Learning better organizational skills - anyone?

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I'm looking for programs mostly, I guess... I mean, I don't know what the next step is exactly except a parent-teacher meeting... Let me back up.

My 12-year-old has been struggling in school for a few years now. She is bright, in fact she was an early talker (or it seemed early to me, since she was my first You know how that can be... everything seems so extreme in the beginning). But she's only just improving in her spelling, which has been spectacularly bad for a while now. There have also been teacher complaints in the past about how slowly she does those stupid timed math tests. Personally, I'm pleased if she can do the math in the first place.

But the trouble this year has been a combination of organizational skills and frequent absences. She has gotten worse and worse about acting sick in the mornings... I really think she just wakes up feeling a little off and her eagerness to ditch school takes over. It's gotten so we don't ever believe she's sick anymore. It's scary how long it took me to take her to the doctor when she had strep throat (the thought still gives me the creeps, she was going to school and everything!) because her number one complaint is scratchy throat and we were so worried about her absences. Now, she honestly does get sick (in ways we can recognize... coughing in her sleep, nasal congestion, stuff you can hear) more than her siblings, which I hear is not uncommon for an oldest child. But she has been absent SO much that we don't actually know how well she would be doing otherwise!

Y'see, if you try to make her go, well, there's nothing that will get her to move. There was a point that my husband had to threaten to dress her and put her in the car, that's what it came to. She's gotten better but now she's actually been catching colds. Really. Nevertheless, I feel like an idiot every time I keep her home for anything short of projectile vomiting or fever. But if she's sick, she's sick. It's frustrating. Now, I know some of you are wondering what's going on at school to get her this way. I can tell you. She has had trouble keeping up with her schoolwork, has been treated by adults (all of us) as though she is just being difficult, and has become alienated from a lot of classmates as they move into those famous ages in which kids group up and become positively nasty to each other. She is dealing alright with the kids, not great, but better than I did when I used to be her (sigh), but as to the schoolwork, she's gotten to that point where she either lies about how much she has because it's boring, takes so much of her time, and she can't keep it straight, or acts like she doesn't care. My husband doesn't seem to get that she acts this way because she's having problems, not the other way around. I think he might have a glimmer, but when bad grades come in he reverts to type. I am, in fact, having a very hard time getting anyone, anyone, to consider the possibility that she might actually be having a problem with executive dysfunction. And because I have trouble with it, I get muddled and can't explain what I'm trying to say under pressure. And it's pressure when you make your one good statement and they turn around with a thousand arguments why in their experience it's 100% attitude problem. They did an IEP assessment last year when they feared she wouldn't pass 5th grade and came down with the conclusion that she did not qualify for services even though they said she was one of the smartest kids they'd ever tested but was nearly failing! Ho-ly crap! They just don't want another kid on the budget.

Our son's been getting all the attention because he's hyperactive and doesn't seen why he should sit still when standing is more fun. He's in a special class for kids with behavioral problems, which doesn't thrill me either. We see a psychologist who has the laudable determination not to label unnecessarily, who helps us to work with their individual personalities, but while this helps us, it doesn't do jack at school. At school it's all about the bottom line, we don't have time to give individual attention, you get what you get and don't throw a fit, we think embarrassment is the best motivator, you have to give respect to get it. Well, respect has to start somewhere. The teacher should start. And the teachers I've come across work with a shame-based system, instead of natural consequences. Public shame is not a natural consequence. Teacher anger is not a natural consequence. It's a teacher losing it. It also makes some sense for behavioral problems, but not academic performance. Your school success is not the class's business. The grades and privileges earned should provide the feedback.

And I can't get the psychologist to recommend an advocate. He keeps directing me to the Complete IEP Guide. The teachers complain about her absences but don't seem to be provide make-up work and never NEVER send a note home or as for a meeting. The kid has been given the chance to tell us what she needs but she keeps acting like she doesn't care. I want to home school her but no one else wants her to leave her friends!

