Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional extreme procrastination and ADHD

My HG, ADHD DS13 has entered into an all out guerrilla war against school and homework that involves huge amounts of procrastination and disinformation. He literally WILL NOT do ANY work unless I am directly watching him. If I leave for the store, make dinner, wash dishes, take DD to a birthday party or go to the bathroom all work ceases. He will tell me he has finished work that he simply plans to finish tomorrow, tell me assignment due dates have changed (which they actually have, sometimes) or tell me whatever he needs to say to be "done."

When he is "working" he is often surreptitiously googling items of interest instead of his assignment. He will literally sit and pretend to work for several hours on an assignment that should take 2 hours at most. He is so quick and such an expert at hiding his distractions on the computer that it is difficult to catch him unless I have direct eyes on his screen. DS would rather sacrifice his whole Saturday doing nothing and pretending to work than do the 2 hours of easy work he dislikes (research and design a Powerpoint explaining baseball) than actually do the work and have most of the day free.

He has a poster due tomorrow that he didn't start until this evening, telling me that he just had to "put it together." But no, his preliminary research sheet was poorly done, turned in late and handwritten for a 72 so he had to redo that assignment to even start the poster. When I asked him why such an easy assignment was late and not typed he told me that he "thought he could do it before class at school."

We have been over and over losing all his free time to procrastination, his inability to do homework at school on the day it's due, taking away privileges, the opportunity to score easy As on easy assignments, every positive and negative I can think of. I have rewarded good grades (rare) and punished bad grades for poor work. We have talked and talked and talked. Why do you do this? Do you see how you are ruining all your free time? Don't you want free time? You know you're only hurting yourself, right?

I have posted before about DS' lying which continues apace. If he wants to avoid an assignment, he lies. Simple as that. The assignments aren't all difficult or unpleasant. Some are hard and some are quite easy. We switched DS to a school that supports LD students in September. The move made a difference for a while but DS has slid back into complete intransigence about doing schoolwork.

I am out of patience with being the assignment police but he will not do anything without intervention. In response this disaster weekend of dissimulation and procrastination, I am installing spyware and making him do all computer work displayed on the Apple TV. At this point due to last disaster weekend and disaster grades, he has lost all technology privileges, his phone and his Xbox to no avail but I can't completely suspend computer privileges because he is dysgraphic.

The loss of digital privacy seems to have made a deeply unfavorable impression but I am not sure that even that will be enough. What can motivate an ADHD kid who has decided to go on strike from school? He has experienced plenty of failure too. That doesn't affect him in the least. Any suggestions?

I'm not so sure that this is entirely attributable to ADHD.

My DD did this when she was 8-11yo, too.

In her case, it was simply that there was more reward in NOT doing as she was told than in doing what she WAS being forced to do. Simple as that. Avoidance > working. Period.

Not hard to see that when you translate that power struggle into
Parents vs. Child in autonomy, it's also not going anywhere good.

She just shrugged about consequences. Literally.

You'll have to keep the spyware up, I am afraid. And grit your teeth as much as it takes. They eventually figure it out, but it's a rocky road until then.

When was the last time your son had a whole day to do as he pleased without school work? Maybe it's worth reminding him of the opportunity cost of procrastination by offering a particularly exciting and enticing day as a source of motivation for slogging through the busywork. You've likely already done this, but if he's responsive, you could create a reward system whereby he earns a day of exciting activities on the weekend if he can finish all the drudgery during the week.

As HK says, it's a question of incentives. You can certainly go the penalty route for noncompliance, but leaning on the organizational psychology literature, you're more likely to achieve compliance by offering a bigger, better carrot for success. In your shoes, I'd choose a day with few consequences for missed work and just seize the day for fun.

What happens if you do nothing? What is the worst case scenario? He fails and has to repeat? He gets kicked out of school? Enforcing homework is really not your job.

I just heard an interesting talk where the speaker mentioned that when we hear the words 'get tough' that is usually a red flag to dig deeper. It perhaps means that we don't actually understand the underlying factors --- he was referring to countries and diplomacy but I wondered if this also applies to parenting.

