Help me to get over the fact that year 11 dd is failing to put the work in at GCSE

(And I didn't mind! :) Just wanted other person's contribution not to go unnoticed.)

What? I know what it means! But OP said "My dh sounds just like yours" and something about labelling, and I don't think I've mentioned my DH in this thread. Nor does he have an issue with labelling.

Bertie DH = dear husband so you have misunderstood that comment.

ADHD is highly heritable so it's possible that you would also have it.

I think you might have mixed me up with someone else re DH comment? I don't have anything against labelling, not at that age, I think it's useful rather than stigmatising. She doesn't have to tell anybody she has it if she doesn't want to. But it can help to put a reason to the struggles.

I'm in a similar position with DS. He cannot focus on revision at all. Anything will distract him - if I took away everything, he would be distracted by the dust in the room! He has dyslexia and yes, I think he has a touch of ADHD - the inattentive type. He zones out and stared into space. His answers are all over the place, hitting A* and E grades within the same paragraph. He wants to do well and is bright but isn't motivated to plough through revision books or do past papers. He will do stuff with me but I don't have a lot of spare time to commit to him (work and other DS who poor him is being totally neglected). I like you am tearing my hair out with it all. I just want him to do his best and not underachieve. I'm scared of the Year 11 thread for fear of reading about revision timetables and 4 hours a night solid revision. I think he will get the right grades to stay on but I fear sixth form could bring with the same problems...

I do think your high achieving school could be magnifying everything.

Rest assured, you are not alone!

OP - not much constructive advice here I'm afraid but plenty of empathy as ds2 is about to start his GCSEs and is making no discernible effort whatsoever.

He's dyspraxic and has always had major organisational problems but is very resistant to any suggestions as to how he might help himself- v frustrating

However if it's any consolation ds1 is proof that it's perfectly possible to wing it at GCSE and still come out with very respectable, if not stellar, results

fidelex - I'd hate for any one to feel unwelcome on there, we are all in it together. It's a thread for people trying to stay sane without throttling their children or barging in and doing their exams for them

Yes that sounds EXACTLY like me. I have what is known as the inattentive type, which means that I don't outwardly display hyperactivity (There isn't much research on this - but the top people in the field theorise that it shows itself in what they call "chatterbox brain" or fast thinking and excessive/fast speech patterns.) This type is more common in girls and it's more often missed. I would see if you can push for ADHD/dyspraxia assessment even if you have to have it done privately. Dyspraxia can look very similar - a friend of mine had it picked up when she was doing a PGCE, they pointed out how her essays had good content but the content was all jumbled and in the wrong order and difficult to follow as a result.

Everything was great for me school wise until GCSE because I was generally interested in learning and I feel like the school system up until that point was fantastic for me, I suspect it's different now with SATS but it was very discussion-focused, very little rote learning, often hands on, group work etc. I loved school. It was when I made a sudden change from having everything quite carefully managed and being shown how to put together a longer term project, given short term very highly managed goals etc to basically being left to it and given independence - looking back, other people were able to take the skills they had learned by the teachers' modelling how to handle a long term project and apply them but I can't do that. I didn't know what those skills were and even when I look at guidelines of how to break down and plan a longer term project, in reality, each step of doing that is such hard work that it really stresses me out and I lose momentum. And yes I had a lot of teachers telling me I was intelligent and I "shouldn't" be having problems but I was. They assumed it was laziness but it wasn't. I couldn't explain how or why I was struggling because I didn't know that it was different for other people or how people normally experience these kinds of things (I still don't, really.)

I didn't know that there was such a thing as an inattentive type of ADHD until I read something about it on MN a few years ago. It hadn't really crossed my mind that I might have ADHD before then because I was assuming it looked quite different. But it's actually been pretty devastating on my life, it would have made a huge difference to have it picked up earlier. I'm 27 now and I have three unfinished post-16 qualifications and a CELTA (which I blagged my way into) ...and a son, who will be eight this year (and is also easily distracted at school.)

