Sorry if this is the wrong forum. I put it here because it has to do more with DS emotions than "schooling".

DS 5.9 has had to afterschool daily to remediate handwriting and reading, despite being G. I feel a lot is d/t his age, requirements of school, etc. We're working often also during the summer (5x per week).

The problem I have is his extreme emotions to challenges. Please help with short term fixes (immediate advice), as well as any long term references (books for him or me to read, etc) you can.

On a good day, our "ten minute" handwriting session lasts probably 15 min, with minimal but still present fussing, whining, etc. On a bad day, there are tears, crying, extreme emotions, and the session lasts probably 20-30 min, most of that time with me sitting there and trying to *talk* about emotions, not needing to be perfect, inventing funny letter stories, etc. He is probably writing for only 5-10 of those min.

The majority of issues brought up by DS: his letters don't look perfect like mine, he wants to make me happy, he can't do it, if he takes his time to do it correctly it will take too long, etc. I daily have to remind him I have sloppy handwriting unless I'm working with him, it took me a while to learn handwriting, nobody's perfect, nobody's good at first, some skills take months and years to develop, there's no need to be perfect, I'm not perfect, it's good to aim to do your best but no need to be perfect, etc.

I require letters that are done with the wrong technique re-done (we're doing handwriting without tears).

I hate to outsource handwriting practice, which should theoretically take only 10 min! But I'm starting to consider just dropping him off at a physical therapist to do this instead. Speaking of PT, I've had him evaluated and he does not have a fine motor delay (which I found hard to believe).

Reading is similar, but slightly easier now. I attribute that to having working with him during the school year mostly on reading so his skills are much beyond his handwriting. But there's still a lot of resistance just seeing a word he thinks he can't spell out, or saying it wrong, a lot of whining and "I'll never get it right", etc. I used to have him read a small book, but because of this I limit reading to 10 min at a time, and then come back to reading later on.

Part of the problem is our parent/child dynamic I'm sure. I myself am frustrated and upset that so far our summer has been met with almost daily sessions like this. I don't even want his summer to be spent doing this, but it's necessary or he'll be behind in first. Even doing this he may be behind in first grade.

Any advice would be helpful. I'll try to check this thread often to answer questions as well.

HWT was not without tears for my son either in the beginning. Especially the workbook.

For now, you might consider doing some of their other handwriting (but not pencil/chalk writing) activities. There is the using the doorway as the rectangle and doing big arm motion air writing, using a baking sheet full of rice, sand, or shaving cream and writing there, the wooden letter building, the app, the songs, or the magnet set. We did a lesson with sidewalk chalk outside once where we made big letters and then he walked them and included the frog jump. You could do something like that at the beach too.

My son did not like handwriting drill but was much happier doing writing that mattered to him. So I could get more letters out of him by having him make signs, write notes, make lists, menus, etc.

Just some thoughts.

Good Luck!

You've received some great ideas already! A few more thoughts...

Possibly ask him to look at his letters and tell you which ones he is most pleased with, which ones he'd like to redo... then support him and accept the level he sets? This may help him feel in control of his education and level of mastery and provide the benefit of ongoing sense of ownership of his decisions.

Possibly set a timer to ten minutes and then stop, no matter what has been accomplished? This may help him develop trust that when you say 10 minutes, you mean 10 minutes. (On the other hand, if your rule is work until a lesson is completed, then you may wish to remove the reference to "10 minutes" as an estimate... he may decide to move along more quickly to completion.)

Possibly ask what he would like to learn/see/do/experience this summer and help him achieve that? This may help him learn to see you as supportive and also help him understand that a relative weakness in one or more areas does not establish a ceiling or limit as to what he can learn and achieve in other areas.

He may need the above skills and internalized beliefs to stay motivated throughout school (and life) and may also use them as a foundation for his own self-advocacy efforts in higher grades.

Possibly you may find the book A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children to be helpful?

Sounds like task-avoidant perfectionism to me. We know it well in our household.

