rudeness during correction/schoolwork

[blondeviolin]

My oldest son (almost nine) is battling rudeness during his work.  (Actually, this is a problem in life in general for him.)  Any time I try to lead him through anything difficult by discussion and questioning, he insists on plowing ahead and doing it his way.  I have tried stopping him right then and helping.  It incites him and makes him angry and rude and eventually defiant with him refusing to fix or adjust himself.  If I let him do it roar ahead and correct it all at the end, he is rude/yells. It ultimately boils down to him being immature, incapable of accepting correction due to self-involvement, and a good heaping of lack of impulse control.  It doesn't matter if the work is too easy or challenging for him.  If he doesn't want to do it or deems it not worthy of his work, he becomes argumentative.  

 

Example scenario: This morning he was doing dictation.  It was from WWE 2 and not overly difficult.  I spelled out the words he may need help with prior and gave him the dictation sentence.  He was having trouble keeping all parts of the sentence together so I asked him to listen to the sentence and repeat it orally, which is a tactic that I have used with my oldest successfully to help cement it all together.  He refused to answer, seething that I wouldn't just tell him the next part of the sentence.  From there it all went all downhill.  He became angry.  I sent him to his room to calm down.  But, when he came downstairs to talk, he told me he didn't want to be near me because my breath stank (nearly impossible because I was chewing mint gum just after having brushed my teeth).  I told him to go back to his room because he was still being hurtful (which it then dawned on him that his words WERE hurtful).  He came back down quickly and somewhat ready to work.  But at this point it had been a while since he had written the first part of the sentence so I had him erase it since the point of the exercise is to hold the WHOLE sentence in his head.  Which, of course, made him angry that I had him erase part of his work.

 

If it makes any difference, we almost never have this problem with math or grammar.  Almost always he gets angry or frustrated with writing/reading, which shows me that it is more difficult for him and I have adjusted my expectations accordingly.  On days where he is on it, these subjects never give him pause.  It's only when I assign him something that he perceives too much or he doesn't want to do.  I do suspect dyslexia and/or ADHD.

 

So, besides having him see someone (he has a big neuropsych eval in a couple of weeks), what do I to with this temperament?

 

 

[maize]

In addition to dyslexia and ADHD, I would consider anxiety as a possible factor in his behavior. Feeling anxious/afraid of failing can come out as belligerence.

[Anne]

With a big evaluation coming up so soon, I would probably do my best to avoid this kind of difficult topic until after the eval, hoping to get some better insight on the problem and tools to deal with it.  

 

Does talking through it during a non-school time help?  Maybe he has some ideas on how to approach it.

 

Anne

[blondeviolin]

The upset comes when I ask him to do something he doesn't want to do; he's almost offended that I'm requiring him to do something. Stubborn, and strong-willed. (And he's been this way since babyhood.).

 

Talking about any incident later often results in sighing and grumbling that we're talking about it and not playing whatever he wants to play. Rarely, he does experience heartfelt sadnes that he struggles with whatever, but doesn't seem to have the tools to deal with it. Hence the evaluations.

[AK_Mom4]

for us here, that behavior was perfectionism + anxiety.  It took practice and rehearsal and established rules.  For a while, the rule was "We will correct every problem as soon as you finish it".  'Way more effort for me than checking them all at the end, but it took some of the overwhelming doom and failure out of missing 3 problems and having to go back and correct them.

 

The dictation thing would have been a total flop with one of my kids because that sort of exercise was EXCEEDINGLY hard for him. Even as an adult, I struggle with holding even a 10-digit number in my head long enough to write it down.  I can easily see a simple dictation sentence turning into wailing and rudeness here as anxiety amps up from the impending sense of failure.

 

Why not put that piece aside until the evals are done and you have some tools in your toolkit to work with?  Maturity and Time helped us here, but having my son learn some techniques for working with this type of issue really helped.  And those tools came from the evaluations.

[idnib]

I would stop the WWE until after the evals, or if you're going to move ahead until then, I would give him the rest of the sentence if he needs it. It sounds like he still needs a lot of scaffolding.

