Average times/subject

[Tutu]

Hello there, everyone. :)

 

My dd really struggles with planning and just organizing her time properly, and I was hoping to help her figure things out, but I really don't know where to start. I have noticed however, that she takes a very long time to complete work which I believe should be completed in one sitting. To me, a "sitting" would be about 45 minutes or less. It's not at all out of the ordinary for her to spend 2 or more hours on algebra alone. I do go over her lessons (she views them on the computer first), and I always make myself available to her for questions and such. The understanding seems to be there, but perhaps she's highly distractible? :confused1: This is also the child that I will send off to read her history lesson, and I'll come in and check on her an hour later, and not only is she not done reading, but she hasn't seemed to get anything out of what she has read (i.e. unless the day's reading is highly interesting to her). I've explained that being interested is a nice thing, but I really believe that there will be many times when we'll be expected to read material that is not interesting to us, but we do it anyway, for understanding. BTW, I think the books we chose together this year are all highly readable and accessible, so I don't necessarily think it's a difficulty issue.

 

How can I help a child who seems not very motivated to get stuff done in a timely manner, without my constant "cheerleading" her along the way? What is reasonable for me to expect of a soon-to-be 15 year old? :bigear:

 

TIA!

[Musicmom]

:bigear: Listening in as my dd is almost exactly like this, too! (substitute age 16 for 15, and I could have written this post!) It's a huge issue for us right now and I'm really struggling to figure out how to address it... hoping others out there have some words of wisdom to share!

[Elizabeth in WA]

While I don't cheerlead much, I do keep my children all in my field of view for all schoolwork. This allows me to redirect back to work, engage in on-the-fly discussions or clarification, and generally have a clear idea of how much time-on-task they are actually spending on each subject. If I send them off, they rarely get work done, and if they have to wait in line for a clarification, they rarely actually move on to the next problem effectively even though I tell them to do so. They don't seem to be able to mentally let go of whatever was confusing them until I get the chance to clarify.

 

For time management skills, I let them choose the order of their work for the most part, but keep them moving on something consistently until finished or it is time for afterschool (outside the home) activities. While I only provide weekly lists of assignments to my boys (except things that are of the clearly laid out lesson per day variety) I do discuss their progress daily and prod them into thinking out clearly how much they need to accomplish by Wednesday to have a chance at a homework free weekend.

[Tutu]

Looks like I'll have to just keep her within sight. I always intend to do this, but then she tells me that she's distracted by her siblings (this is nearly impossible to avoid, as we live in a small apartment). I was just hoping she would be working at least a bit more autonomously by now. Sigh.

[elfgivas]

maybe that's some incentive? if she shows she can refocus herself repeatedly to get her work done in a timely fashion, then she can try working in her room again?

 

here, if we haven't had enough sleep, we can't focus. ditto if we haven't had enough exercise. she might do worlds better if she could go for a walk in the mornings or ???

 

we also change locations when one of us can't focus. eg. math in the dining room, music in the living room, language arts in the bedroom, back to the living room for history etc, etc....

 

hth,

ann

[nancy in nj]

I just wanted to chime in to point out that 2 hours on math per day might not be completely unreasonable depending on what level of algebra/curriculum she is using. My daughter is very focused, works diligently and is strong in math, yet has spent at least 1 1/2 per day on math for the last couple of years (TT Geometry, Chalkdust Alg. 2 and Chalkdust PreCalc). I would think it is virtually impossible to do high math in just 45 minutes a day unless your student truly doesn't need the normal amount of practice problems.

 

Not that you don't have an issue with time management overall, but sometimes higher level work just takes longer than it did in the lower grades.

 

Nancy

[Kendall]

I have a high schooler who is easily distracted by his many siblings. I have found, as you have, that he is apparently easily distracted anywhere:). I wish I had answers. I really wish I had answers. My son is better now, but not near where I would like him to be.

 

A few random ideas:

 

I have limited the time for each subject. Then anything that isn't finished needs to be finished during his free time or at the end of the school day. That has helped some. It doesn't make sense to spend 2 hours getting 45 min work done. Spend an hour getting 45 min done and move on. Then go back and spend more time later. Also I require frequent check ins with me if he is not working well. Clear expectations as to output helps as well. I have a hard time doing that in the humanities, reading heavy courses. One idea in history would be for her to stop an narrate what has been read so far, even if into an MP3 player or digital recorder for you to listen to later. Or require written summaries of what has been read. English is even harder for me. It is hard to know what can be done each day. This year I'm doing an online writing class for him. He will have to write one essay a week. Clear expectation graded by someone else.

 

Good luck

[Susan C.]

