School-Aged Children
Options
6 yr old brings home A's but......
She isn't really trying, and totally zones out in school. She needs SO much prompting to get her school work done and is always the last in the class to finish everything.....HELP!
I get notes sent home/emailed from her teacher almost daily. She's missing out on playtime, because she has to complete her work. But even though she doesn't do what she needs to do, she gets A's on all her tests and other work. She's also a 'Chatty Cathy' in school and disruptive to the other students.
I'm taking her to her Pedi on Monday, which I'm sure will be the start of evaluations/testing.
Has anyone else gone through this? What happened? Was there treatment? Does it get better? Any advice will be welcome, I don't know where to begin!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: 6 yr old brings home A's but......
Maybe she is not challanged? This was true for me in school. I finished my work quickly. I would ask how this can be addressed - maybe she can take on extra projects in school to work on, especially ones that address her strengths.
The bad result for me was that I ended up with very poor study habits as a result of earning "As" easily.
This was me, as a child. It always took me forever to get my schoolwork done, if I even did it at all. I was constantly talking to my friends and rarely paid attention in class.
Turns out I have ADD, but I was never tested as a child. As I grew up, I developed some of my own coping habits, but always had problems with school, since they did not cater to the way I learned and processed information.
There are coping methods out there, without relying on medication(s), you just have to find them. Due to my son, his class now has a "large motor" section incorporated. It helps him rid some of his excess energy before he is required to focus on schoolwork. They also set up a "quiet area" where he (or other children) can go to work on schoolwork and help minimize visual/audio distractions.
I know it's tough, but try not to stress too much. There's always something that can be done.
Thank you for your responses. Since the teacher has been bringing this up, I'm surprised she didn't recommend an eval for ADHD. But I do know that girls get evaluated less, since they show less of the the hyperactive aspect and are therefore less of an 'issue' in class.
We're doing this on our own, starting with a chat with the Pediatrician. I almost don't want to inform the school, because I don't want her labeled. Obviously though, the teach doesn't know how to handle this and I will be speaking with her after the eval... =/
I think the teacher doesn't want to give her more work because she get so little of her regular work done. But I do know that DD brings home more challenging reading material than most of her peers...
I worry as the work gets harder her poor orginizational skills will bring on bad grades, I'm hoping we can resolve this by then.
As a teacher, I will tell you this - if a teacher even mentions the idea that a student might have some type of disability (be it mentally, emotionally, auditory, etc.) then it automatically puts the school at a liability to pay for any and all testing to see if your child actually has a "disability" (and I use that word lightly - I too have ADHD, and I wouldn't really call it a disability...). So, just an FYI, more than likely they won't ever specifically say what they think is wrong with your child, but instead will tell you the symptoms that your child is having so that you can consult a diagnosis on your own!
I teach and have tutored GT/LD kids, and one of my kids fits this description.
My advice would be to pursue testing and hear out the recommendations of the specialists. Get the best testing you can afford. If you get a diagnosis of just ADD or ADHD with no other issue, be skeptical. In my experience, these attention issues rarely travel alone. They're usually present in a child who has some other issue. When I've taught kids who supposedly "only" had ADHD, I could often tell there was something else going on.
Once you figure out what's going on, read up on whatever it is and become an expert.
Know that early treatment is really, really helpful for dealing with this issue. Getting started in K or 1st grade is a great time to begin working with a student with attention deficit, executive function weakness, language processing issues, or some other mild learning issue. (Dollars to doughnuts, if they find something it will be related to one of these three categories.)
Regardless of the technical diagnosis, you should know that the single most powerful tool a parent can use to help a child like this is: STRUCTURE. Whenever you can provide structure for your child, you'll see results.
Here are some routines I use with my kids (my oldest has executive function weakness):
--morning routine: kids get up to an alarm clock, all "getting ready" activities done before breakfast. No TV in the morning. 2 choices for breakfast each day. DD has a "to do" list for morning tasks. If everything is done, she can read a comic book or play DS with extra time.
--school materials: this is still pretty easy at age 6, but it's a good time to lay down habits so that when she's in later grades and has to take responsibility, she is ready -- school is probably providing a school-home communication folder. Work with her to understand how to use it and how to differentiate the sides. Get in the habit of going through the folder with her each afternoon and throwing away stuff. Make sure you have a spot at home for stuff that you want to keep. Buy a ton of pencils and crayons and check w/ teacher regularly to make sure she has all the supplies she needs.
--homework time: establishing a routine in the afternoon and evening NOW, while hw is still relatively easy will pay off BIG TIME when things get tricky later. Grades 4 and 7 tend to be the two grades when hw really ramps up and kids begin to struggle. Do homework at the same time each day (whenever possible) and in the same place. Sit down with her to get her started and get in the habit of making a "to do" list. My first grader's "to do" list is always 2 items at this point: read for 20 minutes, do the other assignment. Have all the supplies on hand. Whenever possible, stay near, but don't do homework with her. Get her started, then let her work. Keep an eye on her, answer questions, help if asked, and help her stay on task if she seems to be zoning a lot. Otherwise, butt out. No TV, computer, video game or other really "attention-grabbing" activities are done until homework is finished for the night. Putting away supplies and packing the backpack is part of homework.