 

Have you watched Susan Bauer give her son dictation? You can see how much she supports him even though he is 14 at the time. (The video is review for him. If I recall correctly she felt he needed a brush-up.) I used to be much more rigid about WWE before I saw this video, and it helped me become more flexible. Eventually my son was able to hold longer sentences and even paragraphs. Here's a link.

 

I agree with those who've mentioned anxiety and perfectionism as well.

Edited October 19, 2016 by idnib

[TXBeth]

This sounds exactly like my son (also 9). Except he will also get violent if I push it or don't handle things just right. He was diagnosed ADHD and Mood Disorder last summer, and just this summer he ended up hospitalized due to the aggression and suicidal talk. The inpatient psychiatrist diagnosed Anxiety. I wish we had been more understanding and less punitive over the last 5 years. Maybe he wouldn't have gotten this bad and wouldn't think he is worthless and unable to behave well.

[zoobie]

Agreeing with the others that I'd back off stressful situations until the eval. And that it sounds like anxiety is playing a role in whatever else is happening. Severe ADHD + anxiety can mimic ODD at times.

[Miss Tick]

Or perhaps go ahead and break up the sentence into small enough parts that he doesn't have trouble, and then gradually lengthen the parts. A lot of kids have trouble with doing the dictation in one go. Maybe make it an "easy" subject for a few weeks.

[poppy]

Here is the language you use to describe your son: rude, defiant, angry, hurtful, frustrated, stubborn, strong willed, grumbling. 

 

It's not working for him, it's not working for you, at all.

 

I'd personally deschool a bit leading up to the neuropsych exam.     There is no purpose to continuing to kick and scream down the path you're on if you know there is something else he needs in order to succeed.

 

And as the mom of a kid with anxiety / adhd / dyslexia----- trust me , you have my wholehearted sympathy.  It is a really tough road.  And I know it can be really hard to respond with sympathy and empathy to this particular cocktail of challenges. You are not wrong in your assessments, honestly.... but he is not receiving the tools / techniques he needs right now which only adds to the tension.  That is why I'd leave off.

 

 

 

[Rebel Yell]

This child may need very very different methods than you've used previously. My oldest and middle are nearly polar opposites, so I could almost count on never repeating successful methods with my middle. Expecting her at ANY age to hold an entire sentence in her head, remember it verbatim, AND write it correctly and neatly would be a guaranteed disaster.

 

I often found myself questioning the purpose of an exercise. If it seemed to merely or mostly be to produce written work that could be checked later or stuffed in a portfolio I skipped it, lessened the expected output, or otherwise adapted the assignment- flexibility is my main reason for homeschooling. I had to avoid programs that combined reading comprehension, handwriting, and spelling in their exercises because she was usually at a different leveling all of those and so needed to progress separately.

 

And FWIW I can't stand the smell of mint, so even if I could appreciate the cleanness and freshness of your breath it would still stink to me. 😎

 

And once I changed my approach and expectations, I worked on helping her work as well as she could, express dissatisfaction politely, and just doing what needed to be done when necessary.

 

Even today at age almost-17 this applies. She can rant all she wants about how stupid and unfair it is that, according to our state driver laws, she can only transport 1 non-related friend who is under age 18, and has to be off the roads by 11pm. Even though I agree with her 1million%, I am responsible for ensuring she follows the law, but our reactions and "discussions" of the matter very closely resemble those we had 10 years ago over dictation and other school work. 😎

[El...]

It sounds like there might be more than one thing going on, as folks mention above, but I'll just throw out that in the last six months, from age 8.5 to 9, Dd has been prone to frustrated outbursts over school.  A little of this might be the developmental phase.

 

Dd does 5 or 10 "get a grip on yourself" pushups when she yells.  She's done them every day this week.  Sigh.

[Farrar]

Here is the language you use to describe your son: rude, defiant, angry, hurtful, frustrated, stubborn, strong willed, grumbling. 

 

It's not working for him, it's not working for you, at all.

 

I'd personally deschool a bit leading up to the neuropsych exam.     There is no purpose to continuing to kick and scream down the path you're on if you know there is something else he needs in order to succeed.

