What to do with a bright boy who WON'T just settle down and work?

[clumsymum]

DS is 9, he is bright, everyone agrees with this, his class teacher as much as anyone else.

But she (and we) get times with him when he WILL NOT work. We are all finding this HUGELY frustrating.

Today the work in class involved multiplying and dividing numbers by 100s or by 1000s. Some of it involves decimals.
He can do this EASILY.

In class, when the children were told to work thru a sheet, he got restless, started saying he can't do it, chucks stuff about, eventually gets put out of the classroom. He leaves with a grin on his face.

The work he didn't do gets sent home with him.
He sits down to do it, and he and I talk about it. We go thru the first 2 or 3, he clearly understands it, explains them to me, I say "yes that's right" he writes in the answer.

Then I say "okay, you do the rest, while I ....."
As soon as I leave the room he starts to fidget, then grumble then mutter "I can't do it". I say "you try the next few, write in the answers, I'll come and check them with you in a minute.
No Go. He won't do them, we get the whole "nobody cares, nobody will help me" scene, he tries to engineer a full scale row about it.

Eventuall he will do them for me, but we will spend at least an hour getting him to do them (will prob take him less than 10 mins once he gives in)

this scene has been going on now for 2 terms. I'm sick of it here, and very worried that he's controlling the situation at school. His teacher seems unable to establish her authority over him. Every day he plays up to some extent, just cos he WON'T work.

Help.

Sounds like he wants someone with him for reassurance while he does them.

Couldn't you sit with him while he does them at home (10mins doesn't seem to long to me). Then maybe as his confidence builds up he might start to do them on his own.

I know its obvious but is his eyesight ok?

Juuule, it's not reassurance my love, it's attention seeking.

Of course I would spend 10 mins with him, but he wants me to do them FOR him really. And he does have to learn to get on with it in class without causing a kerfuffle. If I sit with him to do it here everytime, it doesn't show him that he can/should get on with it in class.

How do you know he can do all this work easily?

elling Thanks for the suggestion. I think it's ok. He's a very keen reader, has no probs with that, and uses his computer screen with no difficulty.

Will make a note to get it checked....

MrsM
We know he can do this, because if we sit with him nodding and smiling like idiots, he gets them right. Also once we get thru the bloody-mindedness and he eventually sits down and does them, he gets them right.

If I ask him similar questions, maybe with a practical reason, he can answer them.

Remember this has been going on for a while.

It isn't just maths, we get the same with literacy, and school projects.

"I can't do it" translates to "I can'tbe bothered unless everyone else drops what they are doing to do it with me (and sometimes I won't do it then either)"

He is 9. This has to be fixed soon. They are already worrying at school, cos if he chooses not to be bothered on SATs day (if it still exists when he gets to 11), he'll score crap, when in fact he has huge ability.

It only matters for the school if he scores rubbish in his SATS. Any secondary school should do their own entrance assessments.

Not sure what to suggest - I also have a son (6) who is bright but tends to lose concentration easily and doesn't always listen when he should. Any ideas?

Clumsymum, are you sure it's not reassurance, my love.

I suggested that because that's how one of my children was. Needed a lot of hand-holding(attention seeking maybe - but for their own reasons). Sometimes if you give them extra attention for a while they settle down and start to get on with things. If they don't get the attention then the behaviour sometimes escalates. A bit like with toddlers.

As for sats. I wouldn't get worked up about sats. They don't mean a great deal anyway. But I would look out for the school putting extra pressure on your son for not 'performing' as it's in their interest for him to get the higher levels.
If he's feeling that no-one is bothered about his feelings now then added pressure won't help.

Just my opinion. You asked. Now I'll leave.

What happens at school when he won't work? What are the sanctions?

What are praise/benefits of getting on with his work at school?

Does he get pocket money, etc? that could be inked to homework done, no fuss - xxx amount each day (divide normal pocket money by 7 days) so he earns his pocket money by completing homework within a reasonable time with no silliness.

What does he say if you ask him why he can't do it? or why he won't do it?

I agree with you - at 9y he does need to try and get this sorted in the next couple of years before secondary school.

Oh and definitely don't worry about SATs. They are there to assess the school not individual pupil achievement. And even if the schools do band according to SATs results the bandings/groups are never set in stone and he would be moved up accordingly once in cass demonstrating what he can do.

