Thank you Linda M for your suggestion.... A couple of things that I think I should add to my earlier request for advice is that when I say my son is gifted I mean that he is gifted in all across the board.....He is gifted in sports.....The school will not allow him to play if he has missing assignments....we go through this every year so this year this was on of the restrictions we have given. We told him this year no sports till we see marked improvement in him getting his daily work done. He is also gifted at the guitar. He was able to pick up the guitar within a few weeks and play it better then the rest of his class. He can hear a song and start playing it on guitar like my oldest son who has been playing for years. He was given an chance to be in a band at out local theater...managed by the owner. Because of his grades and this problem we had to tell him "no". So I guess as Linda M said in her response is that we have to keep trying things till we find that one thing that hits him where he lives as motivation.
Thank you
It has been a bit since I put in this request and for that apologize. The update on my request is that we are still battling this issue but after discussion I believe I understand the problem better. My son informed me that besides all the other things that mentioned before he is still having problems with remembering. In other words when he is in class he knows that he has assignments and though he doesn't agree the reason why he needs to do them he knows it is important to his grade. Once he leaves the class unless he (and even when he does) writes it down his focus has changed to next class. So he forgets what he is to do for the previous class. On those rare times that he does remember to do his assignments he either loses it or forgets to hand it in till too late. He has tried different things but having a extra notebook or thing that he has to write routines or things to remember is one more thing to try to remember to do in a teenage ADHD mind that already has thousands of things racing through it at 300 miles an hour. We are still working on the solution but as of yet is is still a work in progress. Thank you for all the suggestions they helped me know where to look for discovering the problem and discussing it with my son.
Thank you again
I have two suggestions. First, statistics show that nagging results in a 25% DECREASE in response so try communicating with your son in a different way...use a creative approach. Second, his gifts and talents may not be in the traditional scholastic arena and wherever they are, they need to be nurtured and he needs to be praised for them. God Bless.
Sounds like you have tried a lot. My son plays sports at school, don't know how interested he is in that, but they do have to keep grades in all classes to be able to play. Not all schools do this part, but here if the teacher reports to the coach that a child is missing an assignment, they still have to come to practice but are put at a desk and cannot join in until they finish it. I guess the trick is to find the restriction that will hurt him the most, my son's is sports and his iPod. It's so hard at this age to convince them that they have to do this to be ready for the "real world." They always think they know better!! Good luck, don't know if I've helped you or not!
IS he not doing the work because it bores him. If so can he be put in a grade ahead or advice lessons. You need to found a way to force him to work for his grades. or maybe he can help his classmates if he has his work done.
M.,
You and I have a similar problem. My oldest son, 12, is a gifted child. When he was in 5th grade, he would turn in his homework late and get afternoon detentions and one Saturday detention. This was a system in place at the school which didn't help. The odd thing about this situation was that his grades didn't suffer. He got straight A's. I finally asked his teacher to start marking down his work when it was late and she just looked at me strange and asked if I really wanted her to "fail" my son. He was bored with school and started to act out. Unfortunatly, our school system does not have a strong gifted program that would help my son. My husband and I decided to homeschool starting with 6th grade. I have been able to adjust his schoolwork to be more challenging for him, but we are having to deal with him not wanting to do anything that is hard, because school has always be easy for him. We are doing better 2nd semester and I know he will like school better in the end. I am hoping to inspire him to be a life long learner. If you chose to homeschool your son, check out the extracurricular policy for homeschool students with your school district. Some schools let homeschoolers participate in band, sports, shop class for a fee. Others say you have to be a part time student to participate in these activities. Also, private schools tend to be harder academically. You could explore these options as well.
Not to be rude or anything, but you stated he was gifted across the board, right? Well to me that means he is also gifted in his classes as well., if he isnt then your doing the right thing by telling him NO MORE sports or extra activities til his grades are up. My son loves his sports too, being a single parent here, and i work in a pre-school,he knows how important education is to me. I put it like this, "You want to play sports? Then your grades need to stay no lower then a B average.
M. A.