 

And as the mom of a kid with anxiety / adhd / dyslexia----- trust me , you have my wholehearted sympathy.  It is a really tough road.  And I know it can be really hard to respond with sympathy and empathy to this particular cocktail of challenges. You are not wrong in your assessments, honestly.... but he is not receiving the tools / techniques he needs right now which only adds to the tension.  That is why I'd leave off.

 

:iagree:

 

It is sooooo hard. I have an anxious kid who has struggled with writing and some of these behaviors are familiar to me. But I think you know that anxiety or learning issues or a combination are at the root of this - otherwise you wouldn't be getting the neuropsych. You are feeling justified because you've adjusted your expectations for the level of work, but you really have to reframe how you think about him and his reactions. Maybe it is willful or rude... but I think it's more likely that his actions are covering up his being upset, confused, embarrassed, nervous, and generally lost. He's a captured animal when you try to do writing, lashing out. It's probably not in his control to stop until he gets some new tools in his toolbox.

 

I'd also second that the methods and materials that worked for your others just might not be right for this kid. WWE is a great program. But no program is right for all kids. Maybe he'll need a more gentle, slow, creative approach like Brave Writer, or a more structured, workbooky program like Six Trait Writing. Or something else... If you can step back and regroup, then after you have a sense of the issues, I'd start anew thinking about the right program at that point.

[blondeviolin]

Okay, but we are more than halfway through WWE 2.  He didn't struggle at all when we were doing it LAST YEAR.  We did a bit of Treasured Conversations this year and he had HUGE hangups with that, not because it was outside of realm of ability (neither was this morning's exercise), but because there was more than one or two sentences of copywork.  He handles dictation harder than this better than my oldest did by far.  This week we moved back to WWE and he even THANKED me for changing his writing.

 

I do have a lot of positive adjectives for him: strong-willed, tough, gifted, motivated, energetic, up for a challenge, etc.  Out of all of my kids, he is typically the one that is quickest through his work, and most motivated to complete it.

 

Sometimes we have similar problems when I give him an explanation and ask if he understands or if that makes sense.  All I'm look for is a simple yes or no and he refuses to answer.  He stays silent until I've waited enough time for him to respond and he asks why I'm taking so long to move forward.  It is his way of controlling the situation.

[Farrar]

For my anxious kid, when the anxiety hits, it can hit hard and feel super irrational to me - a subject he loves, a subject he hates, something he's doing incredibly well with or struggling with. Kids just aren't even, you know? It's so weird to me how ds can be put down by something one day - literally not be able to adjust his stuck thinking on it and then sail through it the next. And just because it's easy doesn't mean that kids with anxiety can breeze through it - sometimes kids with learning issues find doing remedial work (or work they perceive as being "too easy" for where they perceive they "should" be) to be more anxiety inducing because it reinforces for them that the subject is hard.

 

Maybe it's not anxiety... maybe he is trying to seize control the only way he can or maybe it's just a bad habit - sometimes even when you've fixed the problem, kids keep struggling because that's the dynamic they're used to... but you already know there are deep enough issues with this subject to seek testing. If it were me, I would want to force myself to back off until I knew more. Why keep reinforcing an unhealthy dynamic between the two of you and between him and the subject when you're both genuinely not sure what the issues are and what he needs?

[blondeviolin]

For my anxious kid, when the anxiety hits, it can hit hard and feel super irrational to me - a subject he loves, a subject he hates, something he's doing incredibly well with or struggling with. Kids just aren't even, you know? It's so weird to me how ds can be put down by something one day - literally not be able to adjust his stuck thinking on it and then sail through it the next. And just because it's easy doesn't mean that kids with anxiety can breeze through it - sometimes kids with learning issues find doing remedial work (or work they perceive as being "too easy" for where they perceive they "should" be) to be more anxiety inducing because it reinforces for them that the subject is hard.

 

Maybe it's not anxiety... maybe he is trying to seize control the only way he can or maybe it's just a bad habit - sometimes even when you've fixed the problem, kids keep struggling because that's the dynamic they're used to... but you already know there are deep enough issues with this subject to seek testing. If it were me, I would want to force myself to back off until I knew more. Why keep reinforcing an unhealthy dynamic between the two of you and between him and the subject when you're both genuinely not sure what the issues are and what he needs?

