He hates school

[ange65]

Ds is 9 and in 3rd grade and he hates school.
He refuses to do most of the work. He refuses to do his homework.
I am at my wits end. I am so worried about his education. It seems to be
getting worse every year and I can not see it getting any better.
Although I have major problems with the principal of the school, his
teacher and the head of special education are trying everything in their
power to try to help him. He has an IEP where over the last few years we
have tried a lot of different avenues, to no avail.
How do we motivate him to try?
At the moment we are trying some CBT for his anxiety at the
psychologist but I think that this therapy will be a slow ongoing process.
Stimulants and anti- depressants made no difference.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Andrea

[jj]

I'm not sure how much help I'll be but do you think he refuses to do the work because he just isn't getting it? The work he does do, does he struggle majorly. I guess I'm asking because my first thought was this is just a discouraged kid. Or am I way off base?

[charliegirl]

Third grade is rough on kids. The kids are expected to know so much and start really building on it. Its the first year my son really hated school and its the year when it became obvious to the other kids that he had cognitive problems. Up to then they thought he was so smart because he knew a lot about many things, but in 3rd grade they started noticing it took longer to do the work, he didn't catch on to math facts as well as the others, etc.

I can certainly understand why your son doesn't want to do the work. It requires so much more effort and is much more confusing.

If you can figure out ways to make learning fun for him, it will help. Fractions, math facts, etc can be made fun by baking. If you make pies, you get fractions. Cupcakes can show multiples of a certain number. Finger painting letters and numbers and math work with large, fluid motions somehow makes it easier for many kids to retain the information.

For written assignments, my son's teacher let him do some of his assignments on the computer and e-mail them to her. It helped him to see what he had written easier and made it much easier to edit. Without having to struggle with forming his letters he was able to remember what he wanted to say so it was more fluid. I also scribed for him and just wrote down exactly what he said, then let him edit it and add punctuation, etc. He would then copy it in his own hand. You need to be careful though that its his work and he does the editing so you can assure the teacher he wrote it, you just provided the typing fingers.

All those things can make homework more enjoyable and help your son "get it". I know once we started looking for alternative ways to do his homework my son was much happier with it. He still didn't like it but he was willing to try. Its even ok to laugh while you are helping him.

The one thing I want my son to come out of school knowing even more than I want him filled with book knowledge is that there are different ways of learning and that learning can be fun. If he enjoys learning and knows he can then I know he can do whatever he chooses with his future because he will be willing to do what he needs to do to learn if its important to him.

[ange65]

Thanks for the replys.
Jack, up until this year seemed to be coping academically and remained 'average'.
He has always hated school and has always needed a lot of coaxing to get to do any work. He normally gets very frustrated and 'loses it' or will use excuses to get out of doing any work. For homework, he just downright refuses to do it.
I suppose I was hoping that getting an IEP and trying different things as well as some maturing on his part, that things would gradually improve.
Unfortunately he seems to be going backwards.
Recently we introduced a computer so that he could do his work on that. The novelty wore off after a week and he is now making excuses so he doesn't have to use that anymore.( to reward him, his teacher even said that he could play games on the computer at the end of the day if he completed all of his work tasks in class) .This lasted a week.
Anything we try does not last very long and most don't work at all.
Today at school, he faked being ill and once he was home he seemed to make a remarkable recovery.
Im just so concerned that although he is intelligent enough, his behaviour is going to really impact his schooling. He says schoolwork is " too hard and it takes too long" although he has proven occasionally in the past that he is more than capable, he just does not want to do it.
I'm just so worried about his future.

[charliegirl]

It sounds so much like what I went through with my son. I know how much it hurts. Something you need to remember is that he is working much harder at each step he takes than most of the other kids in his class. He sees them learning things without working nearly as hard at it and it does get frustrating. My son lost interest in most rewards easily. When he really wanted a reward though, it was amazing how hard he would work to get it.

Have you asked him what rewards he would consider worth working toward? Frequent small rewards can help him stay motivated with a larger one at the end of a certain time frame such as each marking period helped us. The small ones could be taking a friend to McDonald's if he got his homework done and handed in each week. (The home to school co-coordinator used to take my son to lunch in town when he kept his work caught up for a certain period of time. He adored her so he really put in the effort.) She made a point of him having to be caught up by a certain date rather than daily so if he had one bad day he didn't give up for the duration. The larger one could be an item he wants or a certain amount of money for each passing grade. If his goal is a gift and you see that he did try very hard and just couldn't manage one subject you can still reward him giving him credit for all the effort he put in. Sometimes you can work your tail off and not quite get there so you want to encourage the effort more than the grades.