Two things have helped with our DD in this area in the past:

1) Setting a frame of reference for reasonable expectations. Your DS is getting help from you in writing, so he knows what your writing looks like. Does he know what typical first-grade writing looks like? If you can't take him through the school and show him samples on the wall (I assume not, because summer), see if you can find some images online.

2) Setting up for a win, and then celebrating the win. Set a goal he'd have to work at but you KNOW he's capable of (you most certainly don't want him to fail, as that just makes things worse), push him though it, and then congratulate him. And then, don't forget to say, "I told you you could do it!" In just about any other context "I told you so" is considered rude, but for your child, it helps them to recognize that you know things they don't, and they should trust you in the future.

For the short term, it sounds like you've got a good approach, but the situation is not improving. There's no silver bullet here, because every child and every situation is different. Sometimes all that's needed is perseverance, because these kids tend to struggle until they have an "AHA!" moment, and then their obstacle disappears. Sometimes it does help to get someone new involved, because your DS might relax and not worry so much about pleasing the other person, or they may have a new way of presenting things that makes more sense to him. So your outsourcing instinct is not a bad one.

Another idea is that the task avoidance may be enhanced by the tediousness of the task. I mean, seriously, who wants to write four lines of n's? Anything you can do to enhance the environment might pay off... background music, some snack crackers handy, whatever.

For the long term, I suggest you pick up a couple of books on perfectionism for each of you. I could recommend one for the child, but it's specifically geared to girls. Since he's still working on reading, I'd read his to him, and discuss.

Displaced, I am replying on my phone so please excuse any bizarre auto-corrects


I was curious about why you were after schooling reading and writing so I glanced back through your previous posts. From what you've previously written it sounds like ds had a tough year in kindy and was considered to be struggling according to his teacher, you've had him evaluated privately but no LD was found, there is dyslexia in your family, and there's a possibility that teacher fit this past year was an issue.

If I've misunderstood any of that please let me know. I restated it here because I feel it helps having that background in answering your current questions.

eta - note to add about testing for LDs - they aren't always straightforward or revealed easily through testing. Sometimes it takes a few years of academics to see the impact of the LD (sometimes it can take years), and it's also important to be sure you understand what a person means by "LD" when they use the term - school districts may be referring to very specific (and low) bars that a student must be functioning below in terms of academics to call that student (officially) "LD", and psychs often don't use the term "LD". A student might not have an official LD and yet still have a challenge that is going to be almost impossible to work around and over without significant effort in remediation or accommodations.


This indicates to me that - no matter what the reason - the sessions aren't accomplishing what you want them to.


There might be a bit of a disconnect between what you are telling your ds here and what you are having him do - from his perspective. You're essentially trying to let him know he doesn't have to be a high-achiever at handwriting right now and skills take time to develop, but you're also having him practice for what can seem like a huge amount of time to a child his age. jmo, but I think that it's easier to motivate young children to work on this type of skill when they have a clear reason why they need to learn it.


If this is causing issues at this point in time I would back off for now and maybe for a week or so focus on having ds write a row of letters and circle the two he thinks look best. Praise him for those good-looking letters and quietly observe which letters he is not forming correctly. With HWOT you will go over the correct formation at the start of the pages where you copy a letter for practice. Try to notice what's up with not using the correct formation - is he just trying to get through quickly, is it due to not understanding, does he seem to not be able to control where he starts, is it consistently incorrect or randomly incorrect?



If it *is* dysgraphia it's important to understand that an eval by a PT isn't necessarily going to reveal it. Handwriting would specifically have to be part of the eval - many dysgraphic children, including my severely dysgraphic ds, have good fine motor skills for certain types of fine motor tasks. The disconnect with dysgraphia is in the inability of the brain to learn the automaticity of forming letters. The reason behind the dysgraphia could be fine-motor impacted of it could be due to visual-motor integration. The clues that showed our ds was dysgraphic were in observing his writing process, comparing his handwriting samples to peers in early elementary (which is tricky - dysgraphia isn't the same thing as sloppy or early-developing handwriting), and discrepancy on ability subtest scores as well as widely varying achievement test scores. Additional testing from his neuropsych helped verify it was dysgraphia and delineated the type.