 

THIS is what I feel it is more.  He is, in general, not an anxious kid.  I have kids who have dabbled with anxiety and the like and he is not that.  Even the developmental pediatrician we saw (to get the neuropsych referral) mentioned how low-stress/low anxiety he is.  And he has ALWAYS been a controlling kid.  I HAVE backed off with the writing, which is my point.  This morning's issue was more likely a grab for control.  We deal with this a lot.  But it's frustrating me within the realm of schoolwork.  It kills his whole day.  Unfortunately, learning some things is not something he can control.  We aim to be a natural-consequence house and the only consequence here is that he goes to his room to collect himself.  Unfortunately, that incites him as well because he just wants to get his school done to go play.  :-/

 

I guess we are just stuck waiting for this evaluation...

[blondeviolin]

I will also look into these other writing approaches.  TBH, I feel like in some ways we are biding our time until we can start IEW with him.  I assume it will  be the "formula" that help his writing thrive.  I'm also waiting on his evaluation in regards to his phonics/reading/spelling stuff.

[Farrar]

If it's control he needs, can you come up with a collaborative plan for writing until the evaluation is done? Maybe he needs a basket of options and a timer. Just Write from Tin Man Press is a super low stress workbook. Or 642 Things to Write About is a light option. He could have a copywork jar. You could do BW style freewrites. You could try a really basic workbook like the Evan-Moor Six Trait or there's a couple of EPS books - a totally different one called Just Write and a beginning one called Write About Me. Or maybe grammar worksheets are enough. Or activities from Games for Writing. Or magnetic poetry he plays with then copies down. I guess if "doing something" isn't optional for writing, and he needs control, and you're just in a holding pattern anyway, giving him a variety of options that just has him putting pen to paper on his own terms seems like a good idea.

Edited October 19, 2016 by Farrar

[Tiramisu]

If it's control he needs, can you come up with a collaborative plan for writing until the evaluation is done? Maybe he needs a basket of options and a timer. Just Write from Tin Man Press is a super low stress workbook. Or 642 Things to Write About is a light option. He could have a copywork jar. You could do BW style freewrites. You could try a really basic workbook like the Evan-Moor Six Trait or there's a couple of EPS books - a totally different one called Just Write and a beginning one called Write About Me. Or maybe grammar worksheets are enough. Or activities from Games for Writing. Or magnetic poetry he plays with then copies down. I guess if "doing something" isn't optional for writing, and he needs control, and you're just in a holding pattern anyway, giving him a variety of options that just has him putting pen to paper on his own terms seems like a good idea.

We had issues with WWE. We got through WWE3 but in the end I just had her do the dictation as copywork. After that I moved her to Just Write by EPS and it was like a breath of fresh air. I started with book 1 and only did the paragraph sections. Then we did all of book 2 the same year, that was fourth grade. This year she started book 3, and she's switching back and forth with that and writing her own stories.

 

FWIW, I never regretted giving up on dictation. I was happy that we could break a negative feeling about writing, and she could gain a sense of writing for enjoyment. And we could see it as a strength. One year of low writing stress with Just Write turned things around for her.

 

My DD does sound somewhat similar in her reactions. Rather than defiance, I see it as rigidity, which I see as less subjectively negative in tone and (perhaps) more objective. Sure, sometimes it's defiance, but if I sense they are struggling in some way, I'd rather give them the benefit of the doubt which is potentially less harmful than coming down hard on a kid who has limited control.

 

I really don't think it will hurt anything in the short term or long term to do something totally different, or nothing at all. However, my own rigidity makes nothing-at-all kind of painful for me, in my house at least. Lol.

 

One writing activity DD enjoys is using the Modern Speller/Dictation Day by Day as copywork. There's just something about the passages she likes.

 

For a while, I did not interfere with her writing at all. I trusted she was seeing good written examples with Modern Speller and whatever crazy nonsense she wrote in Just Write was fine and she got only positive comments and praise from me about it. It was my way of breaking the negative cycle.