We got report cards today and they're just as bad as the last time. We've been trying to give her the chance to face the natural consequences of not going to school, not telling us what she needs, etc. But it gets no better. Just a note home with the report card saying she needs less absences and better organizational skills. In the same note, mind you, they used two different names for her. This is a California Distinguished School!! !! They misspelled my son's teacher's name last year...

I've got to go, I just had to vent. Any suggestions, questions, please post them, I'll try to be more clear. It's just been so frustrating. She has no diagnosis, maybe nothing to diagnose. If I had to choose a name, a syndrome, I'd say ADD. It's always the ADD girls who get overlooked, in't it? I should know. I might have AS, might be ADD, might just be an artist. Who knows? It hasn't helped her any, but neither does that mean they have no responsibility. And up for doing something, but all I've been allowed is to try and help her get more organized.

Need a lil support. I wish I could afford private school, or even tutoring. Sigh.

Push for an IEP: the gap between ability to perform and IQ might be a way to get one. She needs accommodations to deal with the processing speed and executive function issues. Or get her assessed as AS if need be. She is going to give up and tune out if this continues, and that must be avoided. She isn't going to magically get these skills; if she was capable, she would be doing it. Or, at least, that is what I hear when I read your message.

Most middle school girls who fail to live up to potential are playing dumb or prioritizing gossip during class and, thus, don't get the work done. If that isn't your daughter, something else is doing on.

We know several families homeschooling for middle school. The kids see their friends other ways. If you think that is what would be best, push for it.

JHMO.

She sounds a lot like my eldest son. What I found in dealing with our public schools is that a doctors diagnosis was essential to get an IEP. I suppose they must protect themselves to unreasonable demands from parents who want extra services for their child where it's not warranted. Now that I've gotten to know some of the other parents at my children's school I can see why they must do this.

We took my son to a psychologist who did a battery of tests on him. They found that he had a good-excellent overall intelligence but was profoundly impaired in his processing speed. He was diagnosed with Asperger's and with ADHD. I'd been trying to get an IEP for ages as his inability to do certain things was causing a lot of stress for all parties concerned, especially him. Once I had the psychologists report they were legally obligated to give my son more time on tests and eventually he got into an autism program in Middle School. He was sent to a different school (a better one) than the one we are zoned for where they have more services. They have pull out classes, parapros to go to classes with students who can be in a regular or Honors class but need a little extra help. They also have a quiet lunch room where they go and have social skills training while they eat instead of having to go to the crowded and noisy cafeteria. Since his first IEP he's developed some other more serious psych issues and adding more accomodations to his IEP has been very easy. Getting that first one was the real battle.

"I am, in fact, having a very hard time getting anyone, anyone, to consider the possibility that she might actually be having a problem with executive dysfunction. And because I have trouble with it, I get muddled and can't explain what I'm trying to say under pressure. And it's pressure when you make your one good statement and they turn around with a thousand arguments why in their experience it's 100% attitude problem."
I actually have this problem myself, and my solution is to prepare in advance. I write out scripts for myself and practice them in my head, imagining what I would say to the most likely responses. This is kind of a basic solution so I imagine you do it already. Here's another possibility: most people don't understand much about executive function, but there IS information out there to educate them. Many bloggers, including members of WP, have written some amazing descriptions of what executive function problems are actually like. My favorites are chaoticidealism on LJ and anbuend's blog ballastexistenz. Why not find the best examples, bring them in to the IEP meetings, and use them to explain what you mean? It will help you get your thoughts in order, and it'll help them realize it's more than just you being difficult.

"The teachers complain about her absences but don't seem to be provide make-up work and never NEVER send a note home or as for a meeting"
This school is not doing right by your children, by the sound of it. Even if your child had normal executive function, she would still have problems in this situation.

"I want to home school her but no one else wants her to leave her friends!"
I am a former home schooler, so I may be a bit biased. AFAIK, anyone who has ever tried to homeschool has faced opposition from almost everyone they know, including members of their own families. That's not a good reason not to homeschool. There are lots of good reasons--finances, family dynamics, etc., but if these don't pose a problem, and you feel that home schooling would be best for your child, I would recommend trying it. If it doesn't work after a year, the public school is still there. But judging by what you said above about your children's school, home schooling could work better, even if you feel like you don't know what you're doing, because there will at least be appropriate support and natural consequences.