2 things as we have had this with DD this year! With DD it is also connected to the 'fidgets'!

1. DD finds most things very easy at school & doesn't see the point in doing the work. We get lots of the 'I can't do it' or 'It's too hard' when we know she can do it as when she puts her mind to it does it in 5 minutes- like your DS. Although it hasn't cured the problem, we told DD that we know she can already do it very easily, doing it over and over for the teacher is just so she can prove to the teacher she can do it! She just needs to do it really quickly & then the teacher will understand that she can do it & she can move onto something different.
2. We have found a fantastic piano who discribes her as having so much going on in her head at one time that it all comes out physically with fidgets. She is working very hard at improving her attention span and also her self esteem as it is very hard being one of the brightest children in the class!

Hope our experience helps- good luck it's a long road! Even longer if DC has a highly strung teacher who doesn't understand their needs!

Hi, thanks all.

OK, SATs aren't that important, but here there are 2 secondary schools, our catchment one is awful, the next one along (rather better) will only take the brighter kids, so thats why I worry, I really don't want him to end up in the bear-pit which is our default school (I'm trying to sort out my income to go private, but that's a whole other story, and at this rate they wouldn't have him anyway ).

Hula (hi, very long time no see), currently he gets sent out of class for kicking off. He goes out with HUGE grin on his face, so this is no longer working as a sanction. His teacher and I have long discussions (I work in the school doing I T support one day a week, so I'm known there), and I'm going to pop in this afternoon to discuss other options. I'm leaning towards banning all computer/TV time on days when he kicks off instead of getting on with it at school, setting up a system for teacher to let me know each day.

DS does love to show off his knowledge and abilities, and I think one problem is that, if he has to work something out, he is worrying that he might write down an answer that is WRONG . It seems he prefers to get into trouble for NOT doing it, rather than risking getting it wrong.
I tried to explain over tea last night that we would rather he tried to do it, even if he made mistakes, than him just refusing at all. Don't know if that went in tho. Will mention it to his teacher when we meet this afternoon.

God this parenting thing is hard work.

BTW he eventually did the work yesterday (after screwing it up and throwing it out of the window). He got all but one question correct, and that one was, I think, just a result of being in too much of a funk to think clearly.

clumsymum - he sounds just like my ds2 who is 9. He is a very bright boy but he does not work well in big groups - his class has around 30 in.

He gets very upset with himself and us when he says he cannot do something.

Ds2 now has an IEP which has helped him enormously.

I hope you get it sorted.

Hi! Snap! Have a 10yr old DS who does the same. First day back yesterday and did no work at all. Brought the homework with him - "What I did during the Easter holidays" (original huh!) Anyway, he wouldn't do it for me either saying it was boring. So being the patient (ha) mam that I am, asked him how would he do it differently. I asked him if he wanted to do it on the computer with clip-art; write it as a comic etc. In the end he said he wanted to write it as a futuristic diary. So the teacher has had some work, based on the Easter hos of a boy from 2075!
I decided to let him do this as I didn't want to stifle his creativity.
I don't let him get away with this kind a thing always btw.
He's been labled Aspergers since 6yrs, but latest CAMHS report says he's gifted not AS. He does have 1:1 at the mo cos he's been like this for 4 yrs!

DD is a bit like this. She's bored, and wants attention. I sit at the table with her, reading my book and then she just does the stuff. Takes her about 10 mins to do all her homework - numeracy, literacy and spellings.

If I leave her to do it by herself it can take up to an hour and a half.

Clumsy, that could have been my OP. Ds1 also 9 is just the same. I know how draining and frustrating it is. I haven't got the answers yet as its still on-going this end, but I'll share some of my thoughts / plans if you're interested.

I agree with the term 'attention-seeking', I strongly believe this is what's going on with my ds. However I have decided to stop using that word to him and any other emotive words regarding his lack of enthusiasm for work. I'm trying to not let him see how 'emotional' I am getting about it. For a long time I was of the approach (generally) if you don't do this or if you're naughty in school etc etc then this is your consequence - take away comp time etc. Lately I've been giving it a go of let's get this done and then I'll reward you with this - staying up extra half hour, or playing out for longer or freind round, that kind of thing. Next I'm focusing on his strengths: eg he's intelligent, he knows he is, but he's lazy. I've explained the consequence to his final scores if he only does 50% of the questions in something, ie he'll only ever be able to prove he's 50% capable. That struck a chord with him. He's slowly getting althought he's smart, people are seeing it any more because he's not proving it. Finally a friend of his started calling him 'slow '. He asked why and was told by lots of his mates that everyone thinks he's slow. That jolted him a bit - being aware that his mates aren't impressed with him.

