Motivation

In my search for a full-time teaching position, I found myself saying that I understand what it takes to motivate students with learning differences and ADHD. 

I must confess that is a total lie. What I understand is that for some kids (mine), motivation seems to be completely unattainable.

My son is in 7th grade and his cell phone became the center of his universe over the summer. He lost his cell phone privileges the second week of school when he brought home a string of Fs on his school assignments. 

His mid-term progress report showed one C and he needs all As and Bs to get the phone back. I thought he would be motivated to keep the grades that were good and work on that C.

Instead, he’s struggling even more and it doesn’t appear to be a lack of ability. On a practice test he took in school yesterday, he answered “True” to a statement saying there were no tornadoes in Texas. True? From a boy that has spent many nights asleep on the bathroom floor waiting for the next round of warning sirens?

Carelessness seems to be the major culprit. Is it the ADHD? Lack of motivation or concern about school in general or his grades?

He’s now lost computer privileges on school nights until those grades are back to As and Bs but I wonder if that’s going to make a difference. 

Is anyone else in a similar situation? What’s the answer?

New friends

I made a new friend last week. Her daughter is in fourth grade at the same school as my daughter and she started talking to me last week as we waited for the girls to get out of school for the day. 

She is from Israel and explained that her family had just moved here three weeks before school started. Her daughter spoke very little English but was doing well adjusting to her new school. We invited them over one day after school so she and my daughter could get to know each other better. 

She told me about her son who is a year older than my son and also has ADHD. He's in the public school that my son would go to if he weren't in private school. She told me that in Israel, her son was able to go to a different school that allowed him to choose the classes he wanted to take. As a result, he focused better and learned more.

I have to admit, I'm jealous. Not that I don't think my son's school is wonderful, but to see him interested in what he was learning, to see him able to make choices about his future, would be wonderful. My son is still on the sidelines when it comes to his education. He's in class but he's still just going through the motions.

We had a long discussion about our school districts efforts to treat every child the same, even when they are clearly different. Some places have charter schools which sound similar to what she described in Israel but we're not so lucky here. There are no charter schools nearby and private school is becoming cost prohibitive.

I'm interested to hear what other parents of kids with learning disabilities are doing, especially as the kids get closer to high school. Our local high school boasts a 97% rate for seniors going to college and is said to administer more AP tests than any school west of the Mississippi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano_Senior_High_School). 

I'm not sure what this means for my son. I would love to have a choice — a public education choice — that gives him an education where he is engaged and interested in his learning and can be with kids with similar interests. 

Back to School!

I have to admit, I am not one of those moms who get weepy when the kids go back to school. I'm quite the opposite and have to restrain myself so the kids don't pick up on how happy I am to escort them out the door on that first day back to school each year.

We're looking forward to a good school year this year. My son is in his fourth year (7th grade) at a private school for kids with learning differences and my daughter is starting her second year (4th grade) at the neighborhood public school. Both kids were happy to be going back to school this week and they quickly fell into the normal routine of early bedtimes and even earlier wake up times.

One of the things we've learned from my son's school is the importance of helping kids get organized with their school work. After four years, my son expects his binder for school to be set up a certain way and this year, we set up my daughter's binder in much the same way. Her papers last year took on a life of their own and became nearly impossible to manage. She didn't have a binder and neither of us knew what was finished, what had been turned in and what was to be left at home. 

There's nothing fancy about the organization of the binder. There's a daily assignment planner in the front and an additional monthly calendar for long term assignments. Next there are two  pockets — one for "to do" items (homework or other unfinished assignments) and one for "finished" assignment (items ready to be turned in). In my daughter's binder, we added a third pocket for "leave at home" so that the papers she no longer needs are not mixed in with the assignments that need to be done or turned in. 

My son's school sends all of his "leave at home" papers in an envelope on Thursday. I love that! He and I can go through the week's work together and there are no extra papers cluttering his binder. Actually, there are plenty of extra papers with drawings of bizarre contraptions on them but a binder can't solve every problem! 

There are also dividers for every subject which rarely get used in my son's binder. I think the intent is for him to store papers by subject that he might use for studying. 

We're stumbling through our first week and it's already obvious that my son will have to step up his efforts this year. We're hoping to transition as much work as possible to the computer this year and he's going to be learning more about how to ask for the kind of help he needs (self-advocating). Each week, his class rotates between classes for life skills, study skills, speech, computer and art.  Did I mention that I love his school?

Building a better mousetrap

Last week, my son and his friend decided they were going to tackle a little problem we have around the outside of the house -- mice. My son has tried chasing them with a broom which has an immediate payoff of getting them back over to the neighbor's yard and taking his adrenalin level up a notch, but it doesn't do much to solve the problem.

