area with supplies. After battling over spelling words or math problems, the last thing you want to do is have a kid lose their motivation just because you lack the proper materials.
- Schedule breaks. It’s tough to stay on task after trying to stay on task all day. Set a timer and let your kiddo take a break eveyrtime it goes off, provided they are working effectively while it is ticking away.
- Offer incentives. Offer some incentive based on their homework performance. Give Nerds, Smarties, or Sweet Tarts for each math problem completed or spelling word written correctly. It really helps with the immediate gratification issue.
3. Getting the Homework Back To School. Yes, kids need to be responsible, but let’s face it, our little darlings need a little more support in these areas.
- Make sure when an assignment is done, it immediately goes into the homework folder. Not on the table. Not on top of the backpack. In the folder. Trust me on this one.
- Use the agenda. Ask the teacher to sign the agenda to show that the nightly homework was turned in. It may seem like a lot of checks and balances, but until ADHD kids can use these skills consistently, it’s a good idea to make it as difficult as possible for them to forget.
Using these tips may seem like a lot of work and they are. But, in the end, if your student is able to get better grades, be less frustrated and build more self confidence, isn’t that worth the extra work?
———-Alana Morales is the author of Domestically Challenged: A Working Mom’s Survival Guide to Becoming a Stay at Home Mom. You can learn more about her at www.AlanaMorales.com. You can also follow her on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/alanamorales for mom and ADHD tips.
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!
Don’t let the headline get to you. For some kids, math comes easy to them. Then there are the rest of us. Not to be stereotypical, but math can pose some special difficulties for our ADHD kids.
ADHD kids have a tendency to have difficulties with math facts, processing word problems and even following the order of operations. Special skills can help ease these troubles.
Here are three tips to help your kids survive and thrive math this year.
1. Make it fun. I know I keep saying this, but make the math fun. Despite common belief, you can make it fun. Let them do math facts online. Download a math game. In fact, you can even buy a math game for the Nintendo DS called Math Play
2.Do what works. Math can be troubling because you have to keep track of all those darn numbers. Here’s two ways to keep them in check. One unorthodox method is to take the notebook paper and turn it sideways. Then, when your student writes their numbers, they can keep them all in a row.
If you need a stronger way to keep track of the problems, have your student do their math homework on graph paper. If there isn’t enough room, let them write in two boxes per number. Since going to this method, I can actually read my son’s homework!
Another tip is to highlight the different operations in different colors. You could make addition green, subtraction yellow, multiplication blue and division pink. This will help remind our kiddos what operation they should be doing.
3. Practice, practice, practice. Unfortunately, the school day just keeps getting more and more busy. This means that there is less and less time for practicing basic math skills. Try to practice math facts 5 minutes a day or 10 minutes every other day. To make it easier, make a game of it. You can play bingo, have a scavenger hunt, play on the computer – whatever it takes.
Make sure they have samples of the exact type of problem they are working on. Modeling is very important with ADHD kids, especially since so many are visual learners.
Math can be fun…or at the worst, much less painful. Math is a necessary skill and all kids need to learn how to work problems effectively. Help take some of the stress out of math homework and become the math hero of your house today!
Do you have an ADHD/ADD educational issue you would like to see addressed? If so, contact Alana Morales on her blog at www.MommyADD.com.
Thanks as always to Alana for her great advice and excellent ADHD hints!
PS Don’t miss the special offer of getting Focus Pocus with a bonus copy of Waking Up from the Homework Nightmare!
Today’s blog post features a couple of things specifically for families with children or adults with ADHD. The first is an article written especially for our newsletter by Alana Morales, the author of Domestically Challenged: A Working Mom’s Survival Guide to Becoming a Stay at Home Mom. In addition to being a writer, Alana is also a veteran English teacher and the mom of two ADHD kids. Despite being an English teacher, she dearly values her Psychology degree and is impressed at how often it comes in handy. You can learn more about Alana at her website, www.AlanaMorales.com.
One of the best gifts a parent can give their child is a strong educational foundation. Parenting a child with ADD or ADHD and surviving the school age years is a tough enough task as it is. One of the biggest challenges we face when parenting our kids is striking a balance between helping them develop skills to improve their academic skills and allowing them to make mistakes and then learn from them.
Here are my top three ways to take charge of your child’s education:
1. Communicate with the teacher. Being the parent of a child with ADD/ADHD takes a lot of work. It is vital to your student’s success for you to remain in contact with the teacher. This does not mean that you need to email the teacher daily for reports, but regular contact with the teacher will help you keep tabs on things like academic areas that need improvement, how well medications are working (or if they need dosage adjustments) and how your child is doing socially.
At the beginning of the school year, introduce yourself to the teacher (or teachers) and just let them know that you will be keeping tabs on little Johnny’s progress. Many teachers will be happy to know that they have the support of someone at home.
2. See if your child qualifies for classroom accommodations.
Many parents don’t realize it, but if you have a child that has ADD/ADHD and it impacts their classroom learning, they may qualify for what is called a 504 plan. At the risk of being overly simple, a 504 plan is a legal document that protects your student and stipulates that the school must make certain accommodations in the classroom to level the learning playing field.
If this is an avenue you want to pursue, the first step is to mention it to your child’s teacher. The teacher will then talk to school and set up a 504 meeting. In this meeting, you will sit down with relevant school officials to determine whether your child may benefit academically from accommodations.
3. Be supportive, but don’t enable.
During the school years, it will be vital for you as parents to support your child in their education. The important point to keep in mind is that supporting does not equal enabling. Enabling runs the gamut, from doing things like completing tasks for them to making excuses for their academic performance (or lack thereof).
How can you tell the difference? Look at who is doing most of the work. If you are doing more than a minimal amount, you may be enabling. If your student doesn’t get something done because they mismanaged their time, that is ultimately their responsibility, not yours, and they need to be responsible for their actions. Just because they have ADD/ADHD doesn’t mean that you should be there to rescue them. If they are working on a homework assignment and it takes them two hours to finish, then write a note to the teacher explaining that it was a rough night. Don’t write a note asking for more time simply because they didn’t start their homework right away – this is enabling.
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