I could really do with some advice about homework.

[JakeBullet]

My DS is 10 and just gone into Y6, his school have always given a small amount of homework with adjustments for his difficulties. DS is autistic with ADHD and finds homework...in his words..."boring". I am struggling to get him to attempt even one bit of homework a week and it's always a stressful time.

So this week he has his first lot for Y6....and we have had the usual stressful for the everyone time ...ad we have ONE question answered out of four! We have had the work since Thursday and it has to be in on Tuesday....it took until yesterday afternoon to get ONE question fiished and printed out.

Today he has blown at the idea of anymore and I have given up....I am tired, I am stressed and I cant face the fight we have had to get another three questions done. So......I have done them....they are science questions relating to evolution (something DS finds interesting) but he cannot sit still long enough to even start them. I have done them, I will discuss the answers with him and I will put a note in saying that this is what I have done.

I haven't even begun the spellings but hope I can get him spelling words while he paces.

And I cannot even begin to comprehend how he will cope with mainstream secondary unless they agree no homework.....it cant go on like this. Or maybe THEY can do the homework with him in school where he might be able to see a point to it.

Is it possible to get a "no homework" agreement?

OK, I have been here too, but my take on it was that DS who has Aspergers would have to do some work at home sooner than later. We allocate a set time for him to start doing his homework and he is not allowed to have his tablet or PS3 until he has done it. It was very hard going to begin with, but we got there in the end. The start of a new school year is an excellent time to introduce new routines, by saying now you are in year x you have to do work at home as well as school, you have to do it, it is not open for discussion. DS has just started secondary and they have a homework club, but we were told that they only have so many PC's and laptops available and if your child is late to the club then they may not get access to one, so it is better not to rely on that. Homework club is very busy, as basically, it is free childcare for parents who work.

It is difficult, but I think it is best to tackle it now, fight your battles over it and then have them ready to do the work in Year 7, when they will really need to do it.

Thank you for the thoughts, am going to try and get it addressed via his Statement.

I also like the ides of "now you are in Y6" as a change.....he just sees it as "school stuff".

I appreciate there is a huge difference... ds has just gone into YR1, so quite different in age and levels of homework. His school have sent homework home from the start of reception.

It has always been a battle (he has to compartmentalise everything, therefore school book bag is at school, not home) from the start, to the point that we (school and us) nearly threw the towel in as there was no limits to his attempt to get out of doing it.

My ds is very demand avoidant, so basically just decided to give him a choice of when he wanted to do it, told him that not doing it was not an option but that he could decide when (I was praying that he didn't chose to do it at 3am in the morning and since he is often awake through the night could have been my reality).

It has worked for us in the main... yes we still have avoidance tactics, and some outburst, but nowhere near the levels we had before.

Good luck I know how stressful it can be and we are nowhere near YR6 yet!

For us it is 'timetabled' onto her visual calendar for the week.

2 bits are set and are clearly shown as being done on Tues and Thurs. (eg maths Tues, literacy Thurs)

Strict 'drill' come home, snack then homework.

Works for us as school are reliable and consistent in what comes home and when.

School understand how hard it is fir her... All work sent home is appropriately differentiated.

If she gets too stressed over it, just let her 1:1 know and she will do it with her at school. Knowing this I can stop if she gets aggressive / has a meltdown.

Really helps having partnership working agreement with school and work that is appropriate. Still have the figgiting and need to be constantly refocused/ encouraged but don't 'battle' over things anymore.

I have this exact same problem with ds 10, ADHD - I had planned to use the 'new year, new start' thing and hope it helps. Failing that, I'll be back into school arranging that they try to do a social story with him.

I realise he has to do it sooner or later but I also agree with the comment that they should send relevant homework home.

In my experience, with my asd daughter, her views are rigid about school/home and I can never change her views.

Dd3 is like polters Ds, we have tried all sorts to get homework done. Last year she managed to do her computer based maths homework quite regularly but her literacy was done at the school homework club. I am hoping that this will continue this year in year 6 but I am not holding my breath.

We have a policy with ours (one diagnosed now with ADHD on top of Aspergers, one just Aspergers but movement and concentration also an obvious problem) that they give it their best shot, with computer time as a motivator, but their teachers cut them some slack if they don't do all of it.

