ds (5) hates writing. HATES it.

[eastendywendy]

He's just finished p1. His reading was slow to get going but he's making progress. His numbers he's keen on.

He hates writing. He doesn't like drawing, never has. I try to do playdough / hama beads etc to encourage motor skills.

He writes a lot of letters (even some in his name) back to front.

How can I help him?

Would he like drawing in foam or sand? He might like messy play that could also develop his motor skills?

That's a very good idea - he does like doing that with a stick when we go to the beach though much prefers building castles and moats

Ds was similar. We bought a small whiteboard with multi coloured pens, this encouraged him to write and draw more often.

Is he left handed?.... If so it is worth searching online, there are lots of great ideas to aid writing.

ELC do some great bath crayons which might add soe fun.

We're coming up to the summer holidays. Forget about writing for a while. Read to him loads and loads, do lots of writing around him "I'm writing a shopping list, what would you like me to put on it?" "I'm sending a postcard to Grandma- what message would you like to send her?" but don't ask him to write anything. No pressure, no hassle. Then try again in 6 weeks.

Does he like those magic pictures you can get where you can erase things?

And magic painting books where slashing water on with a paint brush brings up a faint colour? My Ds who hated writing too loved those.

We had lots of puzzle books for the car, join the dots etc we just used to say they were for boring journeys.

He is right handed.

I do have bath crayons actually, thanks for reminding me.

I do try and write as much as possible around him but will try and do more of that.

We're actually already in week 2 of the holidays as in scotland - I don't want to pressure him but he struggles and then because of that he gets embarrassed and won't try and I just wanted to give him some confidence especially as he's changing class and his best friend is moving away.

I haven't heard of those magic pictures before - will have a look. He likes aquadraw actually. If we ever get a dry day I will give him water and a brush / chalks for the garden too - dd would join in too.

I second seeker's advice about no pressure.

I have a ds who is about to finish Y6 (so starting secondary in September) and he was exactly the same. He's still a bit of a worry wrt writing, and I do believe that it's holding him back a bit. However he made more progress than I could have imagined in Y4, after having me tear my hair out prior to that.

As they get older, they're able to use keyboards more and more so work can be typed - I know this isn't perfect but it really has taken the pressure off. Once I introduced ds to to PowerPoint there was no stopping him (although you have to be strict about them getting the content sorted and then faffing about with the dodgy animations and fonts!).

dS was like this, simply hated writing and also reversed letters. The reversing stopped in yr 2 I think and his writing, he's now ending yr 4, is fine now. Although writing is not his favourite thing, he doesn't hate it any more. Give your DS time and keep on doing fun things with crayons etc, and it will probably improve.

Thanks for the reassurance.

Thanks for the reassurance.

I suppose a lot depends on how old your child is in the year and how weak his fine motor skills are. My son's fine motor skills were on the second centile at the end of reception. I took the opposite approach and made him work. Sometimes I think tough love is essential. If your child has poor pen control in year 1 they will really struggle. Sadly life is not always fun.

Sometimes its necessary to go back to a really basic level to give your child a sense of sucess.

I got my son to work through Write from the Start. At the same age I forced my son to do 2 to 3 worksheets a day. I also found it was worth experimenting with pencil grips. My son also had input from the occupational theraphist to help with hand writing.

To get it into context my son did about ten minutes a day of work. My son had plenty of fun as well.

Hmmm Im not up for 'forcing' him tbh.

He is one of the youngest in his year - he is going into P2 and will be 6 at end of December.

my own ds was one of the oldest and still struggled.

I tried the tough love approach and it backfired horribly. I'm not saying it doesn't work; it just doesn't work with everyone, with everything, every time. Carrots didn't work any better than sticks with this one, either.

Occupational therapy helped though. NHS provision barely existed where we are at the time (children with more severe problems struggled to get help, so this was seen as low priority I guess) but I found a lovely private OT. I don't think we started with her until Y4 though and I think it's still early days for the OP's ds.

eastendywendy, does your son have an IEP for developing fine motor control? my son had one to one with a TA for 20 minutes every day for a term to work on his fine motor skills.

In our experience NHS occupational theraphy is very limited. Their approach is to advise the school rather than do the exercises for you. My son did lots of things to improve his general fine motor skills rather than just hand writing practice.

