When your child REALLY hates writing. What do you do?

[justanotherneighinparadise]

He has always been behind with his writing ability but actually he is now not bad at all. His pen grip is good, he’s writing is just about legible. Spelling acceptable. But my god he HATES it.

I decided to leave that side of things totally to school and just do extra maths etc at home. But of course covid19 appeared and now I’m doing it all.

Has anyone got any tips to help me motivate him? Currently he earns the iPad and his favourite game on the iPad by completing his school work first. We do some writing each day but not a great amount. Maybe five sentences one day, less another, the most he has written at home is 11 short sentences as part of his diary journal the school has asked all the children to complete.

Is there anything more I can do or shall I just continue to push through the ridiculous tantrums?

He is year 2 btw. No diagnosed SEN but he does show some ASD traits like aversion to loud noises, struggles to concentrate etc.

Don't stress about writing, a lot of children don't like it much. Read, read, read , extend his vocabulary, look at grammar, lots feeds into writing. You don't say how old he is but maybe get him to write things he is really interested in or part of play. Eg, make a board game, and write rules. My DS is 11 and loves theatre, so he is writing a pantomime and loving it, I wouldn't even be trying any formal writing at home.

I think that sounds fine for now. I'd spend additional time on handwriting skills, fine motor control and shoulder stability.

Let him type sentences for the writing language part
Practice using pen separately

5 sentences sounds really good. I'd be pleased with that.

Just to say I’m in the same position. I’ve ended up typing his words up just to ensure the focus isn’t on handwriting. He is very bright but has no interest in picking up a book and it’s so frustrating. I sometimes agree beforehand what we need to get to eg I’d like five, he’d like none so we agree on three. I don’t recommend this but he feels some control. Make sure he knows the purpose eg will you share it with the teacher.
I think it’s hard work for mine as his brain goes faster than his hand but little and often seems to be the answer to so many things.

I had one like that. Just didn’t see the value in it - I linked it to time on his iPad/switch/watching TV with a bonus 5 minutes if it was particularly neat.
In the beginning, even that was met by resistance so I used to tell him that the tantrums were eating into his switch time and cut it short by however long the tantrum was. We’ve turned a corner and he now asks to do some writing, which means can I have screen time but it finally has some value.

Brilliant! Thank you so much for your suggestions. When I spoke to his teacher recently she also said about stretching his vocabulary and how that will really help him later. He is seven. His vocabulary is thankfully very good and his reading is very good. Just this real mental block with writing.

I shall persevere!!

I have a year 2. Hates writing. Try and make it fun.

Get a catalogue (even the offers one at Lidl) and get him to choose list his top 5 items.
Ask him to make a shopping list, write a letter to his favourite celeb, or the queen.

Still concentrate on fine motor skills. We are painting by numbers, Doing Hama beads with tweezers. Lego.

Also, a stylus for the iPad.

He’d LOVE a stylus. What a fab idea!!

My year1 grandson is copying his favourite book a page at a time, including the pictures.

We have done copying and unfortunately that also triggers a big tantrum, slightly less than trying to think and write granted!

He can talk animatedly about all sorts of subjects. Will do scribble drawings for me but just will not write anything willingly. Makes me laugh as I have mum friends whose children write pages and pages of writing off their own backs for fun!!!! They just can’t understand my predicament. Of course their normal is also completely alien to me 🤭

@justanotherneighinparadise I have a little girl who, oddly enough will sit and write for hours. Her writing is so much better than DS even though he is 2.5 years older. If they could just meet in the middle somewhere 🤷🏻‍♀️

You are doing enough. Has he seen an occupational therapist? I would highly recommend it. There are lots of possible reasons why the act of writing might be genuinely physically difficult for him - low tone, hypermobility, visual processing, sensory issues. My suggestion (from a mum who has been there) is keep ticking over with the writing - little and often - but start exploring other options like touch typing. Nessy Fingers is free at the moment and brilliant - lots of cartoons and games which makes it fun and competitive. Good luck!

Ooh that’s interesting! He has access to Nessy through his school so we’re doing that regularly. Didn’t know Nessy Fingers was free at the moment!!

This was my daughter. I let her write in pen instead of pencil and she’s doing so much better, loves writing now.

@sugar why do you think that made a difference?

My ds hates writing also.
I've discovered if we write about things/programmes he likes, he is much more willing to write.
Last week he decided to make a comic, so I am going to go from this angle with him now, that we can make a comic together and do a couple of pictures and sentences each day.

Basically, parenting is all about trial and error. Keep trying!

I've just figured my reluctant reader DS1 loves reading in the sunshine . This was after I posted on MN for help as i just didn't know what to do.

He's been sat like a cat in the conservatory for 40 minutes. I've just taken him a cucumber cooler.

@justanotherneighinparadise I’m not entirely sure but I think because the words are more vibrant/richer, and you can be more precise with a pen. It’s amazing the difference a different writing tool has made.

So I offered him a pen and he threw a strop that it was ‘babyish’. Did try to enquire as to why a pen was babyish and a pencil wasn’t but got no further

What I did notice today though was writing individual sentences evoked less of a stress reaction than paragraphs. Even if the amount of writing ended up being the same. I know he freaks out about quantity of words. So somehow I need to break it up more to make it more palatable.

Do you have a device you can record on. He can say a few sentences and then replay them as often as needed while he writes them down. Some children find the task of writing as well as thinking and remembering what they wanted to say really hard.

I assume I could do that on my phone? 🤔

Yes, that would do it. It is a bit of fun and helps students hold onto their ideas while they are writing.