Anyone else got a resistant learner?

[Lovingmylife]

Urgh I'm so fed up of battling with my 8 year old. DS has working memory issues anyway and possible dyslexia and dyspraxia. So therefore wants to do no writing and has awful meltdowns over it. So I've not bothered today as the battle is too much. Now my 6 year old, who is quite academic has decided they don't want to work either. I'm also trying to work in the same room as the kids as my husband is permanently on calls upstairs. So he isn't getting the stress and has also announced he doesn't need to know what the kids are learning as that's up to me as I work part time. I said that's a cop out and he should be ready to negotiate and help me when needed and know what he needs to do.

Urgh it's just been a crappy day and I have to work the rest of the week.

Oh yes, and also with dyslexia.
But I have the support of my dh with our two, what does your dh do that can't allow for some reshuffling to support his children? Obviously you could do more on the days you'd be at home anyway, but you're not a sahm - they're his children too and we find we can only manage one at a time! We come together for (educational) videos but I can't manage otherwise.
If you don't get any support, I would consider switching to working with one in the morning and one in the afternoon. We are only working mornings here and then do our own work in the afternoons.

...I hadn't realised how bad the working memory thing was. I taught him something yesterday and he could do the activities fine, with my help. Today he didn't even remember what we did yesterday.

Don’t forget you don’t need to do everything school sets (or even anything)

Can you alter activities into something he is more likely to engage in? Use technology to help or get him to draw things more?

Break the tasks into smaller pieces for him so it’s not so overwhelming.

I can you join your club, my DD7 has terrible memory so just guesses as she’s forgotten the question before she’s arrived at the answer.

Lost my shit at the husband and asked him to schedule in a block each day so I can do some work. No doubt I will need to sort out all the learning materials regardless.

My daughter is autistic and her school have basically told me not to worry so much about academic work, the main thing is to get ourselves through this as stress free as possible. They have advised to learn more life skills, so we have done cooking together eg made pizza from scratch, gardening when the weather was nice over the weekend, watching documentary on TV, doing yoga meditation.

Absolutely, right down to the usually school loving 6 year old who is refusing to do anything. My eldest is 10 though, and his dx is ASD

@Onceateacher yes I am now seeing how much my ds struggles and why his self esteem is beginning to suffer.

DH just has a job with loads of calls so needs the quiet. He does come down when he has breaks between calls but I have to prompt him to do anything. Ive had to split my usual 3 days over 5 because they just can't be left without proper supervision for 8 hours a day and ds won't focus for more than 10 seconds so can't work independently.

@Visioncroquet I am certainly considering no written work so I avoid the meltdowns

I just thought this time 'off' would be an opportunity to help da catch up and spend some time with DD as never enough time to play etc during the usual week. But ds struggles so badly and I end up spending so much time with him and we still don't achieve much.

Unfortunately ds doesn't respond well to DH when it comes to school work. Mummy is best. So that's another challenge. Arghh just venting.

I raise you dyslexia, dyspraxia and high functioning autism Seriously though, it is hard for just about anyone without a highly motivated independent worker (and I'm a SAHM and ex-teacher with DH avaliable for a sin bin for quiet work much of the time, so I'm in a much better position than most). As much as DS whinges about school, and the emotional cost of masking through a school day, he does follow the herd and do what is necessary, but he can't switch that mentality to home.

All you can do is be realistic. Bite size with breaks. Focus on your priorities for a task, is it enough to understand? Does it need writing? Can you tweak it to make it more engaging? Some days are better than others. One day last week we had meltdown 1 brewing at the words "diary entry" and he got as far as scribbling the first letter of the date before blowing, then after some chill out time in his room, then meltdown 2 errupted before the date was complete. Another day was given up as a lost cause as DS1 was hyper and sensitive and DS2 was sad and sensitive and neither was in a good state for productive learning, and the combination of the two was explosive.

I am consoling myself that I could write a list of the boys in his class who will do little else other than play Fortnite, so anything that DS does in this time is a bonus over those who will do naff all for months.