Edited October 20, 2016 by Tiramisu

[blondeviolin]

He likes taking dictation from Modern Speller and does so just fine. This was definitely defiance as he won't even respond yes or no and he's angry when he's doing it. Talking later he tells me he just wants to make me angry.

 

Part of it is frustration on his part.

 

I have noticed more issue if other kids are enjoying a screen and he is not because he has to do a lesson, which happened today. It's not fair of me to take their show because he can't watch it. (Though, I have done that often because I don't want to have the power struggle.)

 

I have dealt with the rigidity and anxiety from him and this wasn't that.

 

This dictation, though, was just the right level. It wasn't "woah, this is WAY too easy," but it was bordering on too easy. It was only one sentence. Typically he writes his own history narrations and multiple sentences at once!

[eternalsummer]

Why do you think he is responding this way?

 

For me, personally, constant one-on-one (or any one-on-one, really) interaction with a power differential when I don't enjoy the content is very stressful.  I find group learning or isolated learning (so either me in a classroom or me by myself) much much much easier; it is the actual individual interaction where performance is expected at the time of the interaction, that is stressful.

 

So I guess if he is like me, a possible solution would be to ditch the dictation part of WWE (or maybe record yourself and give him the recording to play over and over as he writes it down?  I am not sure how WWE works exactly) and just stick to things where you don't have to butt heads.  

 

So for writing I might give him a program that is either an online class or individual work, and I'd correct it when he and I weren't together, then give it back to him to fix or look at or whatever (if it is the kind of thing that needs to be corrected at all).

 

You can take the confrontation out of it.  It might not look the way you want (that is, he might not "submit") but it would probably work better for your relationship and his learning.

[eternalsummer]

I'll give you an example that is analogous: I was a reasonably serious flute player in school.  I took lessons from the principal flutist of my city's symphony.  I learned exactly nothing in any lesson; I was always way way way too stressed out in just managing the interaction (I hated failing and I had always failed at some small part during the lesson, so I feared it the whole time and coudn't focus on learning).

 

Luckily she wrote down just about everything in small notation on my practice books, so I was able to learn on my own throughout the week.  If I had had to see her every day it would have been torture. and I would have progressed much more slowly.

[Tiramisu]

Just a quick question. Is he doing dictation with Modern Speller and WWE? If so, could he be getting bored with it and taking it out on you?

 

You said he's also doing written narrations for history and science.

 

Every kid is different and I don't know how much writing he's doing overall, but too much writing can create issues with some kids. It varies so much, though.

Edited October 20, 2016 by Tiramisu

[carriede]

This dictation, though, was just the right level. It wasn't "woah, this is WAY too easy," but it was bordering on too easy. It was only one sentence. Typically he writes his own history narrations and multiple sentences at once!

This is the GOAL of WWE! You're supposed to separate writing into copywork and dictation in order to make it simpler to learn each individual skill. If he is WRITING his own narrations, then he has succeeded! Go back and reread the WWE introduction.

[heartlikealion]

Mine can be argumentative. This won't solve the overall problem, but maybe bend some rules like instead of making him erase, let him fold the paper and start below. Or let him get a new sheet out. If an adult was writing a novel and had to start over, they would probably trash their old copy, not put white out all over it (or hit the delete key on the keyboard/open a new file).

 

If I made mine erase he would probably be more agitated and then might even have something new to complain about "uggh, eraser marks everywhere" or "it's hard to erase this."

 

We have similar problems with cursive. Sometimes I would instruct him to do something and he'd do it incorrectly and we'd argue about whether or to start a new thing or erase the old. Dh was making him erase in the cursive book over and over. I thought it was overkill. But sometimes when we'd be working in a tablet I'd say to start a new line and ds would want to erase I think. All this to say everyone has their own preferred method I guess lol.

 

We had a private eval done and it showed he met criteria for ADD, but really, that eval doesn't tell me how to handle these battles. I'm having to figure that out on my own and with help of other parents/books.