You might find it helpful to have your ds to through a thorough reading eval by a specialist. I only mention this because you are seeing resistance and because there is a family history of dyslexia. Reading requires a wide range of skills all coming together and it can be extremely difficult to tease out a reading challenge. Two of my kids struggled with early reading - for one it was simply a vision issue (eyes not working together, issues were resolved with vision therapy and her reading took off), for the other it was a challenge associating symbols and sound which has required very specific and intensive reading tutoring.


It was mentioned already but worth mentioning again - our teachers have always stressed the importance of parents reading out loud TO their children, no matter what age/grade. I would put that as my first priority at this point, and try to make it fun, books that your ds is interested in. When you are having him practice reading with you, try making it light and simple. Start with him reading a sentence or two and you reading the next few sentences and over time work up to alternating pages. Don't stress out when he misses a word or can't decode a word, just let him know what it is. Try to just observe over time what type of roadblocks he hits - is it a certain type of word, does he have challenges with big words or does he get tripped up randomly with small words you would expect him to already know? Does he read more consistently when he is starting a session than later on when he might be tired? Etc.


To be honest, I would seriously consider dropping the sessions for the rest of the summer. It sounds like they are producing far too ugh stress for both of you with only minimal gain. You really don't know at this point how first grade will go. He may star out behind but then catch up easily in school if he doesn't have any deeper challenges with reading and writing. If he does have challenges, working without understanding them is most likely not going to help significantly. Instead focus on observing but not pushing - hope that makes sense.

Best wishes,

polarbear

This screams dysgraphia or dyslexia to me.

You might try these instead of sitting with pencil and paper:

trace letters on fine sandpaper
trace letters in the air using big, wide, sweeping motions (engages major muscles instead of fine motor)
trace letters on an iPad or draw them in a drawing app

These helped tremendously, but mostly it just took time. His writing was basically illegible until fourth or fifth grade when his motor development caught up a bit. Physical therapy helped tremendously.

Had a big break-through on number formation with DS last year, by joking about the process and laughing at mis-writes. Humor is a great tool for dispelling anxiety and negative thoughts. Also, some theories out there suggest that it helps reduce encoding wrong processes. Along those lines, I would also be careful about how you present things: redoing something because it was made wrong feels punitive to a kid, and if he anticipates making errors each time he practices and that he'll receive what feels like punishment creates a lot of dissonance.

I understand your position and was in a similar situation last year with handwriting. My DS6 really dislikes to write. He's a very reluctant writer because it doesn't match up very well to his verbal abilities. He's very frustrated by it. His mind works faster than he can write, so he loses his train of thought while trying to make his fingers work. He's fine motorskills challenged in other activities too, but I don't believe he is so far behind that it is a problem. It is definitely hard to compare if you aren't around kids in an educational setting.

Last summer, between K and 1st, I decided not to push it and he took the summer off. During his first grade year, his handwriting was ok, but certainly was in the bottom of the class in comparison. Sometimes I think it actually has gotten messier than when he was in kindergarten. It is something he needs to practice more, so I vowed not to let it slide like last year.

This summer, we are doing a journal. It is a major pain to get him to sit down and do the journal more often than not. He will complain longer than he actually spends doing it, but he will tell me he liked doing it once he finished it.

We ask him for a page or two and a drawing. I don't correct anything, but I will verbally tell him how to spell something correctly. It isn't everyday, but a few times a week. It has really helped when I sat next to him and wrote in my own journal. His little sister also sits down and draws pictures in her journal too. This is makes it more like family time than an assignment.

Other ideas we have done to encourage writing is to draw pictures. It isn't letter formation, but still excellent practice. Then, after a picture is done, ask him to give it a title or have him draw characters he can name. Comic book style storytelling combines pictures and simple writing. Maybe he loves a superhero or sports or a game like Minecraft? Use it!

