We are having some issues with my son Sean. He is in 3rd grade and a very bright kid. He is in the talented and gifted program and made the A-B honor roll last semester, but lately he is presenting us with some difficulties.
On Monday night we discovered that he turned in a blank reading log for the previous week. This despite him assuring us several times that he had filled it out. We go through stages where we physically check it, but last week was one where we assumed he did. We know he read (he has to read for 15 minutes a night and record what he read) and filling out the log only takes a few minutes, but he totally ignored it (and us).
Tuesday evening he forgot his science book even though he had to do some science homework, and it was listed in his agenda. By nature he is a bit scatter brained (like his dad), but we have repeatedly had this problem and counseled him to check that he has all his books before he leaves the class. In the past, we were usually able to let him borrow his step-sister Christina's books since she is also in 3rd grade, but she didn't have it this time. We wrote a note to the teacher, telling her that we would have him do it tonight, along with any other "extra" homework she saw fit to give.
We also found out on Tuesday, that he had gotten behind in his TAG class. He is meant to make flash cards for a few prefix's and suffix's every month and learn them, but he was a month behind. It didn't take long to make them up, and I am reasonably sure he could memorize the years worth of words in two or three days if he applied himself. He has a good memory and has no problem learning his spelling words. I do have to admit that I hate his TAG program, because it's all enrichment and ran by a kooky art major, but I still expect him to do well in it.
Tonight he remembered his science book so he was able to do the missed assignment plus an extra assignment his teacher assigned, but there was a note in his agenda to work on a social studies composition. When we asked him about it, he told us that he had no idea what she was talking about.
Additionally, he often acts like... well a big dummy. Tonight he was answering questions and we had to make him reread it several times for him to get the answer. At one point, my girl friend got frustrated and told him that the answer was right there in "black and white".
He replied, "I see the black words, but where is the white?"
Later when Shannon had him read the sentence with the answer to the question, he replied "That sentence doesn't have the word 'why' in it."
He is not a bad kid at all. He is very sweet and pretty well behaved, but its like he has no common sense sometimes, either that or its laziness.
It's hard not to pile on punishment after punishment. We think we give appropriate positive feedback to encourage him. Our main problem is that because of the number of kids we have, it's very difficult to micromanage his homework and still teach give our other kids the time they need.
I would tear my hair out if it wasn't the fact that I have none.
Well, to me this is an extremely good indication of the fact that schools now base their "practices" on two-kid families.
ReplyDeleteMy mom had 4 kids in 8 yeares and no household help; she didn't have time to manage homework and reteach math and nobody expected her to.
Yet another example of the schools outsourcing the hard stuff to parents.
What a load.
This is WAY too much STUFF for a 3rd grader, period. Doesn't matter how smart he is; his frontal lobes AREN'T READY.
I know you've got too many kids to manage things as the school is (implicitly) expecting you to manage things but you're going to have to find a way.
Not that I know what that way is....I've got my hands full just trying to remember to give Andrew and Jimmy their fish oil in the morning & Christopher his olive oil at night.
STILL, I'm sure you're more organized than I am....and where there's a will there's a way.
ReplyDeleteI'd try outsourcing back to the teacher.
Is there some SUPER-EFFICIENT WAY she can tell you what's going on that week???
Then is there some super-efficient way you can post a checklist or something that everyone can see on the wall and quickly check off whether something got done or not?
We're finding that writing things in huge letters on a kitchen chalkboard actually causes some things not to fall through the cracks.
The stuff they're expecting him to do - not the content, the organization - is DEVELOPMENTALLY INAPPROPRIATE.
ReplyDeleteIt's fun for a person who hasn't been to ed school to get to use that phrase once in awhile.
ReplyDeleteOn a cog sci level, I'm thinking I've read that TAG kids do have better frontal lobe development....golly, where was that?
ReplyDeleteNEVERTHELESS, TAG or no-TAG, this is DEVELOPMENTALLY INAPPROPRIATE.
wow
ReplyDeleteI got to say that twice
That was fun
I agree with Catherine. It's not your kid; it's the school.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my advice would be to bug out completely. So what if he flunks third grade?
I never once asked either of my sons about their homework. Of course, this was back in in 1973-1987 when it wasn't quite as crazy as it is now. Anyway they both got into good colleges (Harvard and UC Santa Cruz) and they are both doing fine now.
It's a lot better for Sean to learn now that this is his job, not yours.