HTH! Keep us posted!
Yes, thank you! We got all the paperwork necessary and I have a meeting with the teacher on Wednesday. Once I turn everything in the Pedi will recommend DD for eval or or not. Regardless, I will be pursuing it further. Another thing they will be looking at is her occasional inclination to turn numbers/letters around. Usually B's D's and 2's for some reason. It hasn't gotten better, even though she doesn't read them backward.
We do have a structured routine as far as mornings and homework go and you are spot on about the communication folder. I go through it every night with her. We do HW at the desk in the kitchen with no distractions, yet it is still a struggle and she has to be prompted frequently or she stares off into space/starts drawing on the desk, doodling.....ect.
The morning routine is the same, no TV and she gets up at 6 am, to be out of the house by 7:10, it's still a struggle to get her out. I can't imagine how early she will have to get up to be ready for the bus next year (it comes at 6:20, yikes!)
She is a master procrastinator, regardless of my prompting (ok, nagging). Its very frustrating, I have a 3 yr old and am 36 weeks PG... I spend most of my time prompting her to get her stuff done.
She's a very bright, and precocious girl. I want to get this figured out before her grades begin to suffer...
1. Seriously, don't worry about this too much. Sometimes the only way to extract services and help from the school is to shove the "label" in their faces and demand that they do what they are required to do for a kid with this "label." Also, don't think for a minute that she's not going to get secretly "labeled" by the school, if she's the kid who is bright but always last to get her work done, and the kid who's always chatting away with her classmates. If you don't step forward with a diagnostic label, the teachers will essentially slap the label of "problem kid" on her.
2. You are right to worry about this. I've tutored and taught many a kid whose parents waited until the poo hit the westinghouse in 4th, 7th, or even high school, and it's REALLY hard to help a kid who is essentially having to break several years of bad habits. Even if you decide not to pursue testing right now, get started on helping her with organization, structure, and routine yourself at home.
I understand this so very well. I also get DD up at 6 am just to catch her bus at 7:05 and it's insane to think about the possibility of her having to catch an even earlier bus. We do so much prep the night before so we're not running around at the last minute doing whatever is needed to be done to be ready for school. Outfit and shoes are picked out the night before, backpack by the front door, toothbrush is in the powder room: anything we can do to prevent her from needing to go upstairs or be distracted by not having what is needed. And it is still a constant struggle to get her slow butt in gear.
She does have ADHD and (based on a PP's comments) sounds like she even has executive function weakness. She definitely does well with routine and changing that routine throws life completely off balance and it's extremely difficult to get her to settle down, focus, and not expect that out of the ordinary change to be just that: an exception to the rule.
She is extremely bright/smart and her problem is that she speeds through her work and makes basic mistakes that could've been avoided had she slowed down. Or, if she's bored, she'll drag her feet and not do what is expected. It is definitely a work in progress getting her to recognize her behavior and calling her out on it to bring attention to the matter at hand and learning coping methods.
It's a process and will continue to be a process for years to come; and I see so much of myself as a child in her that I've been able to more easily identify what her triggers are. Which is both a blessing and a curse at times.
Hope that you are able to get some answers and set a course of action to help you and your DD.
I had my meeting with DD's teacher today. Overall, it went pretty well. Joey (DD) does really well in every area except 'center time'.....which is where she is expected to work independently. Which, based on my observance of her doing her homework, I already knew)
She isn't a dicipline issue, she's sweet (according to teacher) is social, and well liked by peers....
The teacher, like me is worried that when 2nd grade comes around though, and she has more work to do, she'll start falling behind.
Anyway, I've done my home eval paperwork, and the teacher has done her eval, so now I just have to submit it to the Dr and see from there.
If by any chance, they do NOT recommend intervention, where do I begin with the process on my own? A learning center like Sylvan or Caplan? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated......
An interesting tidbit I found out today also, DD's teacher is a HUGE proponent of redshirting.... which obviously we didn't do... DD just about made the cutoff for kindergarten...
She said that 1 little girl in class was held back b/c the mom 'wanted her to grow up more'..... so she'll be almost 8 by the time first grade is over.....DD is 6.5.... and one of the youngest in the class.
Why is this so common these days?
I have no idea why red shirting is more popular - or that it even is. My DD is one of the oldest in her class; but she was born after the cut-off. She is also a major curve buster and insanely smart - which led me to contemplate attempting to get her in kindergarten with the "older" group but her immaturity (or rather, her appropriate maturity within the current grade she is in) coupled with the ADHD halted that thought pretty thoroughly for me. Also, thinking down the road, I'd rather her be almost 19 rather than almost 18 when she begins college. It's amazing the maturity difference a year can make.
It is just up to us (her parents) to make sure that she stays challenged mentally so that she doesn't become bored while she grows into her maturity. I don't know anything about Sylvan or Caplan so I do not have any advice regarding that. I do hope that having high-lighted exactly where Joey has her difficulties (center time) you and her teacher can work on encouraging her to work better independently. Whatever method that may be will depend mostly on how Joey responds to whatever form you choose.
Good luck!