Board index › Coping in life › Parents' Discussion

Help Child thinks School work is Optional

Page 3 of 3 [ 48 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3

Previous topic | Next topic

cubedemon6073
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Nov 2008
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,953

01 Jan 2018, 3:56 pm

League_Girl wrote:
ASDMommyASDKid wrote:
Aspie1 wrote:
ASDMommyASDKid wrote:
I think you are right about that and I also think for a lot of NTs it is not unpleasant b/c while they have little power, they figure out a way to navigate the system to make it more tolerable. In addition I think a lot of people think the trade off of no power for no "real person" responsibility is worth it. For people on the spectrum, it is really hard to navigate to where things are OK. Adults suck a lot of times, The system sucks, and other kids suck, too.
The idea of childhood being "free of responsibilities" is very, very questionable. In fact, I had more responsibilities as a child than I do today as an adult. I had numerous chores and hours of homework, which I hated. Adults have no homework to speak of, and it almost seemed like my parents enjoyed doing chores. (Because why else would they be so adamant about doing them?) Even more so, I was punished for not doing my responsibilities properly, while the only thing adults get for not doing theirs is a mild self-inflicted hassle.


I think I explained what I meant incorrectly. By responsibilities I did not mean tasks so much as the ultimate responsibility of having everyone's needs provided for. Of course this depends on the type of family also because there are parents who will burden even very young children with their adult worries about worrying if they can pay bills, worries about possibly losing ones job etc. But in my limited experience, these things are usually black boxed and not on children's radar to worry about. People who have not had to deal with those worries as children, but have to worry about them as adults, look at that time wistfully as feeling like they were "worry-free" (forgetting the worries they did have at the time) and taken care of.

Of course the worst combination is having the worries communicated to you, but them not being able to fix them. This would make you feel scared and powerless to do anything to help your situation.

As far as homework goes, it really depends on the type of job you have. When I was a kid, most adults I knew had 9-5 jobs that ended when they got home. There were exceptions even then -- Doctors who were on call, teachers who had to make lesson plans for new additions to the curriculum, or grade papers, people who had part time jobs in addition to full time work, people who had to work overtime which in a way is like homework, etc. Today (depending on the job) you might be tethered to your cell phone, having to answer work-related questions at almost all hours, You may have to VPN into work to do this or that etc. As far as chores go, we were not given any, but I knew my mom did not like them because she complained about them. We didn't get any because my parents did not believe in giving children chores and in any event would have required initial investment in time and effort teaching how to do what would initially be an unsatisfactory job. It never occurred to me adults could like them -- but I could see they just needed to be done so the house would not fall apart or get gross. In addition you will get fined in many locations if you don't take care of your lawn or shovel snow.


Was it hard to do chores as an adult and even clean because you were never taught that as a child?


I wish I lived near you or you lived near me. I would ask you to show me how to do some of these chores and maintain my concentration on them. I'm on limited funds so I wouldn't be able to pay you much.



Kiriae
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Mar 2014
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,349
Location: Kraków, Poland

01 Jan 2018, 6:05 pm

rose3trs wrote:
We've talked to him about this, and explained how schoolwork is not optional and that its his "job" and... we said it all. He'll have to do summer school or repeat a grade, etc. He still doesn't "get it". I've asked him why he doesn't do it and he says, "its too easy" or "I already know how to do that." or "I can do it in my head." (He has been tested as gifted, so that may be true but besides the point).

My preschool/elementary school (before I learned to deal with boring tasks) teachers solved the issue by giving me more challenging schoolwork compared to my classmates.
It could be also solved by setting a time limit (we know you can do it but HOW FAST can you do it?), making it a game - but only if the task isn't too boring. This one I was kinda doing by myself - I would do my school work then look around, to help my peers with theirs because I was just too fast. :lol:
And by explaining that schoolwork isn't for him to learn anything but for the teacher to know he knows how to do it. Like a test.
And by making sure the tasks aren't actually too boring. I had a few teachers doing this - everyone in class complained their homeworks are pointless/boring/too long. Most recent was an IT course. It was basically copy-paste-run-figure out-take a screenshot-upload screenshot-repeat, 100 times in a row, wasting 3 hours. I could figure out the code result of 95 out of the 100 examples without actually running it so I only run and screenshot the few I didn't know. And I got an F.

Sometimes it's the school/teacher who is at fault, not the student.



Chronos
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 22 Apr 2010
Age: 44
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,698

07 Jan 2018, 1:17 am

rose3trs wrote:
Good morning, this is my first post. I'm a parent of an 11 year old boy with Aspie's. He started middle school this past September and the adjustment has been difficult. At first it was the constant change in schedule and the rotating classes. He's seems to have adjusted a bit to that. He's still extremely disorganized and works with the SPED team for his group to learn organization skills.

The reason I'm reaching out, is that he's "refusing" to do some class work. For some reason he thinks some of the work the teachers pass out is OPTIONAL. Although the teachers tell him that its not, that he has to do it and its part of his grade. 2nd semester grades have been released and before he was a solid A/B student, now he's all C's or C-'s. I reach out to the SPED team member who has helped us the most and she wrote a very honest e-mail about The Child's classroom performance. We're extremely thankful for her honesty. (Don't get me wrong, we've had fights with the school, but this one teacher is great).

She wrote "I also think his focus in class continues to be variable. There are days when he is more concerned with whatever he is using at his desk (i.e. origami) than completing his classwork. We continue to cue him to refocus. Sometimes he argues about the value of an assignment instead of just doing it. "

We've talked to him about this, and explained how schoolwork is not optional and that its his "job" and... we said it all. He'll have to do summer school or repeat a grade, etc. He still doesn't "get it". I've asked him why he doesn't do it and he says, "its too easy" or "I already know how to do that." or "I can do it in my head." (He has been tested as gifted, so that may be true but besides the point).

I'm asking for any advice on how to explain to The Child that the work needs to get done. Any other parents experienced this? Do you have any advice?

Man, I'm just so drained. Tired. Its always such a struggle. I love him to bits but what I wouldn't give for a few days in Aruba :)

Rose


I was actually similar. You have to remember that what the institution is making your child do, is not always in your child's best interest. There is no "one size fits all" for education and learning. Throughout most of elementary school, I felt like I was a square peg trying to be hammered into a round hole. Teachers would give me worksheet over worksheet, which I could complete, but that I found boring, wasn't getting any faster at, and thought was essentially a waste of my time, and I still feel that way.

I would have preferred that time be used engaging in something I found interesting, useful or fulfilling and I feel that their attempts to force me to do the work was more detrimental than not.

I was proficient at reading and writing and could do arithmetic and multiplication, albeit slowly, and I think those two thing were the most important takeaways from elementary school. As far as middle school goes, the one thing I wish I had learned was algebra so I could move on to calculus in high school and wouldn't have had to take it in college. I was held back in math though because I was slow with arithmetic and didn't have my times tables memorized, but holding be back put me at a disadvantage and cause a significant delay in my life because even though I struggle with mental arithmetic, I'm gifted with higher in higher mathematics and now have a degree in it...I still don't have 8*6 memorized though.

Sometimes the child is smarter than the educators. If I had children, I wouldn't force them to do school work in subjects they were proficient in when they would rather move on and advance their education in other directions.