Ie. practice using sissors, threading, developing visual perception by doing dot to dot, get him to sew on Binka. With my son I gave him a choice of a couple of activites to develop his fine motor control. I got my son to practice drawing letters in flour or in the air.Sometimes it helps to get the child to write on a sloping surface like a A4 file. It might also be worth enrolling your son in a gym class to develop upper body strength.

I suppose a lot depends on your parenting style and your general experience of parenting. There is a fine line between being pushy and positive. I have an expectation that my son will try his best at everything and work hard. I want my son to believe that he can improve himself by hard work. I have to admit that I admire the chinese tiger parents who have high aspirations for their children.

I forced my son to do physio as two year old because I knew that if we did not do the stretching excercises my son would need a nasty operation. It was horrific having to stretch the tendons of a resistant toddler who did not understand.

A loving parent sometimes have to be cruel to be kind. I think that doing ten minutes a day to develop fine motor control is quite mild in comparison. I also take a zero tolerance view towards my son skipping school because its sunny.

Really don't worry about this. He is still very young and he will catch up. I would agree with Seeker's suggestions.

Also does he have a favourite "character" I'm not up to scratch with what 6 year old boys are into, but you could get crayoning books/activity sheets/stickers etc based on his favourite thing. Just leave them around with a nice box of pencils/crayons/felts and let him have a go-if he wants to.

Thanks all.

Im not into pressure and pushing too hard to be honest in a 5 year old. I dont know why you mention skipping school because its sunny? Not many parents would condone that surely I know I wouldnt. It doesnt mean Im willing to 'force' him to do things though, obviously essential physio is an entirely different matter.

Good plan re characters quicklookbusy - he loves star wars so Im sure I can find something.

Oh and no, he doesnt have an IEP. The school isnt concerned.

Lego do some good starwars things that might help with fine motor skills if that's something that you're potentially worried about - and you might be able to use them as a bit of a bribe - if you do these things I will get you a ....

we've also done pattern drawing - so that its not actually a 'thing' to drawn, but a border or just a sheet of silly squiggles.

One game that's fun is to do a squiggle on a piece of paper and then try to see something in it and make it into that picture a bit more - an elephant, a bear on a bicycle, a lady in a hat - whatever it looks like - its very quick and doesn't need to be fantastic drawing - and you can do one or two first to give him the idea. Then perhaps he could do a squiggle for you to turn into something - and gradually introduce it the other way round.

Thanks mistlethrush _ all great ideas.

I do worry about his fine motor skills and have for a while tbh because whilst he walked and talked in sentences VERY early he didnt use cutlery until he was almost 4. His sister is 21months now and has been using cutlery for absolutely ages.

Sticker books (Lego Star wars etc) are good for that age group boys for fine motor skills. They also have extra stickers to put on a picture and maybe write a title for. Book People have a set atm.

Chalks on the patio/pavement and cbeebies also good for encouraging writing.

DS loves lego. You can get some relatively inexpensive sets (I think 'creator') that build three different types of vehicles - but you have to take them to pieces in order to rebuild them into a different one. Following lego instruction books was really good for ds - he got the hang of systematic following of instructions, looking carefully at the diagrams and copying them with the pieces. He still comes to me to undo certain pieces but has done quite complicated sets on his own quite happily for some time (now 7).

We are also struggling a bit with writing - for DS its not now the formation of letters etc its just that his thoughts are going so fast he can't keep up so gives up and struggles to get anything down on the paper. So this holiday we're doing a diary - something in an A5 book for every day - doesn't need to be much, but something that he's done - and can put a picture in or draw something if he wants.

We did the holiday diary when the girls were younger. Even if your DS just tells you what to write initially, he might get the urge to do some drawing himself at some point.

They are really lovely to have when the DC have grown up. So very cuteand funny

My DS (5) the same so marking my place.

Love the idea of the holiday diary - we're on week 2 of holidays here so I could try and get him to do some tomorrow. Thanks for that.

He does like lego but he likes to make things himself with it rather than build what hes supposed to! Tbh he mostly plays with figures such as star wars and his disney cars.

Ive remembered we have an easel somewhere though so I might put that up tomorrow.