Lots of boys Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 My oldest son is 8 and struggles with ADHD. He has a low tolerance for anything he isn't good at immediately and very little patience for taking the time to learn multistep problems. This is our second year homeschooling. We started using Singapore 2A and some Miquon last year and he cried a lot and hated it. I was new at this homeschooling things so I assumed "it must be the cirriculum" and I switched him to TT3. He did fine with TT for a while but again started to get angry every time it was math and cried and claimed to hate TT. We continued with Miquon to end the year. So this year I started using MM instead of TT. I worried he was just guessing at TT in order to skip questions and wasn't understanding the why behind it. We are a month into MM and whenever we are working on anything that isn't completely apparent to him (word problems, or any multi step problem like regrouping etc.) he melts down. He knows how to do it in most cases (athough many word problems trip him up). but can't seem to concentrate long enough to get the question done. Yesterday I was frustrated with this and insisted he finish his two sheets of MM before he got to go play (maybe not the best idea in retrospect) He sat at the table and did everything but math from 10am (when we started) until 2:00pm when we had to leave for an appointment. He ripped his paper, doodled all over it, but would not do any work unless I stood over him and walked him through every step. I know we are working at the right level for him because when I stand over him and prompt him every step of the way for the next step, he can give me it and gets it correct. I don't mind helping him a lot. I teach him the lesson each day and walk him through the first several questions. I would just like to see him do a few more independantly after I walk away. So any advice? I have all the MM up to 6 (he is in 3A right now) and we also have all the Miquon (he is working in red) and we also have the next TT4 but I haven't started it yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paintedlady Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 He's young and not able to be independent yet. Two pages of MM at his age is also likely too much. Slow him down a bit and hold his hand more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomatHWTK Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 (edited) :iagree: ETA: For multi-step programs, I sit next to my DS and do the scribing. He is much better at understanding concepts like those in pre-algebra than he is at doing multi-step work like conversions or long division. Edited October 2, 2012 by MomatHWTK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 I haven't used any of the curricula you listed, but I'm very familiar with a hyper boy who'd prefer not to do math. Mine is a teenager now, and this part of our journey still isn't over. This won't be what you want to hear, but that boy simply isn't ready to be independent in math. You'll have to keep him at your elbow and redirect often. Likely for the next few years. With my ds there were bouts of times I'd think he was outgrowing this issue, only for him to take 3 steps backward. :tongue_smilie: You have three options already purchased for him to use? I recommend the plainest one, that teaches clearly without any flashy objects or gizmos. These boys can be distracted easily enough on their own; they don't need help from cute cartoons on their page. Also, dangling carrots (do this in order to play) in this situation rarely works well. They either hyper focus on the prize, which causes them to have a hard time engaging their brain in the math, or they decide it's not an attainable goal and give up. Encouraging a strong work ethic every chance you get works better than any carrot. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 He's young and not able to be independent yet. Two pages of MM at his age is also likely too much. Slow him down a bit and hold his hand more. :iagree: With an 8 y.o. ADHD boy, you cannot walk away. In fact, that's probably true of many/most 8-year-olds - he's too young for substantially independent work. I would definitely sit with him. Patience for working through tough problems (i.e., a facet of perfectionism) is a slightly different angle than pure focus/attention issues, though certainly it can be hard to tease apart. It's well worth developing that patience if possible - that comes in handy in a couple years. MM is good for helping develop that, and I encourage you to stick with it as long as he understands the instruction with your help. If the pages are an issue, have him do the work on a white board (sometimes white boards have magical properties), while you sit with him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alte Veste Academy Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 can't seem to concentrate long enough to get the question done. I would start this kid with baby steps. He sounds overwhelmed by the math and has gotten into a negative pattern for math lessons which is playing out every time you sit down now. Also, he might feel defeated from the beginning of each math lesson, simply by the look of too many problems on a page. It's like when you hate to clean the kitchen and when you walk in the sink, stove, fridge, counters, etc. are just full of dirty dishes for you to clean. Just ugh! :tongue_smilie: Do you have a whiteboard? A big one? I picked up the 4x8 tileboard at Lowe's and trimmed it out. Altogether, it was less than $30 and that giant board has changed the way math looks at our house. No more hair pulling. No more dawdling. No more meltdowns. Something about moving the whole body and writing BIG helps a busier than normal (ADHD) brain focus. Anyway, consider getting a large whiteboard and putting up just a few problems at a time. Now, if I put up problems before I go to bed at night, they will frequently already