(Of course, you need to pay enough attention to make sure there isn't something weird going on like someone bullying him or he's going deaf or has ADD or something. However, I wouldn't concern myself too much about this. In the very unlikely event that there is something serious the matter, it will become obvious soon enough.)
Catherine has written before about our schools not being boy friendly.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, there was an article in our local paper just last evening about a local (male) teacher who has spent the last ten years teaching second and third grade here. He got concerned about boys not doing as well as girls and his reserach has led to his belief that boys and girls need VERY different learning environments. He was inspired by a book by William Pollack titled "Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons From the Myths of Boyhood."
He feels that many boys need to move around a lot and that in general they need different environments from girls.
Is your son perhaps surrounded by too many women and girls?
So what if he flunks third grade?
ReplyDeleteI would agree, except that he's probably old enough and bright enough to be affected by it.
My parents allowed my brother to flunk the third grade because they thought that would teach him a lesson. He then flunked the fifth grade and then another grade after that. He was 21 when he graduated high school and then flunked out of community college.
ReplyDeleteI guess he never did learn his lesson. He is indeed suffering the natural consequences.
Everything seems so obvious when it's other peoples' kids. With my own son, everything seems more complicated. I sometimes have a hard time taking the long-term view of a situation, but I basically try not to make a mountain out of a molehill and stay away from power struggles.
ReplyDeleteHe still needs (and gets) close homework management in fifth grade. We don't allow him to slip up one little bit. We check everything everyday.
It would be nice if he did this all by himself, but he doesn't yet know how to do that. Like math, he has to be taught and get a lot of supervised practice. This is just the way it is so there are no power struggles. Besides, he is beginning to see himself as a good student and wants to stay that way.
My parents allowed my brother to flunk the third grade because they thought that would teach him a lesson. He then flunked the fifth grade and then another grade after that. He was 21 when he graduated high school and then flunked out of community college.
ReplyDeleteok, THAT's what you call your cautionary tale.
It's a lot better for Sean to learn now that this is his job, not yours.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that it isn't Sean's job.
It's the teacher's job.
That's our issue here.
If the teacher isn't going to do his/her job, and obviously he isn't, then you have two choices:
a) let your child flunk
b) be the reteacher
We have a mom here who is flatly refusing to hire a tutor for her child (in the accelerated math class) OR help with homework.
She simply refuses, on principle.
She's hammered everyone about it, the teacher, the principal, the math chair, and the superintendent.
They don't care.
We don't allow him to slip up one little bit. We check everything everyday.
ReplyDeleteThat's where I slipped up.
Christopher's so much more mature this year, and so independent, and was doing so well relatively speaking at the beginning of the year that I fell off the track.
I stopped reteaching math at night.
Now he's down to a D.
His grade would be an F if Ms. K weren't awarding beaucoup points for "showing your work."
The other day he got half credit for a problem where his answer was wrong and the work he showed was wrong.
Ed wants to pull him out of the class.
That's what may happen.
No algebra in 8th grade, because I stopped being the math teacher.
Of course, now I'm getting stubborn.
ReplyDeleteEd has basically decided Christopher's moving down.
I had decided, too, but then I cranked up the reteaching and the worksheet production and voila he can set up and solve equations with variables on both sides of the equation in order to find the measures of angles in complicated angle & line drawings - everything at once!
That is the constructivist philosophy.
Teach everything at the same time.
OK, I've re-read everything and I may have changed my mind.
ReplyDeleteWhat Catherine and some of the rest of you are saying is that today's public school (and possible even private school) third grade is a combination of a ridiculously difficult maze and a game of gotcha' that no normal eight-year old boy should be expected to navigate.
If what you are describing is accurate -- and I have every reason to believe that it is -- then responsible parents have no choice but to do a lot of work or otherwise their kid is going to get poor grades because of the crazy system and is also going to fail to learn what they really need to know. And you are saying that it's not fair to the kid to not help him with the system and not re-teach.
So how 'bout this instead of ignoring him? Be honest and tell all 5 kids that the whole situation is crazy but that there isn't any alternative and have the kids work out some sort of system for helping each other deal with all the crazy and pointless paper work and so forth. Make a game out of it. Let them know that their teachers' demands are unreasonable and that you are going to do everything you can to take the burden off of them. Reward them for being good sports about an irrational situation but don't make them feel there is something wrong with them.