Home schoolers can find friends in a variety of places. In addition to friends from being in school previously, they can make friends in classes (like music, dance, and sports) in the community, volunteer, go to homeschool groups, go to church or other religious groups, and more. It takes a little extra effort to see friends, but it's definitely possible to see friends every day.

Homeschooling can have either positive or negative consequences for a child with a learning disability and resistance to work, depending on how it is done and how well the parents understand the underlying problems. For me, I had executive function problems that made it very hard to do math. I couldn't remember where I was in the problem or line the numbers up appropriately, and I couldn't keep track of the meaning of what I was doing and the calculations at the same time. My parents did not understand my issues, and they believed I was just refusing to do my work. Their solution was to give me a lot of drill problems and make me do them. It took me 2 years to memorize the multiplication tables in this way. (I somehow ended up a year or 2 ahead when I went back to school, but I had horrible math anxiety and never did learn how to deal with the executive function problems. I really think if this had been addressed, I would have progressed much farther in math in high school and college instead of doing the minimum). My brother, on the other hand, was pulled out of school for a year after he was diagnosed with AS. He had trouble writing because he had trouble organizing his ideas and then putting them on paper. The actual motor process of writing wasn't easy for him either. My parents took a creative approach. They coached him step by step through the process, and let him write about anything he wanted. The next year when he went back to school he asked for help with writing assignments. Ever since, he's been doing them on his own, and getting straight As. He has his own style and sense of humor in writing now.

To the extent that you understand your daughter's executive function problems and are able to coach her through them, your experience will be more like my brother's and less like mine. Good luck!

I forgot to mention--going off of what Chronos was saying, the only way to learn math is to do math, BUT timed drills clearly aren't working. What about doing untimed problems, and coaching her step by step through them?

I do acknowledge that since she's built up a resistance to doing schoolwork, both because of its innate difficulty to her and because of how people react to her behavior, it will take a LOT of patience to work with her.

Your description of school makes me sad. It's unfortunate the way they are acting - it's one of the reasons why people with ADD are stigmatized as being stupid, lazy and crazy...

One thing about the homework - the teacher could e-mail you on a daily (or weekly) basis to tell you what the homework is, and
then your daughter could write down what is in the agenda. That way she can't lie or forget. A little underhanded, yes...

If you are in need of a tutor a good place to look might be a local library or university. Generally, there are student teachers looking for some work.

HTH Gl

The first thing to do is to get a meeting set up with these people, something we should have done long ago. I can list a lot of excuses why we haven't, that we've been caught up in dealing with the kid with behavioral problems, that my husband's work schedule is erratic and I'm afraid to go in without him (while he does not have the insight I do, he has no love of the school system and does not draw a blank when he has something to say, and he's my security object), we honestly, as one, can't make heads or tails of the laws except to know that they have legal obligations they aren't fulfilling... but I guess it's mostly that she hasn't wanted help and I can see she really wants to show she can do it herself. I told her today, however, frankly, that she must see that if we have all looked at things and seen that there is a reason she can't (yet) quite do it all by herself, there's no shame in allowing us to help her. I pointed out that one of the ways help might be provided is to have someone in class who helps her make sure she remembers everything, and mentioned that a teacher might even choose a student for it. I made the mistake of mentioning that even if the kid got a little bossy about it, she couldn't deny she needed help remembering. I guess I was hoping to see some light flick on that showed she understood that failing 6th grade is an absent-minded smart kid hitting rock-bottom. Well, she doesn't have my adult view, I can't really blame her for responding that her pride wouldn't tolerate that (she said "dignity" but pride fits better). Shoot, I wouldn't like it either. Nobody ever could tell me anything. It's the family curse.