Having said that, although the diagnosis has been wonderfully freeing, and opened up specific things I can try which help, it wasn't that that made the difference so much as the fact I realised that I was having trouble with things that while are usually hard work, are not impossible for other people and I had to think outside the box and work out different ways of doing things. Whether you seek a diagnosis or not, the fact you're aware that it might not just be effort feeding into this is a huge help.

As long as she gets into sixth form on her grades I shouldn't worry. She can knuckle down then if it is what she really wants. If it isn't then no amount of nagging from anyone will make a jot of difference I am afraid. She has to make her own choices and no-one can tell a teenager what to do!

Please don't worry, easier said than done, I know.
I'm well the other side of it with a bright, but once thoroughly difficult son. Did well in GCSEs, then went fairly loopy. Three sixth form colleges later, one access course and three stabs at different unis, he's finally emerged with a first! Took seven years, but he got there in the end. Just been offered a good job, too.
Nothing I did over the years made a jot of difference to his behaviour, he just had to work it out for himself and want to do it, which he did..eventually. He's now a thoroughly lovely young man (having been quite horrible for years). Do remember saying to him at one point, it doesn't matter what stupid things you do, I will never give up on you, you're my boy. He looked quite shocked. Unconditional love helps them know there is a way back. Also, peer pressure. When they see their mates getting and doing well, it spurs them on no end.
Hope the exams go well. And if they don't, there's always a second chance. Or in my son's case, six more chances!

Sorry fidelix stupid spell checker..

fidelity; check out dyspraxia. Your DD sounds just like my DS. School called in learning support for him for organisational chaos and a disconnect between his classroom performance and shocking homework. LS teacher thinks he has it and am inclined to agree. Haven't gone down the route of a diagnosis, would have been too late for GCSE , Cambridge educated husband scoffs at "labelling" and general feeling he would use diagnosis as an excuse. Has made me more supportive and less hair teasingly frustrated at why he isn't a neurotic swot like I was though....

One thing worth noting is that sometimes not all parts of a syllabus is covered. For example when I did GCSEs 12 years ago my English class studied Death of a Salesman whereas another class did Of Mice and Men. In the paper the ideal was you choose the question related to the book you've been working on.

I was bright and good at blagging at school and tended to wing exams. Ended up getting 5 Bs, 4 Cs and 3 As. In hindsight, I wish someone had pointed out that was shit compared to what I could have got. The reality was, I went on to college and everything fell apart. I've just this year been diagnosed with adult ADHD which explains everything. But I can look back and see the patterns - yes the reluctance to arrange revision was there, because I found it boring and had never once found it useful. But the other red flag in retrospect was doing everything at the last possible minute to the point I'd get really stressed by it but not be able to articulate why I had left it for so long. Likewise I'm sure my coursework dragged down my grades, because I was just terrible at managing my time effectively for projects like that. Again I'd get stressed/frustrated that I'd run out of time but not change for the next project.

I'm not saying these are the same issues your DD is having but that was my experience, and I would love to go back and change it.

To be honest I think you have to let them take the consequences and hope they learn from it. FWIW I've had three sit GCSE's and not one of them put a great deal of effort in at home (the one who did absolutely nothing has just got his Masters) and they all got their very good predicted grades regardless (nothing below a B) and this was at bog standard comps. Schools do an awful lot of revision anyway so it's not as if the students are sitting exams blind and mine needed to relax and have fun after putting in the effort at school and attending the revision sessions after school. Are in school revision sessions an option for your dd?

I think it is the time that you have to let her do things her way, and you can only advice her, but do accept that she may not take your advice. I totally understand your feeling, but I do find it out from my son, that by this age, it is hard to get them do things your way now. My DS1 has been really good at listening to my advice, do things as he was told, but now I can see he already formed his own personality, has his own ways of doing things. I still talk to him, but I doubt he takes much in.

join us on this thread for mutual support and virtual wine.