It sounds to me like he is blowing off makework (flash cards and reading logs) and playing head games as well. Both of those behaviors are within the normal range for a gifted kid. (I did the same sorts of things at that age.)
ReplyDeleteI'd at least consider discussing this on a different level: "Yes, I understand that what you are doing is sometimes boring, pointless, and stupid. What you want to do is to get your teachers to believe that you are working hard at what they ask for, and for their reasons. They don't need to know that the real reason is so you can eventually get out of this sort of stupidity and into more interesting things. For that you need good grades."
After reading your post and all the comments, I'd like to chime in.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that it's always more complicated with our own kids.
In our schools, grades hardly matter until the kid gets to high school. So, I've learned to focus on what my kids are learning. The critical content and sufficient respect for adults. But not to worry too much about the fluff stuff that takes up so much time. In our school, that includes enrichment programs.
Unfortunately, the other thing that matters is developing good school habits. "Do your best and work hard." My problem, with my gifted son now in high school, is that he was never sufficiently challenged in grades k-8. But I count my blessings because when I chat with parents whose kids are not working hard and making D's or F's, I feel lucky my son is not working hard and getting B's.
So, I guess I'm saying that if Sean is a very bright kid it's valuable to keep things in perspective.
With five kids (IIRC) I'm sure you have to pick your battles, prioritize needs and realize some things are not going to be micro-managed. And I agree that the schools' expectations today are that parents are able to spend a lot of after-school time with each child. Totally unrealistic for most families. (And then they call us helicopter parents when we overstep the boundaries they've established for us!)
Rory,
ReplyDeleteWhat Doug said.
I have one of those kids and third grade is definitely when they start to get irritated by what they perceive as "hoop jumping." If they don't see the "why" they are going to rebel and it starts in grade school. I had this problem all through grade school.
Gifted kids are often ditzy. They are often immature. Smart boys don't sit silently like the irritated girl might. They start to really mess up.
My advice, having been through this already, is to just help him stay organized as best you can. If you have a teacher at the school who understands why this happens and can help streamline these assignments (make the flashcards at school, or better yet have them already made.
And it does get worse, btw. Although, Catherine and I have had different middle school experiences (cross my fingers). My youngest has really been enjoying middle school so far. The project/busywork aspect has been a lot less pervasive than in grade school.
My son also really hated projects that involved lots of coloring and "how does it make you feel?" stuff. I hovered over him to get him through it (literally doing some of the more inane ones myself), but I also let the teachers know that not many boys were going to respond well if they didn't cut them a break and give them something that excites them.
Anyway, third grade is a little young to expect all of those executive functions. They don't have them in middle school either.
There was a lot of discussion at the old ktm about all of this. I don't know if you can find it, but it might be helpful. We were all going through it at the same time it seemed.
I know you don't have much time, but maybe a chart or something that he has to check off in front of you might help, for awhile, anyway. Just don't let his education suffer over this.
Also, if you have a good teacher that will communicate with you directly, you can better stay on top of things. She can sign his assignment book and you can at home. She can pop off an email if he starts to get behind.
A great book that we all loved around here was The Organized Student. It helps you get a handle on the backpack, locker, home, school thing. It also reminds you of how different school is for them than it was for us.
Anyway, hope that helps a little. We could go on forever about this because it can really do a number on your kid. He can come away thinking something is really wrong with him because he doesn't spend his days worrying about a reading log at the age of 8.
"Both of those behaviors are within the normal range for a gifted kid."
ReplyDeleteI agree with Doug. I think it's within the normal range for ANY 3rd grader, but I wouldn't assume that it's because of a conscious, well thought out plan on his part. Talking to him might help , but I know that "a talk" doesn't always work with our son. That's why we still (in fifth grade) check his planner and stand over him (if necessary) each day to make sure the work gets done. It's not a matter of punishment. We just make sure the work gets done, even if he has to stay up very late.
Sloth and indolence are normal human behaviors. High self-expectation and good work habits have to be learned or taught, hopefully not the hard way. The problem with more able kids is that things come too easy for them. They don't learn to work hard. But things will become difficult - it's just a matter of time. High achievement means doing a lot of stupid things. You have to take a lot of "stupid" distribution courses in college even if you are on a PhD math track. It's interesting to read Dick Feynman talking about some of his distribution courses at MIT.