She's hard to look at these days. I've passed too much of myself to her. I'm supposed to accept her and yet she is representing more and more a self I left behind a long time ago. Here's a kid with an awkward run who is considered the author of most of her own problems and made to feel that she is a failure every time she reads the words "student is achieving below apparent ability" on a report card. Always with the assignments missed that I never could remember getting in the first place. Always making the incomprehensible jokes. Indifferent to the food stains on my clothes. Using words the teacher never heard of. And disliked by most of my teachers, yeah, enough that it showed. Ugh. Walking and talking and 12 all over again. I never was so glad to be a plump 37-year-old.

And the school staff still acts pretty much the same as they did all those years ago in Louisiana. The office staff treat you like you're asking too much all the time. The teachers can't give that much time to one student. And, "We know she's getting teased but what can you expect when she acts the way she does?" Well, I can expect you to learn how to deal with teasing and help me teach it to her so that she knows how to stop it for herself (I found a good web site for that, actually. I've learned a lot, and I passed her hints and tips as often as I can sneak them into her head. I think they're working.).

your struggle sounds so much like what we are going through right now with our 13 yr old son. unorganized, slow at accomplishing work, complete executive dysfunction, missing assignments that arent getting done resulting in failing or below ability grades. he too has no diagnosis.

two months ago we started a plan to help with organization, and its still in process but his grades have nearly all come up at least one letter grade, in some classes even two grades (except Spanish, he just cant get it and doesnt like his teacher). he has a planner that goes to every class with him. under each day there is room for two lines for every single subject. his school actually provides these planners, its a gifted school and lots of kids use them like he does now, so most subjects are already printed in there. you can use a regular day-runner type planner if you cant find a school oriented one. every day, he is to write what homework he has under that class's section, "none" if there is none, and he has to get his teacher to sign it. he is in 7th and they switch classes, so for him thats 7 notations on assignments and 7 signatures.

it isnt perfect, but its a lot better than previous where we knew nothing of what his assignments were and he always insisted he had no homework. we've had to request teachers be more mindful when signing, they arent suppose to sign unless he has the assignments recorded correctly, and some were just mindlessly signing when he had absolutely nothing written down. it was also a fight with him to get all the signatures. it helped when we told him that planner was his first homework assignment; if all the signatures arent there, that piece of homework wasnt complete.

i'd also suggest seeing if your insurance, if you have it, will cover psychological screenings. ours luckily does, and we have that set up this week to hopefully figure out more of whats affecting him. we've gone thru similar things as you, trying to figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg, the behavior or the problem. and what exactly the problem is. in our case, it could be add, spd, asd.... his signs arent specific enough to pin it down without professional help, so thats our next step. if you get a diagnosis that way, your school may be more accomodating.

for school absences, our son sounds much like your daughter. and its horrible when you get to the point that you simply cant trust them to tell you the truth, but we are there too. i laid out at the beginning of the school year the plan: you have 10 absences to use (based on state attendance requirements), once you use them up, you have to be dead or in the throes of death to stay home. he used them up by christmas. now, he goes to school sick, unless he has visible symptoms i can verify: fever, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. headaches or sour stomachs are not verifiable. it sounds harsh, but otherwise, he'd miss at least an entire week a month.

last but not least, does your school use skyward access? if not, maybe its possible they can set up something similar, where you can log on and see your childs assignments and grades from home. or even weekly email reports from her teachers. something to allow you to check on her progress and assignments that comes straight from the school. just another way besides the planner for you to know whats going on without relying on her to tell you whether she has homework.

AzureCrayon, if you read the book, "The Trouble with Boys," by Peg Tyre, you'll find a pretty strong case that there is nothing wrong with a 13 year old boy who has trouble with remembering assignments and staying organized. The expectations at school have grown to exceed where boys are at developmentally. Just keep that in mind; most of my son's NT friends are struggling just the same as he is. Not to say you shouldn't push the school for accommodations; I'll take what I can get, personally; but to caution against the push you'll encounter to add more diagnosis and labels. Not every issue means something is wrong. Many are just kids being kids.