My son really hated writing letters over and over again, so him giving me words to spell for him worked better for getting him engaged. He felt like he was getting somewhere if he wrote a sentence or two. Alliteration is a fantastic way to write silly sentences and work on a particular letter. Also, we used thick barreled mechanical pencils with cushy grips because thin pencils were harder for him to use. Reward the effort by keeping score - stickers, coins, etc. Let him "save up" for something bigger. For some a timer might work, for us it did not and even defining quantity is a challenge as he'll write 2 words on a line and skip lines.

I think the biggest challenge was my own patience. Practice is everything. It won't be perfect. It takes time to get there. My own frustration with my son not writing the letters right was impacting how he thought about himself. Once I backed off the criticism of his work, then he felt better about doing it.

Are you a perfectionist? I am and it took me a while to realize that my own perfectionist tendencies weren't helping the situation. My son is also a perfectionist and it sounds like yours is too. It's a tough combination, but you can work through it!

Thanks for all the replies! I wasn't anticipating so many responses so soon. I'll try to reply individually. One thing I love about this board is everyone's thoughtful responses.

Thanks for this suggestion. I originally thought something like this would not be helpful. He knows his letters by sight, and knows how they are supposed to look. And actually can write them well when going slowly. But, when left alone to write without supervision, they are all over the place and look like scribble for the most part. Honestly.

I was thinking he basically has been left to his own devices for a while re: writing, and learned to write letters wrong (for instance, he makes an 8 with two separate little circles as if he were not taught to draw an S and then close it up). I was also thinking a lot of this is relative fine motor weakness and working on what is difficult will improve his outcome. But maybe just the practice of how to draw the letters for fun would be helpful too (in a sensory box). We also have a phone HWT app to trace the letters, which he equally dislikes.

This is a huge red flag for dysgraphia. Has he been evaluated by a neuropsych?

I occasionally ask him which ones he "likes best" or "likes least" but get minimal response from him. ?? I will keep trying this. I also agree he needs to decide for himself which ones need to be corrected. He is starting to redo some letters by himself too.

As for the time limit, I originally had an accomplishment goal, but it is now a timed goal. And it is only for actual work. If I set it for 10 min, he would probably accomplish very little. On bad days maybe nothing. The timer "stops" when he starts complaining. I'm thinking of changing this to make it a break instead when he gets so frustrated. I tend to talk him through the challenge, and we discuss forever daily about this. Maybe I could shorten it to 5 min x 2 per day and that might feel easier for him. At his age his concept of one minute is still a long time away, IYKWIM.

I will look up examples online for my own benefit. Thanks for the suggestion. In his K class last year, his handwriting was consistently about the worst in the class vs his peers. The teacher would place examples of the other children's writing up on the wall and DS's was almost always illegible. Or, it would be a marker outline he would trace. He also says his writing isn't as good as the other kids. He still doesn't color in the lines or draw beyond a simple stick figure for all his pictures.

When I used to help kids learning to write, I'd always have them circle the letter they thought was best with a chosen crayon or pen. Then I'd circle the letter that I liked best & give very specific praise (eg, "This t touches the top & the bottom, & you put the cross line right in the middle."). Since you & your son are struggling so much, I might try this carrot approach.

Maybe you could back off on your expectations for rewriting letters until things improve... But I wouldn't ask him which letters he feels need to be rewritten unless you are willing to actually follow his lead. If you give him this power, and then override his decision by making him rewrite additional letters -you aren't empowering him; you're emphasizing his lack of control.

About the "10 minute" time frame. I'd let that go for yourself & him. Write down what you expect to get done in one session and check it off as you go. That way you can BOTH see progress. The emphasis shifts to what you have DONE rather than how long it took.

I'd also have a positively worded phrase to repeat during sessions. Something like, "When we're done with these tasks, we can go to the pool/library/park." (Positively worded as opposed to... "We can't do that until...") Phrases like this give me something to fall back on & help me concisely get my point across. It also keeps me from getting sucked into the arguing trap.

