Lying about homework and school work

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Hello every one. I am a mother of a very talented young man that has a diagnosis of Asperger. He is in 9 grade and since school started he denies that he has math homework. As a result he's falling the class. He is capable of understanding and doing the work; however he dislikes to show all the steps when doing a problem, as a result he will more likely made a mistake in one of the steps resulting in a wrong answer.

There isn't a day when he comes from school that I ask him to show me if he has homework, and his response is always" i don't have any". Even though if i check on the teacher's website and see that he DOES have homework he will just come up with a lie about why he doesn't need to do it.

I have already talk to his teacher about it, and he said that my son just doesn't want to do the work. I do want to mention that this is the only class he is failing.
I would appreciate any feedback on this topic. One thing that i have noticed since the school year began is that he is doing more self stimulatory behaviors than before. He is flapping his hands more than before. He does this only at home. He has a high interest in the online computer game Minecraft, but i believed its becoming an obsession that is overtaking his thoughts.

Maybe a tutor so that he can get his confidence in math up.
Too bad you can't inject him with a potion that would help him understand how useful knowing a little math will be later in life.

let him fail

He doesn't do the work because he always expects someone to come to the rescue. But when he realizes no one is gonna come to the rescue, he will either start trying or fail the class and learn from his mistakes.

Because honestly, the teacher truly could care less if he fails or not.

No one is going to hold your son's hand the rest of his life. Eventually you're going to have to teach him the cold harsh truth about life, you don't want to leave him in the real world not knowing what he's doing.


Aspies are capable of achieving things on their own, we're not stupid. We're just lazy even if we don't admit it and we need some motivation even if it means being left by yourself.

I don't know if you son has a natural talent for math or not. but when I was in school. I could do the problem in my head and just write the answer down. The teacher did not like that and wanted me to do it the so-called "right way" and would put boxes around the problem which would force me to solve the problem their way. So even if I got the final answer right. If I did not put the information in the boxes. they would count it wrong and that just drove me crazy. The thing to note about having asperger's is we tend to not do what we are told or disobey authority, not because we are defiant or rebellious , but because we are logical thinkers and if we see a error in their instructions. we will automatically override it and do our thing instead because we automatically assume we are right and there wrong because of logic. I can't count the number of time I herd this statement "You did what was best but You didn't do what you where told.".

BTW: it sound like your son is a polar opposite of me. I ace math and science bur fail at everything else.

Last edited by LupaLuna on 16 Oct 2013, 11:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

If he needs help, tell him he needs to advocate for himself. He must take the initiative. Not the parents.

First of all, welcome to Wrong Planet.

I'm going to assume that you're in the United States because of the reference to "9(th) grade".

I must disagree with the advice posted above. Letting your child flunk a grade of math could be very damaging to his development and college application process.

This exact issue has come up before here on WP, and usually around the 7th-9th grade level. There seems to be a real issue with Aspies using a different mathematical progression (for lack of a better term) to finish math problems, which often seems to result in conflict with math teachers. I can't ever recall seeing this issue with any other subject.

I cannot speak for your child, but it is my belief that this situation seems to arise when there is a conflict between the student and the teacher on the grounds that the student "gets it", but is moving through the math problem in an unapproved manner. I can't imagine that having a teacher reject your correct work, or not helping you get to the correct answer, because you don't show every step, is boosting anyone's confidence.

There is another possibility, and that is that there is something going wrong with that math class, either the above discussed issues with the math teacher, or problems with social peers, or even going to/leaving class.

In any event, I think that it may be advisable to reach out to the teacher and/or administration, depending if there is an existing point of contact.

I would also advise that you post this question in "Parent's Discussion", since the posters there have more of an understanding of the education system and often can provide much more detailed advice.

this can be very common with ADHD/ADD, have you had him tested?

i was considered very gifted but struggled with ADD and depression and so my grades were always very spotty. the hardest thing for me was to make myself sit down and get started, and then the next hardest was to finish. as a result i constantly missed handing in assignments.

it sounds like he needs more structure. maybe he should have an hour or two after school where he HAS to sit down with someone else in the room (or better yet, actively helping--helping him break down the tasks into small steps, for instance, or supporting him to take the first step (which might be as simple as picking up a pen)) and if he says he has no homework, do SOMETHING related to school - maybe some makeup assignments (!) But, no TV, no computer, no special interests until that time is up. Get him into a routine.

as a person with ADD, however, it's very hard for me to focus continually on something i really don't want to do. It's actually painful. So if he seems to be getting frustrated, build in some breaks as well.

i think it's also in some ways harder for people who have an easier time learning to learn how to *work* at learning. this was a huge disadvantage to me later in life when i was challenged academically.

It was always assumed i was lazy and unmotivated and aside from numerous beatings which obviously didn't help, these assumptions and judgments horribly formed my sense of personal identity for years in a completely unneccessary and damaging way.

He probably doesn't want to do the work, but think about why. Math is hard for him. He's probably afraid of failing, afraid of disappointing you and his teachers. He doesn't like feeling stupid or frustrated. So he probably doesn't like the math homework.