Why not just let her fail? It isn't as though you learn anything useful in 6th grade. The only three things worth learning before high school are basic math, reading, and how to compose your thoughts on paper.

Math is not a major requirement for most careers and can easily be helped by using a calculator. As a professional mechanical engineer I can guarantee you that even the most mathematically intensive jobs don't require timed math tests to see how fast you can multiply.

Reading is best learned if done with books you enjoy, not if it is forced on you by school

And learning to compose your thoughts is best done by actually having something to write about. Getting her to post on a forum of interest, or start writing letters is much better for building the skill then school mandated research papers.

Really, until you get to the junior year of high school, where they actually start teaching real world information, school is nothing more then a poorly run daycare which forces the students to memorize useless information about marco polo or columbus which you could get off the internet in 30 seconds.

If you are looking for some threads about executive dysfunction then you might find this thread somewhat useful:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt109754.html

Its an old one, but it may have what your looking for. I also have some links in there to other posts about the same issue, namely:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt107847.html

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt108477.html

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt107135.html

Why not just let her fail... well, that's a mind blower and no mistake.

Let me just say first, that I fully understand the crushing futility of a public school education. Why do you think I was considering home schooling? This, despite my own organizational difficulties, seemed better designed to provide my always bright daughter with a teacher who understands her strengths as well as her weaknesses and who has something useful to teach not exclusively laid down by the arbitrary, agenda driven state. Yes, they do hand you the curriculum they want everyone to get. Whatever. I doubt it would take long to teach it to one kid. Even tricky areas could be addressed more easily by someone whose first words after every request for help aren't intended to point out how bitterly alone the student is in her efforts to learn. Plus, I could teach her real art, real drawing skill to help her put her creative thought down more clearly, instead of just the media and technique play time that they call art lessons, and the art-for-everyone "right side of the brain" approach which, in fear of discouraging less skilled students, leaves no room for development of students with a greater aptitude and interest, and provides no knowledge of the rendering of form.

And it would be nice to actually teach organization, accountability and responsibility instead of deciding at random one year to inform the students that they aren't little kids anymore and no one is going to be holding their hand this year, without knowing whether previous teachers have provided them with the skills to handle this advance. "Accountability" of the public school student, in the areas of organization and academic performance, is nothing more than a mass teacher cop-out. This is the product of the bottom-line educator dominating the available workforce. I can't imagine most of them choosing to be teachers with the idea of inspiring eager young minds. I picture Mr. Keating being ejected from his post after scandal arising indirectly from his suggestion that the students try to enjoy poetry. Mind you, I know there are more interesting teachers around, but when a person mentions the teacher that inspired her, generally it's just that. *A* teacher. One. Of course, I once had a teacher who gave great lectures but whose tests never seemed to bear any resemblance to my notes and I've just decided that it may have been both of us with trouble drawing logical connections... I always figured it was me, but if it was then surely the fact that her lectures stuck securely in my mind and also the fact that I studied from my notes should have helped. But never mind that.

So, yeah, of course they teach a lot of nonsense and provide more busy work than an insurance company. And they act like they're teaching kids to deal with the real world but never admit that the life skills most forcefully taught in public school are ones I've encouraged my daughter to recognize... how to deal with difficult or irritating people, how to do what you want/need to do despite the fact that someone you loathe is trying to make you do it (how to overcome your personal weakness in wanting to cram it down their throats), or learning to pursue a goal in spite of, not because of, a teacher who thinks that humiliation is the best motivator. Teachers who tell us to be true to ourselves and punish us for failing to conform, even if it really is a failure, an inability... something that cannot be helped. And she's learning respect through negative example. Last year her teacher had a sign up that said you had to give respect to get it. Baloney. Basic respect is a thing that should be automatically given, especially by someone who expects it in return. Respect can be lost, greater respect can be earned. By no teacher should be sarcastic to her students even when that student is or appears to be failing to treat her with respect. She's the adult, and adults know enough to keep their cool and let the numbers speak for themselves... if you don't do the work, you don't get results. And that is even before you have reason to suspect a disability. And I feel she had reason to suspect it. And she chose sarcasm. My daughter used to say that the teacher didn't follow her own guidelines... she didn't earn respect, she didn't give it. I don't want my kid being taught that adults get everything for free.

