...when mom's EF is weak also?
I'm chronically disorganized and live a cluttered lifestyle. My husband is neat but not in the house much. Our son is 9 and finishing 3rd grade. For the past 2 years he's been in a G/T Center public school.
His second grade year was fine. He's always done very well in class and with any tests or in class assignments. His school uses the same "Planner" system for homework starting in second grade, and they really try to make it work for all students. In second grade his teacher watched as the children wrote down each homework assignment in the correct location and made them do it over if they goofed up.
In third grade at first, his teacher did the same. She also wouldn't let the kids leave the class at dismissal until she had checked their books and papers to be sure that kids have every textbook and item needed to do homework! So for the first half of the year my son had no problem doing homework and turning it in.
Gradually however his third grade teacher has been removing these supports for the whole class, and the past several months my son has just floundered. He forgets to bring books home, he doesn't know where his project packet is, he DOES his work but forgets to write his name or somehow it just doesn't get turned in. Classwork also is missing lately -- I assume he does the work but it just never finds its way to the inbox, and the teacher doesn't hunt it down -- she says it is his job to turn it in.
My son has a horrible sense of time. And he fights me when I try to help him plan things out -- says "I'll do it later" but then later never comes, and it is 5 minutes tioll the bus, and he suddenly realizes he doesn't have enough time to finish the 20 minute project he has to do.
When it is time to do homework, he'll futz around for hours finishing a worksheet that should take him 10 minutes -- this is especially true if it is something that he perceives will be hard for him. the only thing that helps sometimes is drawing him a time chart with 15 minutes increments marks on it, and keeping track of what he's been doing all afternoon long.
His room is an absolute wreck. The thing is, I'm not much better than he is. I've somehow managed though to at least be motivated to be organized, to turn things in on time, and to get work done before pleasurable things (more or less).
So I need advice. I really am worried about the move to 4th grade. Everyone at his school tells me that the fourth grade teacher expects even more of kids than the third grade teacher does. While my child doesn't have a diagnosis of Executive Function Disorder or ADD or anything like that, I'm pretty sure he c ould have the diagnosis is we pursued it. But I really just want to help him improve so he isn't so frustrated and we aren't arguing all the time.
I am looking for ideas of things we can do over the summer that might help both of us get ready for next year. Any thoughts??