My son's homeroom teacher needs to sign-off on each planner at the end of the day. After the last class, the kids go back to the home room, collect their books and then wait to get checked off. This is good. I can't imagine a school that would not provide immediate feedback to parents if work is not being done or if something has changed. It's very easy to do. The school sends home work or tests that have to signed and returned.
I fully expect my son to become an independent learner (ugh), but I don't think that he can do it himself. I suppose some might think it's micromanaging, but I'm not standing over him telling him how to do things. We check his homework and tell him to fix things, but that's to show him that our expectations are higher than those of the school. He can't get away with doing the minimum.
Then there is the diffrence between just making sure that homework gets done and teaching/reteaching. My wife and I do both. Our goal is not to make sure that he gets A's on his report card. We teach/reteach math. We discuss and edit his writing. We probably would still do this even if it were the best school in the world. Of course, we're nowhere near there and I wouldn't be blogging here.
Okay, so I basically repeated a lot of what Catherine said now that I'm reading the comments closer.
ReplyDeleteAs far as flunking as natural consequences, I wouldn't do it. I think that can backfire bigtime. A sensitve kid will internalize that and you could have major problems down the road.
One problem with the gifted programs is when that teacher assignes things at the same time as the regular teacher. They're piling on and not looking at what the other one is doing.
In grade school this is ridiculous and way too much for the students. It took a lot of complaining to get our grade school teachers to coordinate better. And yes, I used the words DEVELOPMENTALLY INAPPROPRIATE a lot.
They also have no business giving homework assignments due at various times of the week and month to keep track of as thought they were in high school.
In fifth grade my son would have one or two language arts gifted projects going on (due at different times), 2 or three "packets" to fill out (usually spelling, LA stuff, unscrambling words ad nauseam). The same teacher would assign art projects willy-nilly (add 45 minutes of coloring if we're lucky). He was bussed to the middle school for math for two years so he had at least 30 algebra problems to complete. I could go on. I started writing it all down including the time spent and it amounted to 3 hours a night for him (on a good night.) Of course, I met with the teachers and said that something had to give. They changed somewhat, but there was always loads of busywork.
Gifted programs often pile on rather than use the work in place of what is going on in the regular classroom. This makes many people want to get their kids out of it. The school's attitude might be, "Well, he has to do more because he's smart," but the point of these programs in grade school is that they are an APPROPRIATE RESPONSE to kids in the top tier just as the bottom tier is addressed through special ed services. This isn't high school where honors and AP classes require more work, not just higher IQs.
It sounds to me like he is blowing off makework (flash cards and reading logs) and playing head games as well.
ReplyDeleteI second that.
We have a mom here who is flatly refusing to hire a tutor for her child (in the accelerated math class) OR help with homework.
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear, obviously this mom isn't me.
We've been emailing some; she has always thought that the parents are a big part of the problem. If we didn't reteach & hire tutors, the teacher would have to teach.
I may have persuaded her that while that would be true if our district valued high academic achievement, it's not true here.
Our district simply does not care whether we have an "accelerated" math track or not.
They're happy to drop kids down.
Under the category of it's always worse than you think, I've finally figured out something this mom and others knew: we have a huge attrition rate in accelerated math.
At this point it looks like we start out with 3 classes of accelerated math in 6th grade and end up with just 2 by 8th grade.
I'm sure that's why the middle school's goal was to cut kids from the track before they hit middle school.
Imagine the headaches they've had to deal with washing out that many kids in two years.
There has been no, and I mean zero, interest in or discussion of how to reform the course so that kids stay in the track and master algebra in 8th grade.
What Catherine and some of the rest of you are saying is that today's public school (and possible even private school) third grade is a combination of a ridiculously difficult maze and a game of gotcha' that no normal eight-year old boy should be expected to navigate.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
We are really up against it.
This is the not-really-explored side of constructivism (though Susan S had a great quote about it over on ktm-1, which I'm going to find and "port" over here).
"Wholeism" means bringing high school level skills down to grade school AND expecting the kids to manage because kids and teachers are "learning together."
So how 'bout this instead of ignoring him? Be honest and tell all 5 kids that the whole situation is crazy but that there isn't any alternative and have the kids work out some sort of system for helping each other deal with all the crazy and pointless paper work and so forth. Make a game out of it. Let them know that their teachers' demands are unreasonable and that you are going to do everything you can to take the burden off of them. Reward them for being good sports about an irrational situation but don't make them feel there is something wrong with them.
ReplyDeleteBINGO!
Something of this nature has to happen.
