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?