Teenagers cannot work as fast as we can, and they have never seen the material. We've already been through school. I have found that they take a good bit longer than I would take. Two hours for math is not unreasonable. Last year, dd watched a 45 minute lesson, and did all of the homework right afterward, and it usually took two hours. I have also found that teens (and moms too) can't work solid for hours and hours without taking a break. Its just too much. Even in an office environment, you get to get up and walk around here and there.

[Tiramisu]

Teenagers cannot work as fast as we can, and they have never seen the material. We've already been through school. I have found that they take a good bit longer than I would take... I have also found that teens (and moms too) can't work solid for hours and hours without taking a break. Its just too much. Even in an office environment, you get to get up and walk around here and there.

 

:iagree:This is such valuable advice. When I once contacted Lee Binz about this same trouble with my then 9th grader, this is what she told me. It helped when I realized dd was only human.

 

And, math at the high school level usually does take a long time.

 

In our case, because I had seen problems with organization, distractibility and lack of focus from the very beginning, I finally decided to have some testing done in 9th grade. I needed to know if *my* expectations for her were realistic since things were not getting done in what *I* thought was a timely manner. I was able to confirm that dd was perhaps gifted in some areas but her working memory and processing speeds were somewhat low in comparison to her reasoning skills. This outside proof (not the best word) helped me to get it through my thick head that I needed to make some adjustments, that I was educating her and not some ideal I had created in my mind. Interestingly, a year or so later, I can now see and appreciate gifts she has that I hadn't noticed because they weren't on my radar screen before.

 

I'm not saying every dawdling 15 yo needs testing. There's definitely something hormonal going on at this age. But, since no one else brought it up, I thought I would because it was so helpful to us and beneficial to our relationship.

[Kendall]

Kelli - What kind of testing? What is it called and where do you ask for it? What recommendations were made to you after the testing? Was medication encouraged? What kind of adjustments did you make? This sounds like something I need to consider doing.

[Susan C.]

For us, every year got noticeably better. 9th started out awful, but slowly improved. 10th was better, 11th better still. Homeschool kids are under a microscope so to speak being with us all day so we notice more. I remember drifting and not being all that efficient in high school, but I got good grades. There was room for "humaness."

[Tiramisu]

Kelli - What kind of testing? What is it called and where do you ask for it? What recommendations were made to you after the testing? Was medication encouraged? What kind of adjustments did you make? This sounds like something I need to consider doing.

 

I went to an educational consultant with a Ph.D. who contracted with a Psy.D. with an impressive background in education. They recommended a comprehensive testing "package" but, since I had to pay for it myself and it was expensive, I just had the WISC-IV administered. It wasn't perfect and I would still like to know more, but it was a reasonable start. And, the adjustments we've made have been enough to bring us to a happy hsing place. (I also can't ignore that she's putting a lot of time into music now and that seems to have made a tremendous difference in her frustration level, stress, etc.)

 

The psychologist who did the testing never, never, never put a negative connotation on anything at all. She put things in terms of "cognitive style," and stressed that her style required extra time to think, mull things over, and process. Her recommendation was to assign work in small chunks, help her think through things, break long assigments into steps, and give more time than usually recommended for her to get work done.

 

The possibility of medication never came up at all. I asked about ADD and she said she can't give a medical diagnosis, which frustrated me. However, I think if she thought it that was really the issue or it would be helpful for me to pursue that diagnosis, I'm certain she would have told me so. Instead, she said, pointed out dd's strengths and told me, your dd can do anything, but you will have to make some accomodations to help her get there. She also recommended that she not go far away to college because she would benefit from my guidance during the college years.

 

I think the biggest change we made this year was for me to back up and give her the time she needs. I thought of cutting back her acadmic schedule but couldn't figure out what to cut out, and, ironically, her schedule became busier but with extracurriculars that have had a very obvious positive impact on her. I consciously accepted that some work would not get done; that's hard for a personality like mine but it's been worth it. We'll be stretching Latin 2 over two years and she'll finish up church history over the summer. It will be okay.

 

On top of everything else, we had a sleep study and afterward the doctor strongly recommended me letting dd set her own sleep schedule. Then I really had to let go. Aarrgghhh! It was hard but the result is that she is now pleasant in the mornings and gets going on her work without arguments.

 

I think Susan is right that all students are different and things naturally can get better as you progress through the high school years, but I'm glad that I finally took the step to have someone from the outside help me figure some things out. I've had someone look at dd's scores and say she is cognitively normal, but I can also see the difference in the subtests and that helps me make adjustments that can help dd.

 

The kind of testing we did was "lite." If you do some reading on the special needs board, you can find out what the real experts recommend.:)