I'd say Susan J's advice is very close to (or even identical to) what Linda Moran has done with her 3 typical kids.
She has an amazing video of her daughter singing an anti-constructivist song - I'll ask whether she'll allow me to post the link.
Ed and I have taken the Insurgent Parents route. Christopher knows that we have political goals and that he has a role to play.
His role is to do his work, learn, and stay out of trouble. In other words, his role is to function exactly the way he would in a school that didn't oppress and demoralize many children.
We've told him, "Your father and I are trying to reform the school system. If we're having to come down to the school every five seconds to get you out of trouble, we can't do that."
One day he was telling us about a friend of his who tends to push the envelope & get in trouble. We told him, "When K. gets going, you step back."
I certainly wouldn't recommend this approach for many families (or for many kids, probably), but it works for us:
a) we are engaged in a political effort to reform the system, so telling Christopher that's what we're doing is a simple statement of fact
b) Christopher is a naturally cautious, sensitive child so he almost never gets in trouble anyway and he was taking every failure he suffered last year directly to heart. Given his temperament, our aggressiveness is probably an important example for him.
If Christopher were a naturally hyper, aggressive "boy-type boy" what we're doing would probably be the exact wrong strategy.
In any case, our approach to the district has worked wonders for him. He's in very good shape emotionally and intellectually.
(Last night he told Ed he wanted some posters for his room. Ed said, "Posters of sports figures?" Christopher said, "No, posters of historical figures.")
I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I saw two other moms do a version of what we're doing (and of what Susan J recommends). These moms had been trying to mediate between their child and the school, and they'd been coming down hard on their kids.
Then they made a U-turn. They stopped being regular-ed moms and started being special-ed moms; they became their children's advocate.
Both of their sons, who had been headed toward demoralization and even failure in one case, perked up and have been tooling along ever since. They like school, they like their friends, they like doing their school work.
Neither of those mothers became politically involved. They're both fairly cautious people; open political work like this doesn't suit them.
But they have given a clear message to their children that the school is the problem. Their kids know they have two strong parents in their corner.
This is what people don't grasp about the "helicopter parent" meme.
Helicopter parents are made not born.
We're being created in reaction to a system that oppresses and demoralizes our kids.
What I see about helicopter parents is that helicopter parenting often works. I've gotten to know another helicopter mom who is the real deal. Emails to the teachers on a regular basis, lots of uproar, huge numbers of tutors and hours of reteaching - she's got a wild and woolly enterprise going on inside her house.
(I love her! She is a great, great gal.)
Her kids are in excellent shape.
They're good kids, respectful, hardworking; they're exactly the kind of kids people dream of having -- and they're not natural born "winners." At least one of them is fairly shy (maybe that's not the right word); one is super-bright but pretty hyper & can shut down in class.
These kids have a helicopter parent who is raising them to be strong and to work hard. Anyone would be proud to be the parent of these teens.
The mom told me this week, "The only kids who excel in our high school are the super-aggressive ones. My kids aren't aggressive. I have to be the aggressive one; otherwise they'd be lost."
And I agree that the schools' expectations today are that parents are able to spend a lot of after-school time with each child. Totally unrealistic for most families. (And then they call us helicopter parents when we overstep the boundaries they've established for us!)
ReplyDeleteabsolutely
Catherine and I have had different middle school experiences (cross my fingers). My youngest has really been enjoying middle school so far.
ReplyDeleteThat's good to hear.
This is one of the HUGE questions around here: is our district appreciably worse than others??
What is going on around here??
Why do we have middle school kids having to circulate petitions about freedom?
We now know who wrote the petition, btw. The author probably is one of the gifted children. A graduate of the high school told us that the brighter the student the more intensely they disliked the high school.
swell
I should add -- this is important -- that our middle school has some fantastic teachers who go in there every single day and TEACH STUFF and TEACH IT WELL.
ReplyDeleteThey also go above and beyond. Christopher's ELA teacher actually organized one of Christopher's friend's binder for him and keeps it in her classroom so he won't lose it. (I think it was the binder.)
Those teachers are there.
But they're not setting the tone.
They're not "the face" of the district.
wow, Susan's last comment about gifted programs simply piling on more work is revelatory.
ReplyDeleteI've come to loathe enrichment (though I certainly defer to Rudbeckia Hirta's liking for the enrichment she did as a mathematically gifted child).
I dislike enrichment because our school displaces real academics with enrichment packages sold to us by vendors.
