Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Sloppy Work

Last year, we were very frustrated with the sloppiness of DS's work. His writing was sloppy, he'd answer questions wrong because he hadn't read them completely and he'd skip things without even answering at all. So, we required that his work every day be "Neat, complete and correct" -- in other words "perfect." Of course, we would not have required the "correct" piece if DS had ANY trouble understanding the concepts. His errors were completely because he would go through his work as fast as possible so he could get back to whatever book he was reading.

DS definitely has perfectionist issues we don't want to add to, so we stopped enforcing the "neat, complete and correct requirement." In addition, the work isn't challenging for him at all. So, I'm in a quandry here of how to handle things without furthering the perfectionism issues.

His work has become REALLY sloppy/incomplete this year. And it's not just his homework (which he tries to complete on the bus ride home so he can enjoy his leisure time when he gets here), but also his classwork. His teacher allows him to read once he's finished so I'm sure he's breezing through that, too. I don't want to have her take away the books because it's DS's escape.

So my question is what do you all require of your DC? I think it's disrespectful to hand in work that's difficult to read because of sloppiness, or to make the teacher have to check a paper twice because she had to give it back to the student to complete. He comes home with 2-5 worksheets daily from school that he just skipped over stuff on.

I have little hope that we can get much differentiation from the school at this point. It's not a public school so it's difficult to push them to accommodate.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Have you explained to him that it takes longer for him to sloppily do his work and then have to redo it more neatly than it does for him to do it neatly the first time? That would play on his desire to have more free time. The other thing I would think about is talking with his teacher about a trial period where she gives him more difficult work to see if this would persuade him to work more neatly. If the more challenging work is interesting to him, you could always tell him that if he wants to continue with the more interesting work he will have to show the teacher that he can do it neatly. And by neat I mean kid-neat not adult-neat.

When my DS "pencil whips" an assignment, I simply make him do it again. He's learned over time tha it's much quicker to do it right the first time. Ask the teacher for duplicates for his worksheets. If he doesn't do them right, hand him a new one and make him start over. Don't let him correct the original, but rather start back at the beginning. If he refuses to do the new one, let him know that there will be no reading, video, tv etc until it's done. Don't argue, just give him the rule, the new page and walk away.

It took a little time, but it worked for us.

We are in the midst of this, too, and I've been handling it the same way as mnmom and BWBShari - make him do it over and explain the rationale behind doing it well the first time.

The only thing I would add is to have your son take the first crack at deciding what is not up to snuff. My DS has always been surprisingly good at judging the quality of his own work, especially given that he seems to have no clue when he's actually in the process of doing it. So I try to tell him, with every sheet, to check it over for neatness, completeness and accuracy (funny that we use almost the exact same wording, Mama22Gs!).

He catches quite a bit, but sometimes it takes 2 or 3 tries before he catches everything I catch. I have stopped telling him how many errors I see, because then he isn't really examining everything and thinking for himself, so now I just tell him there are errors - and sometimes I don't even tell him that much. I am hoping to help him develop "an editor's eye" toward his own work, but it's a slow process.

Thanks very much for the replies.

I've been lax on the quality of his work this year particularly because it is not challenging to him at all. I was wondering whether folks here were requiring their kids to do their work "well" even if it is below their level.

Sounds like maybe I need to re-consider whether our "neat, complete and correct" checklist was so over-the-top after all. I've been reading so much about the perils of perfectionism that it seemed like we were making things worse with that.

I liked mnmom's comment that the work should be "kid neat." I think I can go with the flow if it's legible, complete and correct.

I've been realizing lately that, at least for my kid, the key to perfectionism is emotion. There's nothing wrong with noticing and correcting errors; it only becomes troublesome when anxiety, fear, self-doubt, etc. come on board.

So we've done a lot of talking - and continue to do so - about how making a mistake or being wrong or not knowing the answer in 0.6 seconds is all okay and does not have to hurt. This takes a *lot* of practice, and it's hard sometimes for me to purposely assign things I know he'll struggle with to the point of tears, but I have to keep reminding myself that now is the time to battle this dragon - not when he's alone at college.

My DD & I are going through the same thing. Many of her numbers look like other numbers because they are so sloppy.
Her 4's look 8?

Our game plan is
Number 1 any work that comes from school unreadable is redone
Number 2 She has to write her numbers Kindergarten style 5 times everyday after school until we start seeing improvement.

I think our biggest problem is that her school has pencil racer tasks every week which requires them to do math facts fast.
Having to write math fast every week has encouraged her sloppy habits.

