Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional ADD/EF: where would you put your money?

In my estimation, that is an entirely valid concern. We've run into this again and again over the years. Many people say that they know what "highly gifted" looks like, and most people probably have some notion of "prodigy" = "profoundly gifted" and envision really extraordinary prodigies featured in the media... but few people have direct experience with kids just below that prodigy level.


Honestly? I impose punishments for refusals like that. My JOB as DD's parent is to be just intrusive enough to set her back on the trail when she wanders. She's prone to wandering-- so it's MY job to check in on her progress whether she wants me to or not.

DH and I establish "this is unacceptable" and we are judge and jury there. The school's demands are almost irrelevant, because they are generally so mediocre/low. We do NOT want our DD 'sliding' into that kind of thinking about her own behavior and performance. She also has this weird disconnect between her effort and the results, in part because of that school-based rubric which often finds mediocre work "just fine," and allows multiple revisions/retakes of things. We only permit that when we feel that she has put forth some effort to do well... the first time around.

That said, when we tell her "this is unacceptable" for some reason, we DO seek her input into what to DO about the problem, and frequently into "what happened here to cause this outcome?"

That part of things is where buy-in has to happen, we've found. She will refuse to implement MY plan or her dad's.


For example-- I showed her how to use the Cornell method for notetaking, showed her a few other ways to take notes, and then told her that she could CHOOSE any method that seemed to work for her-- or use a variety of methods in different subjects, whatever. But-- that she HAD to be taking written notes in her class notebooks, and that I would spot check them. If she refuses to show me her notes, I make her take new ones. No muss, no fuss... but I'm not going to allow her to decide whether or not she can "self-regulate" there without making her prove it to me. This is the second step in our scaffolding for that behavior. Certain kinds of free time/leisure activities are dependent upon compliance with my directives re: study skills training.

I also nag her to enter events/activities into her calendar. I don't do it for her-- but I do insist that SHE do it.

Are you having to follow her around to verify that she's doing what she should? I am, honestly, just very tired. I'm working two p-t jobs, my dh is gone all the time and working weird hours when he is here so he goes to sleep before kids even start homework and leaves at 3 a.m, we have pets, a house, and I am juggling the schedules of six other people at my primary job to make sure that I don't put anyone into overtime.

If I tell dd that she cannot watch TV or needs to practice cello or take notes or whatever, if I don't actually stay in the same room as her and verify that she is doing or not doing what I told her, it doesn't happen. I am just feeling so wiped out that I don't have the emotional energy to nag her or spend all of my time in the same room as her monitoring that she is doing what she should be.

I'm really not trying to be lazy and realize that parenting involves more than just telling a kid to do something and expecting that it will happen. I totally attachment parented when they were little. I am just done and need her to pick some of it up and she is just pushing the limits and asking more of me than I have to give right now.

Oh wow. I totally understand.

Totally get that. And it makes the tired worse, IMO, when the person you're parenting doesn't have age-appropriate EF skills. Because you've been doing it all for them longer than most parents would have to. BTDT.

I would suggest two ideas:
--get help. Your own oxygen mask first. Can you get someone in there to help you manage things? This can be anything from dog-walker on up to a friendly college-age EF and homework mentor.

--having the frank conversation where you let DD know that something has to change, and it's going to take effort on her part. In a family, it's not fair when one person gets worn down if others could be picking up the slack. Now, she may not have all the skills to pick up the slack, yet, but you can make clear that something has to change (and pick one or two things to change that would really help).

It's hard with a teen-- but I think I would still lay out choices and have her choose the most preferable. For example: Does she want to revisit the medication issue (and the meds have come a long way; a good doctor can manage the weight and other issues) or see the educational therapist as a first line? Or whichever two choices you find most likely to work for your family. Point being, what you have going isn't working, and maybe being part of the solution would help her buy in?

(I would also ask whether she may be clinically depressed.)

Hang in there,
DeeDee

Cricket it's such a hard place to be, I know just how tired and stressed you are.

With the reading issues, I am wondering if its more an irlen /scoptic sensitivity issue? I know very little about this but my understanding is that while colored glasses don't help most dyslexics (whose problems are more auditory/phonetic/phonemic) that for the percentage that do have these issues they make a huge difference.

I also agree it sounds like you need a fresh evaluation - but with a wrll behaved, highly gifted girl, who isn't failing obviously, you're going to have to find just the right person for it not to be a wildly frustrating waste of money. There isn't anyone where I live that's for sure (not that this I relevant to you).

Me, too.

And yes, my DD pushes the same boundaries-- frequently.