Looking for a more permanent answer, these two 12 year olds decided they would build a mousetrap. If you know any kids with ADHD, you can appreciate the difficulty of the task they were undertaking. Both have short attention spans and run at the same speed -- fast and constant. Other summer projects for them have included building and sleeping in condos made from cardboard boxes and attempting to catch fish by any means available at the neighborhood pond. However, most of their activities involve taking things apart rather than putting them together.

It was with great interest that I watched them gather up the tools they would need for their mousetrap -- wood, nails, a hammer and some sliced cheese. They came up with a plan to build a wooden box without a top and an opening at one end presumably for the little critter to enter. A loose piece of board sits on top of the box and a nail sticks into the box in the back. The nail is to hold the cheese.

They explained to me that the mouse would crawl in to get the cheese and the top would fall on him either trapping him, or killing him. 

So far, I've only witnessed ants inside the trap eating the cheese but I am very impressed with the boys ability to a) come up with a somewhat logical plan and  b) execute it without any injuries. They worked together and completed their project with no adult help whatsoever. They even remembered to bring the tools back inside! 

I don't know if all of their creative projects add to their educational experience in any way but I know that they're having fun and staying focused on one project long enough to see it through to completion. That alone is a big deal in my son's world.

I think the fish and the mice in this neighborhood don't have much to worry about, at least not from these two but you never know! They seem determined in their efforts and determination and perseverance often pay off. 

Personally, I hope they don't succeed because I am not equipped to handle the deceased critters!

Educational Testing

At the end of the school year, my son completed a battery of tests administered by our local school district to see what type of support he’d be eligible for if and when he moved to the public school. The results were similar to previous tests and the results were the same – based on their criteria, my son does not qualify for special education services due to a learning disability. 

At about the same time his test results came in, I began the process of getting certified to teach special education. I’ve attended many seminars before about special education because I’m always looking for a better understanding of how my son will get educated enough to graduate from high school and possibly go to college or a technical school. 

I learned several things about how the education system works in that seminar and was left with one glaring fact – teachers aren’t any happier with the system than parents are. 

The statistics shared in that seminar were staggering. Nationally, more than 11% of the school-aged population receives special education services. Since 1990, the number of students receiving help has increased more than 32 percent. 

But parents, like me, are still frustrated. I remember the first time I was told my son wasn’t “far enough behind” to qualify for services. He was 6 and his speech and language test scores revealed that he was in the 12^th percentile for kids his age meaning that 88 percent of kids his age would be expected to perform better on that test. He needed to be in the 7^th percentile to receive help. I remember clearly looking at the school personnel in that first pre-IEP meeting and saying, “But I’m not raising a kid to be in the 12^th percentile of the population.”

 My son qualifies for special education services under Other Health Impairment (OHI). In Texas, ADHD is not considered a disability category but students who have a diagnosis of ADHD and it impacts their ability to learn, can qualify under OHI. Any medical diagnosis that affects a student’s ability to learn can be considered to qualify a child to receive help from the school. 

My son’s learning disabilities have been well documented by professionals but in the public school setting, they are not severe enough. I’m thankful that my son continues to make good progress year after year but I’m still not willing to accept that he’s a 12^th percentile kind of guy.  

Low blocks and high kicks

I was less than thrilled the first time my son said he wanted to try tae kwon do. I pictured a little 5-year-old ninja running loose in my house kicking and hitting everything. Within a week of his first class, my impression had completely changed and I became a huge fan of our local program.

Teachers started telling me that my son “lacked focus” sometime around his second birthday. I was completely unaware that any two year old had focus so, for the most part, I ignored them. But seeing my little ninja out there with the other kids, I began to understand their concerns. 

My son wiggled and wandered and interrupted with the most off-the-wall comments. He fell on the floor. A lot. 

The instructors encouraged him to stand still and taught him to gain better control over his body. As he earned new belts, a transformation began to take place. He fell less, his coordination improved and he stopped being so fidgety in martial arts class. His confidence grew and he felt very successful and strong. 

Unfortunately, we moved when he was 6 years old and our search for a new martial arts home began. I soon found out that not all martial arts programs are created equally. We tried two in Wisconsin, both were less understanding of my son’s personality and learning issues and he was miserable. Basically, they both lacked that critical "fun" factor. We found a better program when we moved to California but for a variety of reasons, we didn’t stick with it. 

Earlier this year, I signed both my kids up for tae kwon do in Texas. My 8-year-old daughter lacks confidence to try new things and tae kwon do was the first sport she was willing to try. My son wasn’t interested at all because he’s 12 and 12 year olds don’t want to do anything their parents want them to do. 

Six months later, I couldn’t be more proud of both kids. Our new martial arts home is a perfect fit with kids of all different abilities working side by side. Some are wigglers, like my boy. Some are timid, like my girl. Some learn differently and some are very bright and successful with everything they do. 