That's as far as we've got so far. Future plans if needed will include me failing to complete some of my jobs - just as he does in the classroom. So he'll get a half made lunch one day, an unmade bed, missing footie shorts that kind of thing. So he can see and feel for himself why its important to finish tasks when expected.

Sorry to ramble, I'm just trying to get thoughts down quickly. Hope he picks up soon for you.

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Hiya Clumsymum! I'm just wondering if you've ever had an Ed Psych assessment? I know you've had a number of concerns.

When I read the title I was going to launch in and say "Oh yes, ds2 was just like this when he was 5"; then I realised it was you and that ds is now 9. I do think this is quite old for the sort of behaviour you are describing.

Anyway, things I would recommend:

Always praise the process, the effort, the attitude, the behaviour not the results, and this goes for everything. So when he's doing homework or unfinished classwork, do not mark it, don't check it at all. Just praise him for getting on and getting it done.

Talk to him about his schoolwork attitude at a time when he's not stressed and it's not a particular issue/focus. Explain to him that the teacher has 30 children to look after, not just him, and that he has to get on with his work.

Tell him that the only way the teacher can assess his knowledge is if he gets down and completes the work. That is the only way he can 'prove' it to her.

I would definitely think a 'report card' would be a good idea. Trying to focus on the positives. Keep it simple. Maybe 3 sessions per day, and for each session he can get 3, 2, 1, or 0 stars. If he gets zero stars staff need to write a commment.

Set him a target for the end of the week (not to steep at first), and if he achieves that he gets a special reward.

You could also have a rule that he only gets to watch TV if he gets at least 3 stars in a day, and only on PC if he gets at least 5 stars (or whatever seems appropriate).

And stick to it.

This sort of thing takes an enormous amount of effort and commitment on the part of everybody and cannot be maintained for long. But if run well and adhered to strictly it could have a major impact in just a few weeks.

Good Luck!

Roisin makes a good point there about the report, DS2 had one for a short while in Yr3 and it did help.

It came home with him every day and I had to read and sign that I had read the comments from the teachers.

Hi guys,

Yes we had an ed psych report 2 years ago, when this type of attention seeking behaviour began to be a problem, and I was wondering whether I needed to home-ed. We had a number of consultations, and the end report basically said that we had a VERY intelligent child (he did assessment tests), who is demanding of attention, a small amount of problem with short-term memory (which may have been a result of his early, undiagnosed hearing loss in left ear, another story), which I believe is improving over time, we can now give him 3 or 4 instructions at a time, and he can carry them out, which he couldn't do 2 years ago.

Basically, however, no diagnosable syndromes of any type, and the Psych bellowed with derision when I said that school staff had suggested ASD or attachment disorder (the latter being a suggestion which had caused me a great deal of anxiety).

I handed over these findings at his IEP meeting, and the school ed psych was VERY dismissive of this report (to the point of rudeness) suggesting that any other psych we may see would be a charlaten .

However, the school staff did take it on board.

I am disappointed because things were going very well for a while, when ds was taught by a good male teacher, who had very strict regimes in place with him, and everything settled down nicely. DS also liked the teacher very much. Said teacher then emigrated to OZ , (I don't think it was a direct result of teaching ds). Since then no-one gets the same level of control over him.

Roisin, currently (supposedly) we have a 'sticker system' in place for his behaviour. However, his teacher, tho full of good intentions, either forgets to apply the stickers, or runs out of time at the end of the day, or for some other reason.
I know she has 24 other little so-and-so's angels to deal with, but I agree she needs to be more consistent, which will allow us to follow through at home.

I didn't get to see her yesterday (she had gone to a course to learn Tag Rugby ).

I am determined this will be fixed. But a lot of the responsibility really does lie with school here, I can't do their bit for them. I can (and will) back up their efforts.

Blimey, sorry to go on so....