I think he needs some successes in math to balance out all the negative stuff. How far behind is he? Can he start at a level that is just barely challenging for him, rather than the overwhelming difficulty of the current work? Say that he's in algebra 1 right now, and behind; can he start out with pre-algebra work, the sort that he can do without becoming absolutely frustrated?

He will probably need extra tutoring, if he is to start out with work he can do and work up to the more difficult stuff. Summer school is another option, but he'd be in with a lot of kids who don't like to learn... It's really up to him. But he can't go on like this; when math is difficult and frustrating and he tries to avoid it, he feels even worse about himself every time, and every time he tries to avoid it and he doesn't have to do it, he learns that the best strategy is to avoid math rather than to find a way to do it.

Start him out at something that is very easy for him. Start at five minutes of pre-algebra, if you have to. He needs to re-learn that math is something that he can do, that he can finish and feel satisfied with.

Also make sure he is being taught in a way that he can understand. He may be a visual learner and thus benefit from charts, graphs, diagrams, and even physical objects used as counters. He may be better at logic than memory, and so may find that he can only, for example, use the quadratic equation once he understands why it works the way it does, rather than by memorizing it. Or he may be better at memory than logic, and be better off memorizing a list of steps. Sometimes the ambiguity of algebra--the way you don't have a set of steps to follow, and each problem is slightly different--can really throw people off. If he's got this problem, the only real solution is practice, starting with problems he can do and working up to more difficult ones. Many students find that worked examples are very helpful. Some will need a lot of paper to keep track of steps (I am one of these--I have been known to use ten pages to work out a problem that takes my classmates just one page), because otherwise they make "stupid mistakes", transposing digits or dropping negatives and messing things up that way. Others have an intuitive understanding of some aspect of math, but don't understand how they do those things, and so they won't show their work because the answer seems obvious. Sometimes for these people, building on that particular intuitively held skill is tough because they don't understand how they're doing it to begin with and have trouble applying it to new situations.

Don't shame him. He probably already feels pretty bad about himself. You say he's getting decent grades in other subjects; he probably cares about learning to some extent, and his math grade probably bugs him. Have a talk with him--explain you're going to work with him because you want him to find a way to do math without it being horrendously difficult and unpleasant for him.

At first he may need someone sitting with him and helping him with each step, breaking things down into smaller pieces. Don't force him to stay there for hours and hours--don't make it an unpleasant experience to start out with. Endurance will come later. Right now he just needs to learn that he can successfully finish a math problem without it being too unpleasant.

whip him with a belt or get the switch

You might joke about that, but some parents actually think that's a solution. Mine did. It just made things worse. Being punished for not doing something you can't figure out how to do is pretty miserable.

Hi MGH.

When I was in school, around 3rd, grade I made a mistake.

By this time I was very separated and alone and had recently attended my Grandmother's funeral
and thought I had all the answers.

I felt: Kids didn't/wouldn't like me, teachers didn't/wouldn't like me, family didn't like me, and then.........you die.

Although I didn't have thoughts of suicide my thoughts were: "What's the point of working hard and 'Making something out of yourself'
when all you were ever going to have was suffering followed by death?" ((Of course, at this time there was no support, or even any such
thing recognized as Asperger's.))

This attitude followed me throughout school and into college, with me participating only in the things that really interested me and
giving short shrift to everything else; you can imagine how my GPA turned out despite being in the 99th percentile.

My mistake was in my mistaken belief that suffering and death were the only future for me. If I'd known there could be such things
as a loving wife and children, I'd have done things differently. I had no one to help me but your son has YOU. so I predict a
lovely outcome.

den

I used to lie about homework because I felt that my time at school was "work" and my time at home was my time. Most people don't take their office home with them and keep working for free. Why should it be different for students?

And...before you comment that "students can't learn the material only from the time in class," I say, "Balderdash."

A typical college class is 3 credit hours. That's 3 hours a week in class. From a full case load, you spend a total of 12-15 hours in class each week. Naturally, you can expect that you do the rest on your own time.

The average public school holds you hostage for about 8 hours of educational time (allowing an hour for lunch). That's pretty much 40 hours each week and you STILL need to learn things on your own time? That's a failure on their part.

Last edited by zer0netgain on 16 Oct 2013, 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

* Duplicate post *

You shouldn't be making flat statements about other people who are strangers to you. You don't know the teacher's mind on the matter.

There are plenty of teachers who want their students to do well. For you to say teachers don't care makes me hope very much that you aren't a teacher and never will be.

Last edited by Sethno on 16 Oct 2013, 7:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Family members support each other and parents give care and direction to their kids.

It's not normal or reasonable to expect a young, growing person to "pull themselves up by their own boot straps".

I'm sorry you have such a lost point of view on how life is supposed to work.

School sucks.

I never did homework; they (teachers) eventually stop asking if you've done it. I didn't fail up to the required amount from me (that's year 10). I rarely did schoolwork too.