[blondeviolin]

This is the GOAL of WWE! You're supposed to separate writing into copywork and dictation in order to make it simpler to learn each individual skill. If he is WRITING his own narrations, then he has succeeded! Go back and reread the WWE introduction.

I know. He is on the cusp. He can write history narrations, but it's lower quality. He's at the point where he tells me a sentence, then I tell him, "Write that down." And repeat until his narration is complete. That's exactly why I know this dictation exercise wasn't too hard.

 

And no, he's not doing Modern Speller and WWE. He's definitely not doing too much writing. He types his Latin translations, writes 25 words from

Sequential Spelling, fills out a few worksheets, but it's definitely not too much writing. I'm definitely a quality over quantity person at this stage.

[blondeviolin]

Mine can be argumentative. This won't solve the overall problem, but maybe bend some rules like instead of making him erase, let him fold the paper and start below. Or let him get a new sheet out. If an adult was writing a novel and had to start over, they would probably trash their old copy, not put white out all over it (or hit the delete key on the keyboard/open a new file).

 

If I made mine erase he would probably be more agitated and then might even have something new to complain about "uggh, eraser marks everywhere" or "it's hard to erase this."

 

We have similar problems with cursive. Sometimes I would instruct him to do something and he'd do it incorrectly and we'd argue about whether or to start a new thing or erase the old. Dh was making him erase in the cursive book over and over. I thought it was overkill. But sometimes when we'd be working in a tablet I'd say to start a new line and ds would want to erase I think. All this to say everyone has their own preferred method I guess lol.

 

We had a private eval done and it showed he met criteria for ADD, but really, that eval doesn't tell me how to handle these battles. I'm having to figure that out on my own and with help of other parents/books.

Yes this! I didn't even think about folding the paper!

 

And even if he comes out of this veal with a dx, that doesn't give me tools to work through some of these issues. It just tells me where to look.

 

And, FWIW, we had the EXACT issues yesterday afternoon when his dad asked him to pick up trash he had dropped in the yard. Of course he'd have rather played with his friends, but instead he blew up and then spent some time sorting himself out in his room instead.

[heartlikealion]

Yes this! I didn't even think about folding the paper!

 

And even if he comes out of this veal with a dx, that doesn't give me tools to work through some of these issues. It just tells me where to look.

 

And, FWIW, we had the EXACT issues yesterday afternoon when his dad asked him to pick up trash he had dropped in the yard. Of course he'd have rather played with his friends, but instead he blew up and then spent some time sorting himself out in his room instead.

 

I keep hearing lately that when a child is being disruptive, defiant, etc. they actually need more one-on-one with their parents and not to send them to their room alone (or something along those lines). So ideally, I guess I'd carve out one-on-one fun, light hearted time with ds, so when it came time to do the less fun things (school work) then he'd be more cooperative. If you can try that, it might help. I am having a lot of difficulty doing this right now with both kids home and ds trying private school this year with little fun time between coming home/dinner/shower/homework.

 

It's hard for me to zone in on a currency for my ds. If he really doesn't want to do something (like in your example pick up the trash) he will waste away time and not do anything despite positive or negative reinforcement. Sometimes we'll offer a fun thing to do after the chore and he still doesn't cooperate. It's so frustrating. Recently we asked ds to help clean up around the house. One day the incentive was money for the school bake sale. He eagerly did it all, even swiffered the hallway. Next time he barely did anything, was slow to start and didn't finish. It's maddening.

[Plink]

So glad you have evals scheduled. I wonder whether processing speed or anxiety issues may be involved.

 

Just as an example of how difficult it can be for these kids - we were traveling this past week and our departure gate changed. This caused crying and repeated pleas of "I don't understand! Nobody is explaining anything to me! Why are you all moving so fast?!?" She appeared non compliant to all outsiders who only saw a stomping screaming teen, but in reality she truly had no idea what was going on, despite repeated explainations. She was afraid, and Could not do what we were asking her to do because she was unable to process it.