If all else fails & money isn't an issue, I'd go with the PT & possibly some more specific testing. Maybe you could do PT 1 time/week & the therapist could give daily "mini assignments" to complete on off days so you're not the bad guy?

Good luck!

You have a family history of dyslexia, and all of the sounds very much like it *might* be dysgraphia. Both can have a familial connection and can occur together or separately in the same family. It might *not* be either, but if there is either one present all the work in the world you put your ds through now might not help because it's not targeted effectively. Considering the family history I would make a neuropsych eval a priority over working on letters.

polarbear

This is a good summary. I thought it would be overkill to include it again. To recap: testing results were negative for all learning disabilities, including dyslexia and dysgraphia. However, right before testing he made a big reading "jump" in ability/phonics. His results were low for reading and on "old" scales would have given him dyslexia, but according to the new requirements he is excluded. Because of his age, it was strongly suggested that if he did not improve relatively with his peers/age, he should get retested as the disabilities can be difficult to appreciate so young. Personally I feel the dyslexia may not be present anymore as his reading is so much improved. I feel it is due to teaching him phonics at home vs the school method of teaching. He could probably sound out most easy phonics rules words if they were pretty short (6-7 letters or so) and I feel much better about his reading.

To focus on his reading during school I neglected his handwriting because they said he could fail if his reading did not improve, whereas they don't care for passing purposes what the writing looks like. So we didn't practice much until summertime. And school practice is largely unsupervised from what I can gather, so most if not all of his handwriting practice over the last 2-3 years has been by unsupervised practice. As in, no immediate feedback.




It's hard for me to be objective, but he does act this way somewhat to anything that is a challenge for him, even if it's fun. He had a meltdown at boy scouts playing marbles because he wasn't winning (but he was having fun until he understood he was losing). And I never emphasize winning as a goal (I don't think). It is worse for things that are difficult. There is some tendency to whine/complain if he feels he will be able to stop working as a result. When our schedule is not reliable I get more of it I think.






Thanks for this perspective. I will consider how I can be more clear in my goals for him as well as the issue of perfection. Part of my trouble is handwriting is very subjective IMO. Is this T better than that T? Who cares really as long as it's legible? But I am trying to emphasize legibility and going through the right process, and with time the neatness will follow, as long as he isn't rushing. Did he start the letter in the right place? Did the letter reach the bottom line? Did the letters close?




Thanks for this suggestion.



Thanks for this perspective. I am certainly not excluding further testing. I think one of the bad things about having him tested already was he was so young and finding problems is so difficult at a young age. The ed psych recommended repeat testing in a year if school work didn't show improvement with ability, or difficulties continued. I don't think I'll wait a year, however.




Do you have a recommendation of a type of specialist? Both the PT and ed psych did dyslexia "testing". Most of one whole day of testing by the ed psych was dedicated to it.



Yes, I read aloud to him often, as does my husband. Probably an hour or so per day with books of his choice from library books or what he asks for. I usually have him sound out words he doesn't know to practice, but maybe I should just read those words to him as you recommend. They can be short words he resists but the pattern is words he doesn't know the meaning of.




I primarily am working with him to remediate the handwriting and keep the reading up to speed. He barely passed reading and got unsatisfactory in writing. My selfish goal is to get him on level with his peers so that I don't have to spend the school year doing remediation but just regular school work.

Thank you. I am going to incorporate some of this into his writing I think. He dislikes the handwriting app I have that has HWT letters in it, but maybe I can encourage just one letter with the handwriting we do, plus a sensory or larger motor use. PT we considered, but without a diagnosis it's hard to get covered. We may revisit with a different PT as the last I don't think was very specialized (but was a peds PT experienced). We have a large clinic affiliated with a national children's hospital within driving distance so we may try that. There's also a local speech therapist who I think has a PT come in and they advertise writing help so I may look into that, even if we have to pay out of pocket.

Yes, this is something I need to consider and incorporate.

