Help Child thinks School work is Optional

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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

This is not an uncommon issue. If the child thinks an assignment is useless, and unnecessary he is going to view it as busy work and busy work is a big problem for many autistic kids. My approach is probably not going to be sanctioned by the school, but what I would say is that yes, some of the work probably is unnecessary (the stuff that is easy that he already can do) but you have to play the game and do it anyway because they affect his grades, which affects college admissions, etc. I would add that the plus side with the easy stuff is that it is an easy way to add to grade performance.

The other thing I would say, is that some of the work may also look unnecessary but actually isn't because while it may look useless in its current form, but it may be providing a foundation for future work and he is not going to know if this is so or not until he gets to the work this is a precursor for later.

The showing work thing is an issue we have partially because he is used to the work being really easy and can do in his head, and partially because he likes to minimize how much he writes because he has fine motor skill issues which make writing unpleasant and also to save trees when he does it on paper. That said, once you get to more complex multi step work, you really need to show your work to make it easier to find simple mistakes everyone occasionally makes, and also so you can get partial credit. In addition, we have begun simple geometric proofs this year, and I told him that when doing proofs showing the work is the answer. I have made analogies to mysteries (think Colombo--not that he watches that- where in the first part of the show you find out the crime, who did it and how, but the rest of the show is dedicated to how the detective figures it all out and figures out to how to prove it.)

This is the approach I am taking and while it is not instant success, I am chipping away at it, and he is getting better at accepting it. We generally get more resistance when the questions are multi-part, which he has always thought was unfair (each part should have its own number in his mind) When showing your work means even more, unoffical, extra parts in his mind he gets upset and thinks it is unfair.

I told him at this point in his school career they want students to keep track of the steps to complete an answer themselves so that is why not all of them are officially listed. I tell him that the plus side is that any steps that are included for each question provide extra opportunities for partial credit should he make a small error. He still believes that by not having separate numbers for each part they are being misleading about the work involved and it is like he is doing extra work that he gets no credit for if he gets the right answer(which is true in the way that he thinks about it), but it is getting better.

Oh, another thing.

Are they making it seem like it is optional. If they're saying I suggest you do x if you want to pass this class.

This presumes that he cares about the class to pass it and he has the option of not doing the work and choosing to fail. If he is required to do x then you need to state in explicit terms he is required to do x.

Is he even concerned with passing or not passing the class in the first place?

No, he doesn’t seem to care

I think the problem is, is he’s board. If it doesn’t interest him, he doesn’t engage. It’s boring, why do it.

Oh my goodness, this is so my son!

If he isn't interested in it, he thinks it's a waste of time. And he's got the smarts to be able to argue his way out of anything. I've had to tell his teachers, "don't try to argue it logically, you'll lose!"

My son's particular trick is when the question on a test is open-ended, such as "Explain why this and this happens" he'll just write "No" - cue the discussion on sarcasm having no place in school work!

I just hope that something will trigger his interest when he reaches high-school, he's 10 now and can pass his classes without caring, that isn't going to last long!

(Also - hello - I registered to share my pain with just this issue!)

Also, I used to be like that, gifted and unwilling.
My parents didn't really do much about it and I think it was the best they could do!
Well, maybe they did - they showed me interesting problems to solve. Gave me higher grade textbooks and popular science books. We discussed science, arts, philosophy, humanities. They nurtured my love for konwledge and consistently ignored my grades.

Most of the teachers didn't bother with my lack of interest. I did excelent on the exams anyway. Some gave me advanced problems and sent me to science competitions. This way I wasn't bored.

One day I hit my limits. It was hard and took time to adjust... but here I am, with my career in science stemming from pure love for knowledge, really grateful to my parents for ignoring my grades at school.

He needs to be challenged. See if they will give him harder school work. He might just be bored so he is refusing to do it. He probably thinks just because he already knows how, he doesn't have to do it. He needs to know if he refuses to do his school work, he won't be able to go up a grade and if he doesn't finish high school, he won't be able to get into collage. Then he will be stuck with low wage jobs. Plus it will make it harder for him to find work if his education is only 6th grade and never completed high school. That is why I stayed in school and did my school work, I didn't want to be held back, I didn't want to make it harder to get a job. Plus my mom promised taking me to London if I stay in school and finish it.