be solved before I wake up in the morning. Kind of like a little Elves & the Shoemaker vibe going on here. :tongue_smilie: Also, even if you think it's going to kill you, be positive. You must not succumb to frustration, no matter how high it mounts! Seriously! When you get frustrated with him over math, you have both lost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alte Veste Academy Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 With an 8 y.o. ADHD boy, you cannot walk away. In fact, that's probably true of many/most 8-year-olds - he's too young for substantially independent work. I would definitely sit with him. Patience for working through tough problems (i.e., a facet of perfectionism) is a slightly different angle than pure focus/attention issues, though certainly it can be hard to tease apart. It's well worth developing that patience if possible - that comes in handy in a couple years. MM is good for helping develop that, and I encourage you to stick with it as long as he understands the instruction with your help. If the pages are an issue, have him do the work on a white board (sometimes white boards have magical properties), while you sit with him. :lol: You said it faster than I did. Yes, MAGICAL properties were discovered here with the introduction of the whiteboard. I will also say that initially, I did stand there with him, then moved to writing out a problem set for him to do with me nearby, to check when he was done. Now I can put up problems any time and when he sees them, he'll do them. He thinks he's being stealthy! It is HYSTERICAL. I have won and he thinks he is the funniest boy alive. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lots of boys Posted October 2, 2012 Author Share Posted October 2, 2012 Thank-you all so much for your replies. I guess I was reluctant to do less questions or cover less material each day because I didn't want to get behind (who??? I need to get out of my ps brain!!). Anyway, I was expecting him to be able to do a few questions once I walked away and he just can't. I need to accept that, and meet him where he is. I will definitley try the white board trick. That is how we do his spelling and he does great. I also think standing to do math may help him. I do sometimes get frustrated and I need to relax about it - you are all so right. I know it isn't helping either of us. I get anxious about how much time (one-on-one) he requires and I often have guilt about not getting everything done in a day that we would like. My other two boys are younger so they need lots of direct one-on-one time with me too so it is just tricky. Thanks again to everyone.:grouphug: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alte Veste Academy Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Thank-you all so much for your replies. I guess I was reluctant to do less questions or cover less material each day because I didn't want to get behind (who??? I need to get out of my ps brain!!). Anyway, I was expecting him to be able to do a few questions once I walked away and he just can't. I need to accept that, and meet him where he is. I will definitley try the white board trick. That is how we do his spelling and he does great. I also think standing to do math may help him. I do sometimes get frustrated and I need to relax about it - you are all so right. I know it isn't helping either of us. I get anxious about how much time (one-on-one) he requires and I often have guilt about not getting everything done in a day that we would like. My other two boys are younger so they need lots of direct one-on-one time with me too so it is just tricky. Thanks again to everyone.:grouphug: About worrying about getting behind, I truly believe that nothing gets you behind faster than a negative attitude. It shuts down the operation completely! So, if doing 5 problems a day on the whiteboard improves the attitude such that he can do a full sheet of problems in a month or two (whether on paper or transferred to the whiteboard), those 5-problem-a-day baby-step days will not have been a step backward, you know? They will be a step forward. I have found that when I relax into a mindset of "it is what it is" for a situation, the situation seems to magically improve much faster. Denying it, wishing it away, getting frustrated it, etc. does absolutely no good at all. It took me a long time to realize that, but there it is. :grouphug: It is tricky to learn how to juggle teaching three kids at once. Out of curiosity, what is going on when he is doing math? Are you trying to do math with 2-3 kids at the same time? Math is one subject I do not have all three kids in at once. One at a time, they come, with the others off playing elsewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walkermamaof4 Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 excellent input already, but I'd also consider using Rightstart with him. It has a lot more oral questioning, really good games to cement the facts, a huge visual abacus component, and my adhd boy loves it. My non-adhd boy does great with MM. I think you and he would love RS. But I'd start with B and move on up slowly to cement concepts and facts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lots of boys Posted October 2, 2012 Author Share Posted October 2, 2012 About worrying about getting behind, I truly believe that nothing gets you behind faster than a negative attitude. It shuts down the operation completely! So, if doing 5 problems a day on the whiteboard improves the attitude such that he can do a full sheet of problems in a month or two (whether on paper or transferred to the whiteboard), those 5-problem-a-day baby-step days will not have been a step backward, you know? They will be a step forward. I have found that when I relax into a mindset of "it is what it is" for a situation, the situation seems to magically improve much faster. Denying it, wishing it away, getting frustrated it, etc. does absolutely