Well, that's one of many rants I provide at no extra charge.

But here's the trouble. As I said, everyone favors keeping her in public school (except me). This includes her. Yes, in spite of everything. And while she is young and may not realize that she does have things she needs to learn that she may not get in school, and doesn't grasp that we have an excellent home schooling system here (a single public school K-12 specifically designated to maintain and support as well as provide extra activities and needed mini-classes, loads of chances to make friends, holy crap)... well, one thing I'd like her to understand is that she has a choice in what happens to her in life, and that some choices lead to greater opportunities while others limit them, even create situations to be endured until you can hope for better... but in any case, there's always another option at the end of it, always another choice, and the choice was yours. I've noticed that she shares my almost self-destructive need to choose for myself, hence the trouble in doing something in spite of being told to do it, especially by a hated teacher. Well, maybe she won't feel so defensive about her right to choose if she feels it isn't threatened. I let her know what she's letting herself in for when she makes her choices. Then it's up to her to cope, always being free to ask for help, I am her mother after all. But she always wants to deal with it herself. Truth be told, she always has. She's always had a set of rules all her own. What we wanted her to do was subordinate to what drove her. But that's personality.

So, why not let her fail? Well, the first and most obvious reason is that she'll never get to junior high if she keeps repeating the 6th grade. I assume they still do that when I kid doesn't pass the classes, despite all the nonsense about leaving no child behind. If they could wangle it so that a kid learned at her own pace, the concept of being left behind educationally wouldn't exist.

My husband reminds me that there's an overlap in this case... The junior high she would be attending has a 6th grade as well as the elementary school. So if she repeats, she could repeat it at a different school. I don't suppose it would be any more distressing to be a grade under her old classmates than at the same school with the same teachers and all the underclass kids who remember her as being a grade higher. At least, there may be a difference, but it's hard to call from here.

In any case, more than that is the effect on her self-esteem. she's been struggling with it all year, for a couple of years even, and failing could either crush her spirit or steel her to not let it happen again... which incidentally can make you crack up anyway if you still lack the means to pull it off. So it's not so much about the curriculum. That's just what they want her to pick up. And even I have found that there are things from the liberal education basics that can surprise you later on by coming in handy. Mind you, a really good school or a really good teacher can change your life, and provide you with masses of things that come in handy later. But even these textbook stooges have their moments. I digress. The factors involved in failing a grade really only affect her, they don't do anything to change the teachers, improve the school or her, nor do they get her to junior high.

As for the curriculum becoming better in junior high, I'll have to take your word for it. I was teased so mercilessly from 4th grade, escalating to 7th grade when it was at its worst, after which it tapered off but did not quite peter out in high school, that I hardly know what was being taught through junior high. I was lucky to pass.

I must make a confession, though, about home schooling and the opposition to it... honestly, I never have had much stomach for being the one to stand against others. I can do it when the decision affects only me, or primarily me, sure. But if I wanted her to stay home, and my support people were against it, and even she is against it, I would have to be absolutely certain that this was the right solution, bar none. And I don't know that it is. Dealing with adversity brings character. Who knows which things are going to serve her better in life? It may be that she will need the character more than the liberal education. In this age of man, I can almost guarantee it. And she's got a lot more support than I had.

My goal is to give her the means to succeed and then let her decide how to apply it. If she is sick (I'm going to get her physically checked as well, she had pneumonia a couple of years ago and her dad has exercise induced asthma and she's always been prone to more colds and the like than her siblings, so I've been pondering whether that's an issue, I'm thinking it is) she can't help that, and if she is disorganized it's safe to say we have to assume she doesn't know how to be organized until we have established otherwise. Then if she doesn't pass, repeating a grade is part of the natural consequences. And hopefully she'll step up later if she finds a career that interests her.

Well, I never can make a short comment.