I explained to Wolf that if other people can't read it or if it is wrong because he rushed it and was sloppy (as opposed to not understanding etc...) then other people won't think that he understand the concepts. What that boils down to at our house since we do independent study is that he has to do more of the same work till he shows competence. It's not just about KNOWING how to do something with homework and schoolwork you have to SHOW THAT YOU KNOW and that means legible and no sloppy mistakes.

You can KNOW how to do brain surgery, but if you are sloppy about it and rush through it the results can be disasterous. Sort of an amusing analogy.

That was very funny Wyldkat! I will be borrowing that in the future-

Last night DS9 had Math homework. I'm pretty sure the answers were fine - I didn't check, but the whole thing was SO messy. His has an agenda to be signed each night for homework, so I simply said that it was his work, and his responsibility. If he wanted to hand it in like that, it was up to him, but that I wasn't about to sign my name. I think making him take responsibility helps. He wasn't happy, but that was enough to motivate him to re-write it.

We do the same. I don't push for correct answers as much as I push for neat work and good behavior in class (another issue for us when DS6 is bored). When he takes his time, he writes better than I do! And my DS is obviously young, but he gets frustrated when I can't read something he wrote, so that helps keep him a bit neater... of course, he still tries cramming words into the margins and/or on the last (non) line of a page.

I like that BonusMom... I struggled in college with perfectionism (still do), and that is my approach with DS. Tackle it NOW before it's worse. He still gets quite upset over things he "can't" do, but he's understanding that he's not always going to make the correct choices and/or be the best at everything. And that is a-ok.

Wow, reading these comments, I am too lax with DS! If it is legible, even if barely, I let it go. I keep thinking, does it really matter? I'm assuming he will be typing everything in time. And I personally (as I have mentioned before) have horrible handwriting...I squish things onto the non-existent last line and up the side rather than grabbing another sheet. I'm a very bad role model. But I like the suggestion of having a second sheet sent home to re-do if not neat enough...better than erasing and re-doing. And of course, NOW is better than later in stopping bad habits. Argh. Nan

I think it does matter. Not just in the direct sense of whether or not I can read it, but in reminding ds that homeschooling is not a cheap lazy way to do school, where you can turn in any kind of crap because it's Mom.
If anything, my standards are higher than those in his school classes. I know what his best work looks like, and I want to see it-- and that includes handwriting (and ds is a lefty, so I really don't expect beautiful Victorian script, but still...)

I was just helping out in my child's class yesterday and this issue came up with several students. Their writing was sloppy at best and when they made a mistake they either just wrote the right answer on top of the wrong one or they barely erased the wrong answer before writing on top of it. As I told them, if the teacher can't read the answer, he/she will mark it wrong whether they actually knew the correct answer or not. It's not just good enough to know the right answer, you have to *show* that you know the right answer. Is that fair? Maybe not. But school, for right or wrong, is in part about jumping through hoops and learning to live within the rules. Of course, this only works for kids who care if their teacher thinks they know the answer . . .

I don't worry much about my children's handwriting, because when they are in college or on the job they will communicate by email or by hard copies of computer files. I am more concerned with grammar and spelling, for which computers provide no automatic fix.

I'm a guy. I think women generally have better handwriting than men and care about it more, not that this difference proves that they are right or wrong to do so.

Do any of your kids have dysgraphia? I struggle with this all of the time. The physical act of writing is very hard for my DS8 right now, and he dislikes it because it actually hurts - I am never quite sure of how much to push vs. how much to just let him get something on paper because he tries to avoid it so much. But what is typically bad becomes much worse when he rushes.

I seem to recall some research that suggests that up until 9 or 10 the fine motor skills may just not be developed, and to just go with it. Not sure when that stops or at what point you just say "get it right." I do agree with Bostonian that any grammer errors, etc. should be fixed. And my son is not a great speller - I am trying to teach him to grab a dictionary, which is a hard sell (he is an excellent reader so can see when a word is mispelled, but has a v. hard time figuring out the correct spelling. I had the same problem., and learned about 4th grade to keep a dictionary close at all times - but this doesn't help on timed spelling tests).

Cat

My boy has the teachers exasoerated because he can do the math yet he
a. doesn't read the questions properly
b. is careless

As a result his grades are rubbish!

He is just about to start his final year in junior school and he has exams to pass to progress - and the high school is really suited to his needs. They are not going to admit him unless there is a vast improvement.

I am thinking of getting maths questions and going over, and over, and over....not to have him do them but to find out what he thinks they are asking him for.

I think I'll start another thread for suggestions/help