Did you do anything in particular to survive the "tomato staking" days?
I learned to be calmer than I usually am, to take deep breaths and to keep our long term goal in perspective (i.e. moving to a better school). I also reviewed the weekly lesson plans, test schedules, book report requirements and systematically went through what was needed to be done each evening and asked DS to repeat verbally to me what he needed to do (spelling list first, math homework next, science worksheet after that etc.) and then begin working. For him, the main problem was that he did not know how to estimate the time and effort needed for homework - I guess that it is part of the EF development curve - the verbal reinforcement of the task list made him remember better, not loose focus, not be surprised that he had another thing to do when he thought that he had finished and to be on time. A big clock in his work area with reminders like "it is 5:45pm, we need to finish each item in 15 minutes, that means that we have around 45 minutes for 3 items which will bring us to 6:30 pm" helped a lot.