no good at all. It took me a long time to realize that, but there it is. :grouphug: It is tricky to learn how to juggle teaching three kids at once. Out of curiosity, what is going on when he is doing math? Are you trying to do math with 2-3 kids at the same time? Math is one subject I do not have all three kids in at once. One at a time, they come, with the others off playing elsewhere. I usually try to have them all at the table together doing math. I start by doing the lesson with my 8 year old and get him started on some questions. Then I do a MM1A lesson with my 6 year old and get him started on a lesson. Then I start my 4 year old on a craft or something and then I just bounce around helping all of them. I do their language arts one-on-one because we are doing AAS, WWE, FLL and they are all very teacher intensive. When I am doing this with one - the other two play. I might go out tongiht and buy the biggest white board I can find and start teaching math one-on-one while the other two play. The table is probably too distrating for my guys all together. My only fear is never getting to the extra content subjects if everyone needs one-on-one for every subject. Thanks again for your thoughts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ednkirstin Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Does he like playing computer games? We recently started using Mathscore and my kids love it. It could be a great supplement to workbooks and add a little more fun to math. They offer a free trial, so you can check it out and see if you like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 (edited) Oh the joys of math... I'll just reiterate what others said: -No, he probably can't do math with distractions and would do better with little/no distraction. -No I would not hand him MM and walk away. We did it and the explanations always felt foreign to my dd, even though she seemed to do math in a very similar way. I don't recommend it for this situation. You can spend an awful lot of time implementing something that is *not quite the right fit* and ends up without him moving forward. -I think you were hasty with regards to TT. I DON'T think it's stellar math, but I do think it's USEFUL. Did he LIKE it? Did it get done every day without complaining? Then I suggest you have him do TT every single day AND do a *short* session of math with him. -Yes, the math should be interactive and on a whiteboard. One day we're all gonna reach heaven and KISS the man (woman?) who invented whiteboards. Got one, preferably sorta large, and USE it sister! Math in color, in motion, with interaction. -Ditch the punishment method of interaction. Some things just need to be done together to get done. Don't fight it, cuz that's just how it is with some kids. I STILL sit with my dd to do math. When she does her TT, I will actually SIT IN THE ROOM and watch her do it. That way I know she's focused, not using a calculator inappropriately (who, our kids?), etc. etc. There's an appropriate use for the calculator btw. I just said inappropriately. -Part of ditching the punitive approach means getting a TIMER. Do you have one? Oxo makes a super good one. It has a keypad so you can quickly punch the numbers in. USE this thing. Don't do anything with him without a timer. Agree on the time and keep it SHORT! Hmm, age 8? 20-25 minutes. If he's doing TT, then maybe 15 minutes there and 15 minutes with you. Seriously. Turtle baby, turtle. The reason you want to pair something like TT with your conceptual program (which I'm not recommending MM, I would say Singapore or BJU), is because he's probably got issues with both. He may actually be really good conceptually, which is why you're drawn to those programs. However, if he has the typically SN/adhd propensity to being a sieve for facts (math, spelling, blah blah), then he's going to need some patient drill to get those things cemented. Whatever you decide to use, you want to address *both* aspects of his learning, not just one. He won't get faster till he nails those facts, and that will take repetition. Easy repetition (like in TT) can be *perfect* for that. BTW, you might like to head over to the SN board, as there have been some good threads with lists of worthwhile books to read on ADHD. There are also some things that might change your lives that you might like to do (EF workbooks, work on working memory, metronome, fish or flax oil, etc. etc.). I would do whatever it takes to get him the few minutes of quiet work with Mommy. It might take some drastic measures. My ds ends up watching more Calliou (cable on-demand) than I'd prefer. We deal with it. If you break up things like I'm suggesting, you let the computer take part of the brunt (the drill/repetition part) for a short session and you do a short session with him with a timer. That way everyone knows his Mommy time is 15 minutes and the Calliou video (or whatever they do) is 15 minutes. I have bins of toys for my ds, and we whip them out during the "gotta be quiet but doesn't want to be apart from Mommy" part of the day. Do whatever it takes. The *reason* you do whatever it takes and bend your dreams is because there's a *reward*. I'm seeing the reward now of all the time I've put into my dd over the years. It wasn't fun to make that extra effort when people said not to try so hard. It's not fun (now!) to outline chapters and make her worksheets she can use to tackle the harder textbooks. But when you focus on that foundation and you do *whatever it takes* to help them, you get the reward later. So bend your paradigm, that's my advice. All that matters is that he succeeds. And if he succeeds with a non-standard combination or needs some things no one else on the boards seems to have to do, that's ok. We're using BJU + TT btw, and I'm *exceptionally* happy with the combo. Any way you get that balance of conceptual and repetition will be good. PS. The skipping steps thing is forever. They go SO fast and you KNOW they're doing it incorrectly sometimes, lol. It's just our big exercise in patience I guess. TT really works with that ability to leap, which is another reason it has been good for us. Doing a program together like BJU (or whatever you like), gives them the chance to clarify their thinking. The hardest problems aren't usually ones where they can just leap, and that's when you see where the holes were in their thinking. Just wait till he's a teen. Leaps plus hormones are just, well it's pretty amazing. :) Edited October 2, 2012 by OhElizabeth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommy22alyns Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 White boards really are magic. 