confidence, resilience & effort building!

[dairymilkmonster]

DS1, who is 7 and in yr3 has dyspraxia and dyslexia (moderate). Dyspraxia known since toddlerhood but dyslexia only diagnosed summer 2018. He is very happy at his school, appears to be socially settled (teachers say has lots of friends) and gets extra support.

This time last year I was frantic trying to work out how to help DS1, but now we have some answers (i.e. he has dyslexia) to account for most of his difficulties.

WE are left with:

• Appears to have no interest in doing his best, putting in effort, trying things that are hard or persevering.
• Has a huge tantrum everytime we try and do homework outside school hours.

I have accepted that DS will be behind with his spelling etc and we just need to plug on. We are struggle with the lack of effort/resilience. I feel sad for him because he clearly DOES have to put in more effort to do work than other children, e.g to learn new words, to sequence numbers, to do anything involving motor skills.

I feel our relationship is being damaged by us asking him to do work at home, or put in more effort, or persevere with a hard task because he gets so cross with us.
e.g. 'Write a description of one of your christmas presents' (there was some further guidance). DS1 wrote one sentence and then gave up. I tried to encourage more work - the sheet gave lots of prompts to help, using adjectives etc - and he just refused to do it.

Does anyone have any advice on how to help build his confidence, resilience when faced with difficult tasks or putting effort in? School reward house points (for homework effort as well) and we have tried reward schemes at home but they fizzle out rather quickly.

Several people have suggested some acting lessons (or similar) for confidence...

Any ideas would be well recieved. I just want DS1 to do his best; at the moment I think he is holding himself back.

Can he do homework online? Would typing be more of a novelty and not as arduous?
It will require more energy/brainpower than most so can understand the battle. Look for the positives in his writing (spelling is only one part of assessment and can be discounted if there is a specific difficulty e.g. dyslexia).
Look up SNIP dyslexia resource. It is a free programme available online. Will need printing off but is based on dyslexia research and techniques that work (word shapes, letter tracking, repetition etc) but has word searches, crosswords etc. A bit more fun than most and helps to learn High Frequency Words.
The good news is that many dyslexic people end up in very successful careers (law being one) due to the development of critical thinking skills required for them to achieve the basic tasks that non-dyslexics struggle with.
Finally, really try to boost his confidence in other areas (art, sport, science, hisyory etc) as if he feels good about himself, he will have more fire to face the things he finds difficult.
It must be a struggle as getting homework done with most children is difficult without the added barriers. Hope this helps.

He tells you what to write - you scribe for him. Alternatively could he type his response? Clicker is a great program with word banks you could buy to use on a pc. We also use an app call Snaptype where you take a screenshot of a worksheet with iPad and ds can type responses and print/ stick in book or email to teacher. There’s an app for Maths too called Modmath which we also use.

School should be allowing him to record work in different ways or scribing for him so he can show what he knows. I wonder if they have Clicker on the class computer or if there’s an iPad he can use sometimes. Could he use a dictaphone to tell stories rather than having to write down.

What you need to remember is that due give his dyslexia your ds will already be working/processing/ trying as hard as he can and asking him to do more writing/ homework activities he finds challenging after school will cause him stress.

If you are looking for a fun resource to do outside school please have a look at Nessy Reading and Spelling. It’s wonderful.

Following as also struggling with this for ds6. Its so hard isn't it. I want to help but I don't know how.

Thanks. dS is doing typing at school and home but it is a hard slog. I remember the process well! They are doing some scribing at school but i suspect not enough. The have individual ipads available that ds can use, and of couse computers - I will ask about clicker and some of the other programmes. We can certainly get anything that will help at home.

newcamper - really grateful for the positive comments, ds1 is in a high achieving class (just his luck) and he seems so far behind his friends it is a bit heartbreaking. School and the SENCO are v reassuring but i am anxious.

Everything is worth a try at this stage!

Have you asked the school about it and if so what was their response? Is any pay off worth the effort and the clashes? Various people state there is no benefit in homework at primary school. I don’t the answer to it but if he is finding the time at school really tiring he may have run out of steam and just wants to relax at home and recharge. It may be better having him really focussed at school.

In terms of resilience how about doing something entirely different that he enjoys, can learn a skill and then translate that into school later on?

If he already has an aversion to homework an you break it up into tiny bits. So 5 or 10 minutes, one or two sentences then lots of praise and a 10 minute break then repeat? Perhaps very specific goals Eg two sentences so he knows what he's aiming for.

I have no idea of the value of HW at primary level either - its the attitude that bothers me really.

I think this term we are going to try a few mins then few mins off then repeat and see if that helps...

Managed some touch typing this weekend. Feels like a major success!

I mean attitude of ds, not the school to homework. They don't set much really, but the fuss around it makes it seem like much more.

Plugging away at the support stuff - help mine improve their confidence.

As they struggled less they were less resistant to doing more homework. Spelling is ongoing but it's getting better all the time as isn't as behind as it once was.

Routine and bribery helped with the support work - and if I could do some in the morning then bit more in evening then they’d get TV that often worked. Also found having a chalk board with what they had to do on and could cross of helped. School homework was often added on board as well – broken down as much as possible.

Mathfactor -helped massively as it was something they could often do themselves sat at computer rather than yet more stuff with me and after a year or so they were ahead of their class mates by doing 20 minutes of it a day. Knowing they were getting good at something helped spur them forward in everything else.

We went down a written program route for spelling- apple and pears – which high-lighted issues with handwriting all of mine had letter formed wrong and hadn’t had basic punctuation – capital at start of sentences and full stop drummed into them. Also two had issues with short term memory.

Also there are fun things that help with handwriting – threading beads, toys needing fine motor skills like Lego Write from the Start had things to do they didn’t mind do much - Speed up for older children was harder to get through but still some fun things to try. Writing slope helped one – they also like trying different pens and their grips all needed work.

Little and often – was key with support stuff though at times I felt bloody awful getting them to do it. Long term it’s been useful they all know they have to work at things and at secondary older two children are quite good at getting on with school work – which given the tantrums at primary about it all is a huge relief.