It hadn't occurred to me that when you're talking about enrichment for gifted kids you're simply adding them on top of everything else.
Rory - I would absolutely do some of this junk for him. (By "junk" I mean wonky project-type assignments. I'd definitely make the flash cards if I could possibly spare the time.)
ReplyDeleteYou weren't around back when I was trying to accelerate Christopher in math.
He had an excellent teacher and the curriculum was OK (the book was bad, but the teacher was good).
Nevertheless, some of the assignments were time-wasters (doing a bunch of problems so you can find the code that will allow you to translate the name of the animal in the zoo, etc.).
I did those assignments for Christopher and had him do something harder.
I also did assignments for him when he had already mastered the concept being taught. While I did the school assignment, he did a more advanced assignment for me.
The absolute goal for me is academic achievement. Period.
Yes, everyone needs to know how to get along inside an institution where power relations are unequal to put it mildly.
Yes, students have to learn to play the game at some point.
But given Christopher's temperament, being respectful of teachers comes naturally to him. He's always loved his teachers; he was wounded to the quick when his ELA teacher scapegoated and bullied him last year. He still talks about it and asks me why she did it. STILL.
In our case, I knew I wasn't hurting his ability to function inside his school (especially not since his teachers were excellent and he knew that was our view).
Actually, this year is similar.
We consider all of his teachers but two to be superb, and we tell him that.
The math situation is a debacle, but things may have reached the point at which it's a debacle for a majority of kids in the class. It's unique; it doesn't say anything about the school as a whole.
His other weak teacher, who I haven't named or spoken of here (and won't) is simply a young teacher who needs mentoring.
Our sense is that the principal has been working with her; it also looks like she's improving quite a bit.
So....we're trying to reform the system, but we respect and appreciate good teachers.
A 7th grader is probably old enough to hold those two slightly contradictory ideas in his head at one time.
Ed did the last poster assignment Christopher had and we basically signalled to the school that we wouldn't be doing another one.
ReplyDeleteNo further poster assignments have been made, so I'm thinking the school may be cooperating.
I'm on a roll!
ReplyDeleteOne last story.
My sister is a hoot.
Her gifted 8th grade daughter was given a coloring assignment last fall. She was supposed to color in something or other (can't remember) AND create a skit to dramatize an element from the Periodic Table.
My sister went to the principal and said, "My daughter will not be coloring any more."
Then she kept telling parents, "Your kid doesn't have to color stuff. Just tell them. Tell them there's no more coloring."
She couldn't convince anyone.
Of course now her kid is doing independent study, which is an option in CA.
ReplyDeleteCatherine, I'd love to see whatever you have on the frontal lobe! I've been dealing with these frontal lobe issues with my 10 year old. She can't keep track of her stuff, forgets her homework, can't keep track of which days she has to bring her flute to school and which days she needs her library book. . . .
ReplyDeleteI thought the frontal lobes were the last to fully develop and that gifted kids often have asynchronistic development (?). Anyway, the gifted kid with no common sense and no executive function is a pretty frequent theme in some literature.
I, too, would love to see whatever you have on frontal lobes!
ReplyDeletePaulaV
oh gosh we had all kinds of stuff on ktm 1
ReplyDeleteI'll find it & post links.
It's incredibly useful and important.
Last year we hammered the middle school with Frontal Lobe Horror Stories at every opportunity.
We managed to say the words "frontal lobe" often enough that we at least lodged the term inside their LTM.
Two comments... 3rd grade was the year I discovered that the sky didn't fall in if I didn't do my homework. I didn't do homework again till I was a senior in high school! I got lousy grades, of course, and was probably the bane of my teachers' existences. My frontal lobes were still a disaster, probably well into my 30s (they recovered just enough in my 20s to allow me to focus on a single thing at a time).
ReplyDeleteNow, in my 40s, my frontal lobes are really hitting their strides -- just in time for senescence!
Ben is now in 7th grade, and I'm much less personally involved in his homework than I used to be, and as a result his grades have gone down. I'm not too worried about this because it's in 9th grade that his grades will start to 'count' for college, and because I want him to get a little sense of responsibility for his own work and learning before he hits high school. Two years ago it didn''t seem worth sacrificing his learning at all for that end, partly because he was incapable of taking any responsibility, but that's not the case any more.
I think it's incredibly common for kids' executive functioning to be totally overwhelmed by the demands of elementary school.