 

I had to sit back down with her and baby step her through the change. "Did you hear that announcement?" Yes "What did it say" (she repeats it) "Is our plane coming to this gate?" No "Where is it going?" A15 "Should we stay here if we want to get on the plane?" No "Where should we go?" A15 "Which way is that?" To the left "Should we take our luggage with us?" Yes "Are you ready to stand up and walk there with me?" Okay (gets up and follows the crowd)

 

All that to say, that sometimes it seems like you need to break thiggs into impossibly small chunks for kids with learnig differences and anxiety. The evals will give you the answers you need. Don't hesitate to scaffold him so that he is able to succeed until you have clear indication from the doctors that the scaffolding is unnecessary.

[heartlikealion]

So glad you have evals scheduled. I wonder whether processing speed or anxiety issues may be involved.

 

Just as an example of how difficult it can be for these kids - we were traveling this past week and our departure gate changed. This caused crying and repeated pleas of "I don't understand! Nobody is explaining anything to me! Why are you all moving so fast?!?" She appeared non compliant to all outsiders who only saw a stomping screaming teen, but in reality she truly had no idea what was going on, despite repeated explainations. She was afraid, and Could not do what we were asking her to do because she was unable to process it.

 

I had to sit back down with her and baby step her through the change. "Did you hear that announcement?" Yes "What did it say" (she repeats it) "Is our plane coming to this gate?" No "Where is it going?" A15 "Should we stay here if we want to get on the plane?" No "Where should we go?" A15 "Which way is that?" To the left "Should we take our luggage with us?" Yes "Are you ready to stand up and walk there with me?" Okay (gets up and follows the crowd)

 

All that to say, that sometimes it seems like you need to break thiggs into impossibly small chunks for kids with learnig differences and anxiety. The evals will give you the answers you need. Don't hesitate to scaffold him so that he is able to succeed until you have clear indication from the doctors that the scaffolding is unnecessary.

 

Sounds like you handled that wonderfully. :thumbup1:  I hate how in text it looks like I'm being sarcastic but I'm not.

 

[Tiramisu]

I keep hearing lately that when a child is being disruptive, defiant, etc. they actually need more one-on-one with their parents and not to send them to their room alone (or something along those lines). So ideally, I guess I'd carve out one-on-one fun, light hearted time with ds, so when it came time to do the less fun things (school work) then he'd be more cooperative. If you can try that, it might help. I am having a lot of difficulty doing this right now with both kids home and ds trying private school this year with little fun time between coming home/dinner/shower/homework.

 

It's hard for me to zone in on a currency for my ds. If he really doesn't want to do something (like in your example pick up the trash) he will waste away time and not do anything despite positive or negative reinforcement. Sometimes we'll offer a fun thing to do after the chore and he still doesn't cooperate. It's so frustrating. Recently we asked ds to help clean up around the house. One day the incentive was money for the school bake sale. He eagerly did it all, even swiffered the hallway. Next time he barely did anything, was slow to start and didn't finish. It's maddening.

About the one-on-one experience. I think it can vary. There was a period of time that just the sound of my voice would stress out DD. I needed to back up then.

 

Then I heard something from Asperger Experts about Danny having had the same experience when his mom would try to get him to do his homework. They solved the problem by getting a tutor. That allowed the tension over school work to let go from their relationship.

 

It's tough while hsing. And it's tough when we want the best for our children and our attempts to encourage them have them running the other way. :(

 

I was able to solve the problem by giving her a year of independent work, and I was just very fortunate that that method worked for her.

[heartlikealion]

About the one-on-one experience. I think it can vary. There was a period of time that just the sound of my voice would stress out DD. I needed to back up then.

 

Then I heard something from Asperger Experts about Danny having had the same experience when his mom would try to get him to do his homework. They solved the problem by getting a tutor. That allowed the tension over school work to let go from their relationship.

 

It's tough while hsing. And it's tough when we want the best for our children and our attempts to encourage them have them running the other way. :(

 

I was able to solve the problem by giving her a year of independent work, and I was just very fortunate that that method worked for her.

 

I can see children needing some space, too. It makes sense. I'm currently in the process of figuring out how we can make homeschooling work next year with tutors for certain things. I have one in mind so far and probably will seek out more. I will honestly probably rely on our online curriculum a lot as well where he is better at being left alone to work independently.