Snap 🤯

On the days you normally work you 'd' h needs to step up and take shifts with you. In this house I am doing mornings with the kids and dh afternoons (we both work evenings/weekends to catch up).
Honestly the amount of 'd' h's who have just assumed that teaching the kids at home whilst trying to work is all down to wifework their female partners is fucking depressing.Why is your job less important and why does he get to dodge his responsibility around this...
Oh... and as long as they are occupied meaningful school work can wait (but dh does need to be involved in occupying them). Your're not a teacher, let alone an expert able to deal with potential additional needs. Don't get into a battle... A fun touch type app maybe? Learning how to use dragon (both myself and DC 1 are dyslexic, typing and dictating far more useful imo) or just anything other than getting into a battle about it...

You are describing my little boy here. I don't know what to do for him. He is right and underachieving in everything at school. I think it affects his self esteem. He is very quiet at school and has little interest in being there. I really struggle to get him to do much with me. He gets frustrated in seconds and just gives up. I don't think I can survive the next few months if I force him to do things like writing and reading, but at the same time, he is very very behind.

Hmm yes I did chat with DH again last night. I think it's just such a balancing act. I had two hours upstairs this morning before 930 and left him to do school work. So sheets I'd printed. Not hard so should be manageable work and my ds got upset it wasn't me doing it and then when I swapped realised not much had been done.

Which is totally fine but also frustrating as really dh needs to learn to persevere a bit.

My year 6 son is autistic and resisting. I've had a chat with his teacher and she told me to keep plugging away at it, but try not to make it a battle or he'll just refuse. He enjoys cooking so we're getting him into that at the mo and trying to keep him busy.

Oh yes! 12 yo with ASD. Bright but now utterly disengaged, disenchanted and clearly very anxious about the wider situation. I'm trying not to think too much about how much better he'd been doing at school and what learning he ought to be doing now, and am instead am focussing on getting him through this with his mental health as intact as possible.

How are our resistant learners getting on? I've decided to ditch writing for now. Doing English worksheet and a bit of maths. Taken the pressure down as low as it can go really. It's an improvement but I never get the vibe he is pleased to do work.

DH gets to work in peace all day and gets out of teaching your DS? Isn’t it supposed to be a partnership? You can’t give in to DS because he doesn’t want to learn with DH.

So many threads right now about poor fathers right now.

Op yes.

I use bribery as don't force more than she wants to do.

We've been told to research the great fire of London. I stumbled across this wonderful oaka learning pack. We've read it and it has filing in the gaps writing...

To fill say 4 pictures on the page (writing) she can buy time on her tablet or computer and or, gets sweets.
One sweet per bit of work.

Throw in some flash cards.

Maths here and there...

I'm not stressing about it. They worry about the virus and pick up more than we realise!

Dd adores roblox and she has too read to play on it. She also does Minecraft and again that forces her to be read.

I brought some '' would you rather books '' which again she loves but slyly forces her towards read.

Re memory, can you try memory games? The tray game?
Play card games, board games games..

Sometimes I leave books out that I hope she picks up of her own accord eg body book with pop up of skeleton, veins, and so on.
It usually works!

We rarely fall out, there is no set schedule.... My goal is to keep her ticking over and inching along with every thing but mindful most of all that this could be frightening for them... Parents stressed, everyone cooped up, money worries.. School worries...

I think there has to be a balance, dd9 is the same so I do 20 minutes here and there through the day rather then a couple of hours of learning in one go it just doesn’t work for some kids

We've been on holiday this week so getting along famously

More seriously, I've also ditched writing and am getting him to do as much as possible on the tablet or laptop. I'm getting him to do some touch typing practice (really hard for him because of coordination issues, but I've told him it has to be either writing or typing and he is persevering). He's not allowed to use computer at school, and I think one of the reasons he is so far behind is that he has to use all his energy and concentration to hold the bloody pencil.

I'm taking the attitude that I want to show him what he can do, how he can help himself learn rather than reinforce the message he gets from school. He's had a couple of days where he's refused everything, so I left him to it but he had to complete it (at the weekend) before he had any screen time.

Interestingly he threw a couple of tantrums at first and DH was to see how he behaves and for once backed me up with saying no screen time until it was done and even took over going through some things with him.

We're also doing 20 minute chunks with a break and I give him the choice of what to do rather than his TA's recommendations.... sticking to the school timetable, 45 minute chunks with a 5 minute break and the reward for something he hates being something he hates even more Encouraging reading as much as possible.

Ahh seems like we are all in to settling in to a groove.