My son is in 8th now and it is still a struggle for him but he did finally realize he can do ok if he works hard and keeps his work caught up. His teachers were amazing last year. After years of teachers getting frustrated and yelling at him in front of the other kids, etc, they called us into a meeting and told him in front of us and each other how smart he is and how they know he has to work very hard but that they believed in him and were willing to help him whenever he needed it. They encouraged him to work up to his potential rather than showed anger when he lagged or had trouble. It made a huge difference. They made a point of never making him feel stupid in front of his peers. They held him to the standards they knew he was capable of but when he fell down on the job they didn't tell him off in front of anyone. They talked to him in private and made a point to praise him in public. That helped his self esteem immensely.

We're still struggling and school for us starts Wednesday. I'm hoping for the same quality of teachers this year. I think he will have many of the same ones. I really hope so.

We have several links to sites for kids in our specialty board. They have all sorts of games that help kids learn as well as being fun. You could try allowing him to play a game that uses whatever subject he will be doing homework on before he does his homework. That might help him relax instead of being stressed out when he does the homework as well as working to refresh his memory on the subject.

[lillian]

Why did he receive an IEP? Was he given a complete educational evaluation, with academic achievement tests and other testing? Do you have copies of that testing? If you do and want to post it, I can look at it and see if I can find some kind of academic reason why school is so difficult for him.

[bugsmom]

Hi Ange65...I have a question. You mentioned that your son has anxiety in your post, is he being treated for that?

The only reason I ask, is that my son has anxiety also, so I know how hard this is to deal with. I've always said that the ADHHHHHD is a cake walk to deal with compared to the anxiety. My son started this same behavior in the 4th grade. It was a very hard year.

My son also pulled the "I don't feel good" thing on me last year. I figured out that it was always at the same time of day, just BEFORE math. He was really struggling with math and the math teacher and his anxiety would go full tilt. It was fight or flight for him. He didn't want to do math, talk about math, do math homework....ugg! He would also do this with other subjects that he felt he couldn't do well on. He would work himself up even before he knew what he had to do. He'd be defeated before he could even prove himself. It's a vicious circle.

Your son sounds like mine in a lot of ways. I have found that my son has gotten so much better since fourth grade. He's going into 7th now and he's matured and is able to handle his frustration so much better. We have decided to homeschool this year to built up his self-esteem and confidence, but he has improved so much since he was younger.

Please keep us updated on how your son's doing. I think all of CG suggestions are great.

[charliegirl]

Sept 1, 2008 14:29:19 GMT -5 lillian said:

Why did he receive an IEP? Was he given a complete educational evaluation, with academic achievement tests and other testing? Do you have copies of that testing? If you do and want to post it, I can look at it and see if I can find some kind of academic reason why school is so difficult for him.

Lillian is great at that, Ange, so if you aren't comfortable posting that you can feel confident in sending her a pm with the info in it.

[ange65]

Thanks again for your replys.
Charliegirl, I will certainly try some of your suggestions.

Bugsmom, I agree, Anxiety is really hard to deal with. I am hoping that the psychologist can help us with that. We had our initial appt last week but he doesnt have his first real appt until beginning of October. I hope that it can make a difference. Did your son have any CBT for his anxiety?

Lillian, Back in 2005, he was diagnosed PDD-NOS so he was eligible for an IEP. We have the IEP fine tuned every 6 months.
The PDD-NOS diagnosis is one that I and some other specialists do not agree with, but I figure at the time being I will leave it alone. (I am still searching not necessarily for what he has got so much as what can be done to help his symptoms - if that makes sense)
We are in Australia. I am not sure if the testing you do in the US is done here. The only testing they seem to have offered Jack at school seems to be an O.T assessment and a Speech assessment.
We have visited many different specialists over the last 4 years and I have found some test results in all the paperwork.
They include : WPPSI-111 test done in July 06
WISC-111 test done in June 07
and a CMS test also done in June 07
The report also mentions Wechsler subtests scores.
Are these some of the tests you refer to, if so I could post them as I would be most appreciative of your knowledge.

[lillian]

Yes, those are the tests I am referring to, plus any achievement tests you have.