Your ds needs to do the work, but otoh, digging deeper might help you get to a solution on motivation more quickly. I imagine you've been trying to get to the bottom of the issue, but I would not stop trying even if imposing new limits on your ds are showing some progress.
Is there an issue with friends, bullies, girls? teachers? the school admins? the material? and so on. Does he feel distracted or is his adhd under control? if that is substantially eliminated from this problem, other more common issues may become more obvious.
Is he just trying to spend more time with you? (crazy I know, but possible). How is his emotional state? does he otherwise seem happy?

Best of luck to you.

I'd definitely go with the dig deeper idea.

Is he being intellectually challenged? Are there issues at the new school? Bullies?

It could be a sign of needing more personal control.

It could be a type of self-destructive behavior, where a low sense of self worth gets reinforced through procratination and the ensuing negative consequences. Depression and self hate are on this path.

It could be a thrill seeking behavior, such that doing something at the last minute is exciting. The more drastic the consequences the more exciting the challenge.

I wonder if a psychologist/therapist would be able to help. Maybe he would be willing to share with the psych why he is doing what he is doing, and the psych could also give you strategies for dealing with it.

Some kids seem to have very little intrinsic motivation, and I'm not sure why this is. I have a 7 and 8 year old. The 8 year old has diagnosed ADHD but the 7 year old is the truly lazy one. He does not do certain things just to feel good about himself or make his life easier, or even get praise or make people happy. He has to get something else out of it. You should have seen the drama involved in getting him to clean his room yesterday. So far at school he is cooperative and well-behaved but I don't know how long it will last. I may be in your shoes in another 6 years or so.

A couple of thoughts:

Just because an assignment is "easy" doesn't mean that a kid will fly through it. In fact, for DS8 it is often the easy stuff that he finds the hardest to get done. Recent example: he balked at doing math problems like (1/4) / (1/3), but was excited about doing (1/4!) / (1/3!).

Is it possible your son is a perfectionist? I sometimes procrastinate because of this. I worry that the work I will do won't be up to my high standards, and so I avoid doing it at all until the last minute. It also takes me a long time to make decisions, and so "easy" projects can take an unreasonable length of time to complete. (For example, we haven't had our house painted in years: what color? what kind of paint? whom should we hire to do the work? what time of year is best? etc. I strongly suspect an NT household would have just done it. Me, I worry I'll regret one or more of my decisions, so I put off making any decisions. Maybe I should be researching house paint right now, but instead I am responding to forum posts!)

None of this is advice, but just know that if there are other underlying issues, like perfectionism, offering rewards and punishments probably won't help much.

Well said!

These resources have been posted on other threads, but in case the OP may not be familiar with them... There are books which 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 pre-read and decide if a resource may be a helpful tool for their child. For example, one 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 many like is Perfectionism: What's Bad About Being Too Good. Here is an article from the Davidson Database, Interview with Thomas Greenspon on Perfectionsim.

Some good thoughts so far, so I'll just add one more to the mix. What if the problem isn't ADHD? What if doing the work itself is so unpleasant to him that he'd rather face negative consequences (or at least take his chances, because sometimes he gets away without them)?

This is something I've frequently experienced (even as an adult), where the task is mundane, I see little or no value in it, nor receive any sense of joy/accomplishment, but it's taking up a lot of my time and effort. One coping mechanism is to escape into daydreaming or deep thought, which works great for tasks that don't involve a lot of brain power, like washing dishes or cutting grass. But when the task also requires a significant amount of concentration, there's no such escape.

In these situations, a very effective strategy is to play some music. It paradoxically provides a distraction, which helps me focus on the task at hand. In my idle brain moments I'm not thinking about how much I hate the task at hand, I'm listening to the music instead. It also helps to alter my mood from one of negativity.

These days I'd also drink coffee, or if working on something at home, nurse a beer or two through the effort. I don't recommend either of those to a 13yo boy, but the idea is to provide some source of pleasure to offset the sense of dread at doing an unpleasant task.