Another thing which helps is getting them to do something active like run around the garden or bounce vigorously on the trampoline for 10 minutes before they sit down. It does seem to help their concentration. We make it clear from the start that they only have that 10 minutes so we don't have tantrums when they have to come in. I read somewhere (correct me if I get this wrong) that adrenaline helps in a similar way to Ritalin so exercise is very good for their concentration.

Thank you all for your thoughts.

We have a trampoline in the garden but DS has a thing about motorbikes at the moment so won't use it....much.

Thing is that having partially done his homework for him, I say down with him to go through the facts I had found. He then could not stop talking about other relevant facts to each question and I scribed it all for him. So .......he does at least have homework to give in. I will have a chat to his teacher about this.

I have also downloaded Dragon "Speech to Text" to try and get him talking his homework. It's a great app but at the moment DS cannot use it without laughing .

We have ONE Science question left for tonight about the Duck Billed Platypus. ......and how it has adapted and evolved. Who says Catholic schools only teach Creationism ?

The homework will have taken us all five days to achieve......I am not sure he will cope with the level of homework expected at secondary school. And guess what.....the proposed revised Statement of SEN doesn't mention homework ONCE. It also says the word "regular" far too often for my liking but that's a whole other thread!

I think the question I will be asking myself as ds get older is...

How much help is TOO much help before it's a case of me doing it for him and whilst I appreciate all children need encouragement and direction where do we draw the line. They need to learn to want to do it independently.

This will be a challenge.

Watching this with interest because ds2 is in Secondary, with ASD and we have no idea how we are going to cope with the homework. Ds is a very slow writer with atrocious spelling. We are hoping to use the computer a lot, and that there is going to be some differentiation for his abilities. So far it has been alright; he wants to please the teachers and do good work, but I've noticed that the more he is involved the better his attitude to the piece of work. Whereas if we just tell him what to write, or ask him to dictate his thoughts (and type it up for him on the computer) he tends to lose interest and get bored and frustrated. Ditto with posters, we do have to back off and ask his opinion rather than just doing what we think best to produce work to a good standard. The trouble is that work he does himself is often illegible. His ICT skills are not up to much either.

That is going to be the issue, getting the teachers to see that work he does himself to a bad standard is worth more than work we help him to do, even if that work gets him an A.

It is going to take up a lot of our time and emotional energy . Ds1 is in Year 9 and also struggles to stay on task with homework (he is dyspraxic) and Dd works hard independently but also needs feedback.

My ds2 was never avoidant over homework and enjoyed doing it, it is only recently now that he knows his work is considered of a low standard that he has shown less interest in it. I can remember him happily doing projects and essays; but he liked a high level of parental participation -that was the incentive. And he liked showing everyone his work and being praised for it. I don't think he has learnt to do things for his own satisfaction yet.

We have a routine as soon as ds AS gets in from school: snack and a jump/flap around in the living room (something he has always done after school) 15 minutes, homework, computer time etc. How much of a drama depends on how well his day has gone, if he isn't in the best of moods we use the sand timers which is 15 minutes homework followed by a 10 minute break repeatedly until the homework is complete, he usually has it finished within 30 minutes depending what it is.

Weekends are harder because he hasn't been to school so a bit tougher. The night before we write on his blackboard in his bedroom what will be done in the morning no discussions so for a basic example;

1. Breakfast
2. Get dressed
3. Have wash and clean teeth
4. homework
5. Computer.

This way he doesn't get up and decide what he will be doing before we even get chance to mention homework because once he does this we have bob hope and no hope of the homework being started at all.

So they have all been watching Goodnight Mr Tom and today they learned about Hitler. Cue oversensitive DS having to be escorted from the classroom in a rage about the injustice of it all towards the Jews.

His homework this week is to find out about Adolf Hitler up to 1939, what countries Germany invaded and who the Hiltler Youth were.

Not a prayer lol.

Sat and explained that it was important to remember what Hitler did as so many people lost their lives. Explained that it was to honour those people that we needed to remember how awful Hitler was etc. So far he is having none of it and is calling Hitler "a f*king f*khead"......he has such a way with words..