Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional extreme procrastination and ADHD

In law school, I would watch tv and do my work (the mundane stuff like outlining, rewriting my notes and such). I would watch mostly mental chewing gum (the Felicity series was on back then - I would watch that... 90210 type series, etc) Like Dude, it paradoxically provided a distraction, which helped me focus on the task at hand.

We also would do study-groups, get together to outline, etc. that was nice 'cause it felt almost fun - social and someone would always get us back on track if we were chatting off-topic or procrastinating too much. Hope that helps a little. And good luck. I can tell I'll probably have the same problem with my guy when he is teen.

I agree with everyone who has pointed out that the cost-benefit analysis here may look strange to YOU, but it (on some level) makes perfect sense to the person procrastinating.

Yes, sometimes it's red-lining-- particularly if that is the ONLY way to introduce "challenge" into the activity...

but it's really tough to leverage a kid who is solely/mostly motivated intrinsically. I know. I have one of those.

She's still mostly "meh" about a LOT of what the school thinks is "important" or worth her time. It's not that I can see her investing heavily in alternative activities, necessarily, either. She's just not that interested in most stuff.

[Man, I cannot BELIEVE that I've actually voiced that to anyone, anywhere. Good thing she's HG+, or she'd be flunking out, with her level of intrinsic motivation to work on schoolwork. Half-hearted effort from an HG+ child is generally MORE than good enough for A's, just so you know... And no, I would NEVER admit that to any other group of parents. I realize this SOUNDS like Tiger Parenting-- but when you are adamantly, forcefully insisting on, er, well-- ~30-40% effort from your child, it's just... not.]

It's better than it used to be-- she has the discipline now to actually DO things that seem pointless, remedial, or stupid; this was most certainly NOT the case until she was about 12. Until then, it was me, applying the (metaphorical) whip as needed to make sure that she did ENOUGH to not tank her grades. Bad grades meant little to her, but being dropped back into less challenging coursework would have made the problem far, FAR worse...

That much was obvious to me.

She was impossible to punish or reward, effectively-- I could have sticker charts, rewards, etc... or even have her "just sit" with nothing to do all day rather than do a single page of too-simple math problems. It was THAT bad. She'd placidly daydream and nap-- like a giant cat. Her attitude about this was more or less--

{shrug} "Works for me, mom..."

Not exactly what I wanted. Once she dug in like that, there was NO moving her. None.

There's a reason her nickname was "Little Ghandi."


I second the recommendation for multi-tasking through low-level activities, and for making tedious ones SOCIAL in some way, if that works. I would not take activities/etc. away-- because that (at least IME) tends to fuel the spiral that Zen Scanner mentions. We've seen it.


Dude, Blackcat, and ZS's posts particularly resonated with me, having struggled with one of these low-motivation, (frankly) lazy kids for years...

It's partially autonomy, and it's partially something else. The trick is turning their powers to good and not letting them use the dark side. {ahem}

Those sounds like very typical ADHD behaviors to me (task avoidance and lack of task persistence). Obviously, you know your situation, but I would think that he cannot begin and persist not that he won't. Is it possible to get him an executive function coach - someone (other than you) who can sit with him and go over his various assignments and help him develop strategies to break them down into manageable pieces.

Procrastination has been a huge issue with my DS15. It was particularly bad in 6th grade. One thing we figured out was it NEVER worked to try and do homework as soon as he got home, or on Friday to leave the weekend free. If we did this then the entire time until bedtime, or the whole weekend was taken up with HIS homework. And more than half that time was him wasting time. Drove me up the wall and got old really really fast. And he never got anytime to do anything fun that way.

I have been working with him since 6th grade on estimating how long his homework will take, and then unless it's really necessary not starting homework until after dinner or late on Sunday. He works a lot better under a small amount of time pressure and the immediacy that the work is DUE the next day. This does mean breaking down larger projects into smaller chunks because those just can't be left to the last minute. Or when necessary if the work is particularly heavy starting earlier, but then we put a time limit on it.

The other thing we did is keep his homework area & his laptop in different locations. He is ONLY allowed on the laptop if his homework NEEDS the computer. He is much better at not getting distracted if his main form of distraction isn't even in the room. I do let my son listen to music while he works. And as a freshman in H.S. I do check on him every so often to make sure he is working.

I have been there. This isn't easy and it takes a lot of patience. But DS has improved a lot since 6th grade.