This is a good idea. I'm a little hesitant to "allow" him to practice a lot of writing without going over the letters first. I spoke with DS about writing sentences or words instead of letters and he agreed it sounded better. Maybe I'll look up funny sentences to dictate or him to just copy instead. He doesn't mind journaling, but if I just tell him to write it is not legible usually. And I thought by going through a program like HWT it would isolate individual letters. The program also asks to not have the children write words where they have not yet been taught letters. And I have seen progress! But when he doesn't practice a specific letter for a while it looks worse again.

I'm also thinking of getting a tracing book (don't know if they have those anymore) or something else for him to just focus on using his writing skills without it being boring writing. For instance I get him maze books which his enjoys, but his doesn't stay on the paths in general, even in wide maze books. I guess it's still practice, though.

I also discussed with him maybe saving up for a new app every X days he does his writing. He seemed very enthusiastic about that!

No, just PT and ed psych. Originally we had no reason to consider a higher level testing, but we did get full LD testing by ed psych. If problems continue I would consider neuropsych as he gets a little older. Since I haven't been working with him much with his writing until this summer I want to give him some time to practice to see if it improves as his reading did last year.

Clarification: Was he tested by a PT or an OT? PTs generally don't deal with fine motor or visual integration. Gross motor is their area.

If he has dyslexia/dysgraphia, it is very likely that it is being masked at this point in his development, because of the shallowness of grade-level expectations, and his high cognitive capacity for compensation. If I recall, you also said you worked with him using a structured phonics-based program (TBT, All About Reading?) on reading, which would be the beginning stages of a dyslexia remediation/intervention, which might also mask an LD as far as scores go. If something like a CTOPP or PAL-II has not been administered, I would suggest that that should figure into the next round of testing, as they are more sensitive to the specific processing deficits of dyslexia/dysgraphia than standard cognitive and achievement batteries are. And if they were done, some more subtest analysis may be in order,to look for compensated dyslexic profiles.

I like this and think I will try it. The groaning really escalates when I ask him to redo a letter. He will now self correct before bringing to me, so pointing out the good ones (and why) may be a better approach.

This is why we got testing when his teacher started bringing up retention, as I know if there is a LD present, retention isn't going to do anything to resolve that. But since I haven't really been working with his writing and I don't have confidence the school did that either, shouldn't I try this first? As in, I'm not sure anyone ever really taught him to write or ever looked at him while he was writing to instruct him how to form his letters in the first place

ETA -- after asking him, DS claims that I am the first person to actually go over each letter and tell him how to write them properly. He says they didn't do it in K, and not in his preschool either. I think there might have been some at his preschool but I'm not certain.

He was tested by PT, not OT. She suggested dyspraxia as a diagnosis consideration which was rejected by ed psych (who stated she was comfortable/familiar with diagnosis).

He did have a CTOPP administered for dyslexia. We used to use AAR but have now abandoned it for explode the code as AAR tended to be too tedious with the reading lists. I also teach phonics on the go (as we come across words that have a new phonics rule I teach them (-ight, -ice, etc), instead of a certain order. I try to let him read books to me that he knows the rules of decoding with, but don't always find easy readers easily. The school has an "integrated method", which allows reading based on pictures and guessing words after decoding the first and last letters, context clues, etc. But DS tends to just randomly guess words if there are too many picture clues and not enough phonics rules.

Any recs on looking into task-avoidant (sp?) perfectionism? I think this would be something to look into in general for us.

In a nutshell, procrastination may stem from fear of failure (where failure is defined as anything short of perfection). There are scholarly articles on task-avoidant perfectionism which may be found by internet search.

For recommendations, a book which seems to understand perfectionism very well and which many find supportive is "What To Do When Good Enough Isn't Good Enough". Another book you might like is "Perfectionism: What's Bad About Being Too Good". These books show readers how to free themselves from thought patterns which may not be serving them well. While insightful, these books are written gently for kids, in a style that is fun and engaging. Parents may wish to read with their child, and/or pre-read and decide if a resource may be a helpful tool for their child.

Here is an article from the Davidson Database, Interview with Thomas Greenspon on Perfectionsim: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10790.aspx

Wishing you, your family, and your son all the best with this.