I know several parents who have kids with learning differences that tell similar stories about their kids in martial arts. Martial arts programs that accept kids of all abilities and encourage them to reach their personal best in a positive way can give kids that don't always fit in a place to shine. 

 

 

School's Out!

Yesterday began the first full week of summer vacation for my son. His friends are out of town and he’s already bored. In that past, I’ve filled his summers with speech therapy, occupational therapy and tutoring. I’ve bought the Summer Bridge series workbooks for so many years only to pass them down, almost completely blank, from him to his sister. 

This year, I’m giving him a break. I have no educational camps, therapy of any kind or tutoring planned for the summer. Instead, his schedule will be filled with chores around the house (life skills!) and fun camps for tae kwon do, chess and video game design. 

Yesterday, we joined a neighborhood rec center and I spent the afternoon getting beat in ping pong and air hockey. He can ride his bike to the center and to a local pool. There is also a pond in the neighborhood for fishing although I’m not sure what he would do if he actually caught a fish! 

For the first time in many, many years, my son is going to enjoy his time off this summer without the constant reminder that he learns differently. I’m excited for him and nervous about “wasting” a great opportunity like the summer to increase his academic skills. 

I expect that he might grow a couple of inches taller this summer and I hope that he’ll gain some maturity as well. Maybe by fall he’ll be ready to tackle those books again. 

What's in a job?

When I picture my son behind a desk at work, all I can see is a grown up version of the same kid spinning around in a chair as fast as he can. And breaking pencils. I often wonder whether he’ll go to college and what he might do to earn a living as an adult. 

Last summer, my kids started coming home from day care with handfuls of “tickets” for prizes at their school. At first, I was so proud that they were doing so well in this academically oriented daycare. Then I learned the truth. 

My son figured out that he could sell time on his Nintendo DS to the other kids for tickets and the tickets could then be redeemed for candy. A good deal for him, a good deal for his consumer. He quickly enlisted his sister’s participation and the two of them became “rich” feeding off the electronic dependencies of their peers. 

This was about the point that I stopped worrying about how he was going to earn a living. Okay, maybe I still worry a little. Scholastically, he’s got some problems but socially, he may be the king of networking. In our last neighborhood, he was dubbed “the mayor” by one of the other parents because he got all the kids together to play. What was most interesting to me is that the kids were all different -- some smart, some athletic, some older, some younger -- and my son was the common friend among them.

I’m not sure what this will all add up to – a career in sales? Politics? A street hustler?

 

Captain Chaos

I decided to clean my son’s room yesterday after two months of letting him “handle it.” Before I stopped badgering him to clean his room, I set up some ground rules mainly that there was to be no food in the room and clothes that weren’t put in the laundry room on Saturday didn’t get washed. I foolishly thought that if he had to wear a dirty uniform to school, he’d get the message and start picking up his stuff off the floor. He's worn the same socks to school for two weeks and I'm not sure where the clothes are coming from. Still there's been no attempt to straighten his room.

I’ve read 100 times that kids with ADHD have “poor organizational skills.” What I haven’t read is an accurate description of how incredibly messy that can be. Sure, his binder and school papers are shoved in his backpack with little hope of ever finding them again. But his room achieves a whole different level of disorganized and “poor organizational skills” doesn’t begin to cover it. Pure, complete chaos seems more appropriate. 

I’ve tried to help him. He has a dresser with drawers for clothes, shelves for books, bins under the bed and in the closet for toys and boy stuff, a bedside table for a clock radio and a lamp, a desk and even an organizer for his cell phone and iPod. 

The bookshelves were empty, clothes were on the floor, bins were empty and his “stuff” was everywhere. The bedside table was clean, the lamp and clock radio across the room were connected by an elaborate mass of extension cords. His desk was home to a 2-ft. long Lego vehicle (the extra pieces are still sticking to the bottom of my feet) and there were parts of broken toys, victims of his endless curiosity, everywhere. 

When I ask him to clean his room, I write down specific tasks so that when he gets distracted two minutes later, he can, theoretically, look back at his list and get back on track. It worked better when he was younger and not so curious. The last time I left him alone to clean his room, I returned 15 minutes later to find him finishing a pulley system made with dental floss so that he could open his bedroom door by moving his chair across the room. 

I think a sparse room with no “stuff” is the answer. Rubber walls might not be a bad idea either. Anyone else have any ideas?

Extra help

At times during my son’s educational career, it has become very clear that whatever assistance I had to offer wasn’t going to be enough. Usually, this was during the time periods where I worked full time and didn’t have the time or energy to work with him after school. Or he simply needed more expertise than a mom with a degree in communications could give him. 

There are a lot of great educational resources out there. I've preferred to stick with one-on-one help rather than learning centers that often cost just as much.

Tutoring – 

What’s worked – An educational therapist. They’re typically more expensive but they have the education and experience to warrant the added expense. The one I hired worked on language processing, memory and attention issues. She also attended IEP meetings with me which was invaluable. 

