Mindspa
Question: My 10 year old son has ADHD. He is in the 5th grade. I got a message from his teacher on Friday that the entire first week of school he got nothing done. He wouldn’t even take out his pencil.He didn’t bring his homework packet home. I grounded him over the weekend and he will be grounded every day that he comes home with nothing done. He is on 27mg of concerta, which is obviously not working. We took away all video games. Does anything help? Any advice? It’s very frustrating!
Answer :
Sit down and TALK with him. ASK him What’s going on? What do you want?
What do you need? I am here to HELP and SUPPORT. My friend’s son is now 14 and over the years (since he was 6) learning how to help him cope and manage his ADHD at the same time as parenting him alongside her 10 year old SPD son and 6 year old EBD son, we have found the best thing to do is to STOP and listen. Grounding and taking things away so many times they just become numb and immune and expect that so they stop caring altogether.
www.understood.org is a great resource. Sounds like he may need a BIP but make sure they DO NOT TAKE AWAY RECESS unless the behavior warrants it.
https://www.understood.org/en . He is having problems with focus. He is struggling with steps to complete a task. Once someone helps him get started he might get back to where he needs to be but he might not. It isn’t refusal to work though. He might need help getting step by step going. Even though someone is saying get out your pencil, is his brain is saying WHERE is it? he is missing steps to start? This isn’t a behavior issue… It is a processing information find the steps issue. Whether triggered by anxiety or meds or anything else. He needs help with step 1, then step 2 either until he gets past or until it clicks again. Just another opinion.
Parent Feedback:
Thank you so much for your feedback. So much great advice! I tend to get overwhelmed and not know what to do. I have 4 boys all with different needs. Sometimes I just do what works for one and have a hard time figuring out what works for another. It really helps to hear from other people who have dealt with similar issues.
BY Malini Ramakrishnan
Special educator
