Hi! I am new to the group and found the group while searching for help for my daughter. She is a bright 13 year old in the 7th grade who has both ADHD and dyslexia and was diagnosed over 6 years ago. The greatest thing she has always had going for her was that she wasn't afraid to fail and get right back up and try again even though she struggled. She has never had behavior issues and she is very personable. We are not new to ADHD but I feel like I am at a road block that I don't know how to pass. Something has happened this year. She seems to be giving up. Last year she would get herself up for school and ready and out the door, this year it is like pulling teeth. She has no concept of organization and doesn't do homework that is assigned or pay attention in class and is easily distracted. She often times forgets her text books or homework assignments at school and does not write down her homework assignments when they are given. Her teachers are now very worried about her attitude and lack of participation in school. I am a working single mom with 4 children (which includes 2 toddlers) so I do not have as much time as I would like to follow up on what she needs to get done. What I am hoping for are ideas for organizing or resources that might be able to help. I am finding myself getting frustrated with her lack of caring or concern for her schoolwork and I desperately want to be able to help her in anyway I can. Has anyone else gone through this that might be able t help? Thank you so much in advance for your input and assistance.
Middle school is a huge leap up from elementary school. So much more is required, and a lot of it is executive function stuff. Public schools are particularly unforgiving in this way -- 6 different periods, that move around according to the day of the week. 6 different teachers. Longer term assignments that requiring longer-term planning. It is easy to give up if you feel you can't hack it.
Has your daughter given you feedback on her difficulties? Ask for her honest assessment of the situation. Ask her to write a list of thinks that she thinks might help.
Thanks DancerMom! She is actually at a charter Montessori school within the school district. She has been going since the 6th grade and it seemed to do well for her last year but this year she just can't stay focused. She has 3 teachers teaching all of the subjects. Does anyone have any experience as to whether or not the Montessori Method works or really didn't work for their child? My daughter is such a free thinker I thought the personal responsibility and more relaxed structure would be best but now I am thinking that a more rigid environment would be best??? I feel clueless but I also realize I only have 5 more years before she graduates from high school so I don't have much time to experiment. It has been hard with the teachers because they have 3 different sites to go to to access the homework which confuses me, so I am sure my daughter is confused and more disorganized as well.
I ask her what she feels I can do to help but I think she doesn't know how to help herself, let alone ask for help in areas she knows nothing about. I try to keep dialog going with her but she just keeps saying that she's trying.
I felt really hopeful because last week she decided to sit down and write a story. She worked on it for several days off and on. I offered to type it for her once it was complete and even "publish" it and even her English teacher offered to give her credit and then suddenly the switch turned off and hasn't touched it again. I talked to her about the importance of completion but that did not seem to phase her. *sigh*
3 different sites to access homework? Yikes. One would be nice. Montessori is good, generally, but it could be time for a different placement. Writing stories can be really tough, because sometimes a kid this age will dream really big, and the ideas are too big to execute. My daughter (who was in homeschool at this age), had so many unfinished writing projects. I did not push her too hard, because I could see that the process was what mattered to her at the stage, not the product. What is hard about schools is that they demand product, rather than respecting the process. 13 year olds aren't necessarily all that product-oriented. Perhaps have a conversation with teachers about how flexible they can be in evaluating your daughter's mastery of subject matter? Maybe interviewing her about what she has learned in certain areas rather than expectedly neatly completed projects? She might be learning heaps of things without being able to tie it all up in a bow. The real danger is if she starts believing that she is useless...