What hasn’t worked – me, at least not all the time.  It’s not easy to work with your own child. I get frustrated. He gets frustrated. Pencils get broken, papers get crumpled. I can’t begin to count the number of times his binder’s been closed for the night without homework completed because of the strain it caused between us. 

What’s worked – Hiring a tutor who is also a special education teacher. The one I hired one summer was encouraging but firm and set high expectations for my son. They covered a lot of ground in a short period of time. 

What hasn’t – using tutors that don’t know the material.  I knew things were bad this year (sixth grade) when my son’s homework tutor sent me an email saying she didn’t understand his math homework.  

Much of what I’ve learned about my son has come from the professionals that worked with him. I’m not sure who has been educated more by his tutors, him, or me. I didn’t know what ADHD looked like until I saw my son work with the educational therapist. The work was hard, he had to think and he was wired. The placid little guy that watched TV with his face glued to the screen was gone and he was sent into perpetual motion. I saw my son in a new way and now can appreciate the challenges his teachers face on a daily basis.

Do you hear what I hear?

Auditory processing disorder has become a common diagnosis among children with learning differences in the past several years. Most professionals agree that it’s hard to distinguish between an auditory processing issue and ADHD. Often, a child might have both.

An audiologist determined that my son had a “moderate” auditory processing disorder when he was in first grade. To be quite honest, it’s very hard to tell if any of the products or interventions has been effective, none provided immediate results but it’s possible that his improved listening and processing skills are a result of early interventions. 

Auditory Processing 

What’s worked – small class size, quiet work environment, sitting in the front of the class. 

What hasn’t – My son completed both sets of Earobics exercises, dozens of hours of computer listening time. The cost was relatively low ($69 per set) but there was no noticeable change. 

What’s worked – My son and another child in his second grade class had a speaker on their desk and the teacher wore a microphone. It seemed to help keep his attention longer but it was deemed ineffective by the school after a short trial period. 

What hasn’t  – a 90-hour listening program (the Tomatis Method). It was very expensive ($5,000) and required him to be in the administrator’s facility for two hours a day for weeks. The program is best known for helping autistic children speak but did not have a noticeable effect on my child's learning or ability to focus.

There’s an interesting book on auditory processing called “Like Sound Through Water,” by Karen Foli. The book has a wealth of information and resources on auditory and language processing and it’s a good read as well.

Patience, patience

I am not a patient person. If there’s one quality the parent of a child with learning disabilities should have, it’s patience and I don’t have very much.

Yesterday was a typical afternoon at my house. My son got home from school at 2:45 p.m. and I reminded him that he had a book report to finish before he could play with friends and before Tae Kwon Do class at 5:45. Three hours, plenty of time. The afternoon unfolded something like this:

3:00 p.m. -- Finished snack and checking on his online game he had left running all day. Computer gets turned off. 

3:05 – He looks outside to see if the rabbits had eaten any of my new plants. No damage to report as of yet. 

3:07 – I hand him his AlphaSmart and his book. He sits on the couch to begin working. 

3:12 – He goes outside to check on rabbits and starts building a trap to catch them. 

3:35 – I ask how it’s going. He says “Good” even though I see the AlphaSmart on the couch. I take it outside. 

3:45 – From outside he calls for help. As I check on his progress, he says, “I think there’s only one rabbit living under the deck” and he starts banging on the deck with a golf club to encourage the rabbit to make an appearance. 

3:49 – Back inside, I wonder if it’s too early to have a glass of wine. 

4:01 – The phone rings and a friend invites him on a walk. He asks me how long it will be until he finishes his homework. Good question. I tell him about 15 minutes if he could sit down and write. Finally, some motivation. Back to the couch. 

4:17 – After a flurry of activity, he hands me the AlphaSmart to read his report. Not bad, just needs a final paragraph to wrap it up. He heads to a friend’s house to swim at 4:35. 

7:45 -- After Tae Kwon Do and dinner, the report is transferred to the computer and, amazingly, in one sitting, he corrects and formats his report. 

8:00 – I finish that glass of wine I’ve been thinking about since 3:49.

Aye Ticonderoga!

Homework struggles in my house are usually defined by the number of pencils that get broken. On a good night, no pencils are broken, but on a bad night, look out. We’ve had many homework sessions where two or three of the little guys met their demise.

I probably should have invested in Ticonderoga pencil stock several years ago. I’m not partial to that particular brand, I just like saying the name but I have found that wooden pencils are the easiest to break thus allowing my son to return to his homework more quickly.

I’ve tried lots of techniques to help get through homework with less angst but I can’t say I’ve ever been very successful. Timers were good when he was younger but now that he needs to slow down, I’m looking for new ideas.

What’s worked for you? Tell me and I’ll put together a Top 10 list in a future blog!