2 pages of MM is a lot. 8yos do still need hand holding. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsingscrapper Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 My boys can be spazzy and they aren't ADHD. I don't know if this would work for your son but I have heard something to the effect of Mountain Dew (or is it Diet Dew?) will help to mellow kids with ADHD as it works opposite in their systems from a non-ADHD child (who may go hyper-spaz). Can anyone clarify that? If it does work, it may buy you 30-60 to get some math done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
letsplaymath Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 My daughter is 13 and not ADHD. and she still prefers me to sit with her and do Buddy Math. I highly recommend the approach, no matter what curriculum you use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaraH Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 Life of Fred and lots of games have really helped here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 My boys can be spazzy and they aren't ADHD. I don't know if this would work for your son but I have heard something to the effect of Mountain Dew (or is it Diet Dew?) will help to mellow kids with ADHD as it works opposite in their systems from a non-ADHD child (who may go hyper-spaz). Can anyone clarify that? If it does work, it may buy you 30-60 to get some math done. Yes, caffeine is a stimulant and will have the opposite affect on adhd kids. Some people will use caffeine drinks to medicate. Beware though, it can actually make some kids MUCH more tired than you anticipate (like non-functional, not able to do school). I'd start really small, like one sip, or try it on a day when you don't need any school work done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommy22alyns Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 My boys can be spazzy and they aren't ADHD. I don't know if this would work for your son but I have heard something to the effect of Mountain Dew (or is it Diet Dew?) will help to mellow kids with ADHD as it works opposite in their systems from a non-ADHD child (who may go hyper-spaz). Can anyone clarify that? If it does work, it may buy you 30-60 to get some math done. This is what I do - Rebecca gets maybe an inch of coffee in the morning, plus a bit of sugar and milk. We do math immediately afterward. It seems to be working very well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomatHWTK Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 Funny about the tired thing... if I drink a single serving of Coke, it keeps me awake. A large strong coffee, I fall asleep. I'm the only person I know who sometimes needs a cup of coffee before bed. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebacabunch Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 I have a dd with inattentive add and another dd with high functioning autism (plus a 2 year old boy, nuf said). We manage to get all of our stuff done while also doing math and la separately. We only do history and science together (oldest does more indepth work). We do those subjects every other day. LA and math are both best taught independantly unless kids are doing the same level. It doesn't always look pretty around here, but we manage. I also have bouncy balls for dd with adhd to sit on when she is extra spacey and I keep a big ole jar of candy as motivators. While one is doing one on one work with me I have the other read either LoF or whatever book they are reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2squared Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 My only fear is never getting to the extra content subjects if everyone needs one-on-one for every subject. Thanks again for your thoughts. You may need to rethink how you do content areas. I spend 4-5 hours/day working one-on-one with my three oldest. Add in a 4yo and 1yo, and my day is full. My focus is hitting the skill areas well, reading aloud, time in nature, and quantities of free time for the kids. I would love to do it all, but that's not realistic in this season of life. I don't regret any of the one-on-one time I've spent teaching skill areas. :grouphug: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 I sat beside my boys to keep them focused at that age. At school they have peer pressure to keep them on task; at home, I took on that task. Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lots of boys Posted October 3, 2012 Author Share Posted October 3, 2012 I really appreciate all of your responses. I think maybe my expectations were just a little out of whack. I went out last night and got the biggest white board I could find so today we will try a new approach. I will stick with MM for now because I really like the way it teaches the concepts but I will re-write most of them in small manageable groups on the white board (the pages really are a bit overwhelming to look at). Thanks also to the poster that spoke ot the benefits of TT. He liked TT3 for the most part so I will bring it back and couple it with MM. Hopefully a great combo. Off to start school...:thumbup: ...with a much more positive outlook today!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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