This board is so rewarding. You guys pick up the issue and examine every potential angle. Zen's thoughts on digging deeper on control and self-loathing strike me as closest to true for DS along with HK's point about age. DS did just turn 13. He is a "young" 13, not yet in puberty but the attitude is there. That may be a factor in the new secretive, underground aspect of his work resistance.

DS has struggled with school for so long that he completely loathes it at this point. He is also socially unhappy and has failed to make friends at the new school but had no real friends at his last school (there since K and no one will respond to his texts to keep in touch any more.)

Last night as he was slapping together his low quality poster with glue at the end of the evening, he said musingly, "You know, I did pretty well in 2nd grade. Do you remember that?" It tore my heart to hear him say that and think that was the last time he remembers being happy at school. OTOH, he is quite capable of saying something like that to produce exactly that sympathetic response to get out of trouble. He knows how troubled I am about his school unhappiness and uses that to manipulate me at times. Sigh.

DS just finished some more testing to explore other root causes for his continual and extreme academic struggles. The audiologist gave me an oral report of CAPD, written report to follow tomorrow, the speech pathologist found a mild expressive/receptive language disorder based on the CAPD and the optometrist found rather significant tracking and convergence issues. Perhaps these issues are part of the root of DS' desire to avoid all schoolwork? They certainly don't help anyway.

I don't think he is a perfectionist. I have one of those also. Perhaps there is an element of boredom with the easy work but he doesn't exactly dive headlong into the challenging stuff either. DS is a math kid but his lowest grade is his algebra, his most challenging subject. Baffling but I think the CAPD is playing a role in that grade.

He does struggle with task initiation and persistence. I think the background music idea is recommended for ADHD kids but I am not sure it would be good for CAPD. I will ask the audiologist tomorrow.

DS is also intrinsically motivated as well so if I let him do nothing he would happily go into a free fall/Xbox/Minecraft orgy from which I would just have to pick up the pieces ultimately. The bottom line seems to be that he is one of the kids with a pretty complex profile who has amazingly cognitively masked his problems with until now. I do think, Zen, that this coping struggle has taken its toll on him.

Thanks all for your thoughts. I will keep you posted.

I do like your idea of a reward system aquinas. I have talked to DS about it and he is interested too. He does find delayed gratification rewards to be hard to wrap his head around though.

DS did his math homework after school and kept trying to negotiate the number of problems he would have to do in one sitting. However, he stayed at the table and didn't make a huge fuss, so I praised him for being cooperative. First thing out of his mouth when I said that: "So does that mean I earned screen time?" I hear you on the Minecraft orgy. DS would play Minecraft or other similar games literally all day/every day if I let him. It makes me want to throw the computer out but then I would have nothing to motivate him and no reward to offer for actually doing work. I make him "earn" screen time, he doesn't get it for free. It's really the only thing that works with him. So if he reads a half hour, he can earn a half hour of screen time. If he does a household chore, same thing. He reads now, just for fun and doesn't do it anymore just to earn screen time. So with certain things, I think once it gets easier or they discover there is actual enjoyment involved in it, they don't need the external rewards anymore. He's 7 years old, though. I don't know about a 13 year old and what works with that age.

Glad those ideas were helpful. One reward mechanic could be a jar of positive affirmations that he pulls from whenever he feels he deserves it. He could also benefit from learning meditation as that can be a nice life skill that allows for deep introspection and sometimes reworking your own thought processes. I was thirteen when I sent away for the "Advanced Memory" booklet from the "Institute of Advanced Thinking" with my allowance from the back of Omni magazine.

this reminded me of a reward system I used for myself as a kid and do still sometimes use to get through some boring onerous task that requires attention. I'll get a bag of nuts (small bag, not going for breaking the scale) or a small number of something else I think is yummy. Break the task up into what I think are manageable 'mental bites' (2 problems, 6 lines of an essay, etc.) and after my prescribed amount of work is completed, I get to have a little bite of whatever.
I am sure this is not going to work for everyone, and I guess there could be concerns about setting up bad eating habits, but I dunno, for me it just seemed to work.

And yes, I am only a few pounds overweight.

I am curious if there are other micro-rewards like this that folks use; cigarettes come to mind, but that of course is verboten. I guess the mention of listening to music is like that for some people?

I used to do this for DS when he was in school and was having a hard time focusing on homework. We'd get those tubes of mini M&Ms, and I'd give him a few periodically while he was working.

I should try that again, now that we're homeschooling.

I do think it requires some self-discipline not to scarf down the entire bag midway through the task, which is another issue altogether.