It wasn't until one parent (my DH) became completely disabled for a period of several months last year that she was sort of shocked into really putting forth any effort to do the right things even when I'm not watching over her. I totally lost it with her one afternoon when she had spent the day playing flash games instead of writing up an essay-- while I spent time dreadfully worried and discussing neurosurgical options and potential risks.

I told her in no uncertain terms that she was making my life HARDER than it needed to be, and I couldn't take it any more. She owed me better. I couldn't take care of my OTHER responsibilities if I had to be sheepdogging HER.

(Yes, I know-- probably not fair to dump that on a 12yo, PG or not. But that kind of filial duty and responsibility doesn't seem to have done the children of yesteryear so much harm, I figure...)

I guess that the major problems are erratic grades (there have been points where they drop very low and she gets them back up with a lot of support from me and second chances from teachers; I can't do this forever & her teachers won't always be so nice. This is in classes like PE too so it isn't just challenging stuff; she's blown memorization tests on things like health in PE), major issues with paying attention to detail which leads to missed questions on tests, not turning in homework (it doesn't count in middle school toward grades but it will on high school), and poor study skills.

While she may be getting by okay with all of this in middle school, I am pretty sure that these issues will be larger problems in high school. Dh described the same memory issues that dd has in college himself (and still), so they weren't outgrown in his instance.

FWIW, I'm as confident as I can be that she isn't clinically depressed. She is rather unmotivated however and comes across as seriously lazy.

Have you seen the thread 'Neurofeedback for ADD - week 2 and hopeful'?

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/134078/5.html

There are some posts there with positive experiences re. ADD-neurofeedback.

Also note the AAP evidence-based interventions chart link.

These all sound so much like my dd9 who has an significant weakness relative to her other strengths that impacts her ability to read - she's not dyslexic (and scores really high on phonemics-related type tests)... but she has an issue with relating sound-to-symbols... anyway, not saying that your dd has the same challenge at all, but the notes about suspected dyslexia etc combined with the paragraph above make me wonder if an eval with a reading specialist might be helpful (these are usually *much* less expensive than neuropsych evals - my dd has had 2, both cost us around $250, included a ton of different skill-specific reading tests, and gave us very specific information about what kind of program would be helpful to bolster up the weak skill set.

Another thing you might ask about (if you haven't already) is just a one-hour update with your neuropsych for just *you* - where you bring in a list of what's happening now and the concerns/questions you have, and pick the np's brain over what might be going on based on the previous eval. We've done that for our ds13 when new issues have come up and it's been helpful.

Re the forgetting to turn in homework, ds13 used to have THE toughest time with this - he was very conscientious about completing all his homework and doing it well, we both verified that it went into his backpack every night to be turned in the next day and then poof! It disappeared forever before it reached the teacher's in box. I am still not sure *what* the issue was - but think it was a combination of him just not being able to remember more than one-two things at a time in a busy moment (and at the time he was losing his homework there was a lot of busy-ness in his classroom - he was still in 5th grade, supposed to turn in the homework in a basket in the morning, as he came in, also supposed to put away everything in his cubby, get out his morning journal, and complete a writing or math prompt from the board. That was at least one too many things for him to remember independently with his level of EF skills. The next year was his first year of middle school and with different teachers and he still lost homework in all but one class - and in that class, the teacher assigned something every day, had the assignment always written on the board (she kept them up all week), and she also had a system of sending home a notice for parents to sign if the day's homework wasn't turned in. That extremely consistent system that never varied helped him figure out how to turn in his homework to her - which he was able to do well - and eventually helped him improve in other classes that were not following a rigid structure. The other thing that has helped him with organizational skills during middle school is me staying on top of it *with* him. It's still his responsibility, but for the entire first year of middle school, every day when I picked him up I asked him to go through his entire day with me, tell me what he did in each class and what his homework for that class was (if any). I also checked his locker with him every day for the first semester to be sure he was bringing home all the books etc he needed to do his homework. He didn't particularly like it, and his teachers thought it was excessive of me as a parent to do that... but the repetition worked and by the end of the year he was remembering to bring home all his books and he was consistently turning in his homework and was overall just more aware of what he needed to do. We still go through his day at the end of each day (I actually make my non-challenged kids do this too - I like hearing about their days :)), but I no longer check his backpack in the mornings to be sure he has everything and I no longer have to do the locker check because he remembers to double-check and bring home what he needs. He does occasionally slip on turning in homework, and it's helped that at his school the teachers are required to send around progress reports that list missing assignments at least once a month - this way if I see he's missing assignments he has a chance to make them up plus I can temporarily step up the mom-supervising for awhile until he gets back on track. I realize this is way more "being involved" than most parents do at this age, but it's support he needs now for weak EF skills which, from everything I've read online re other parents of kids who've been through this, will help reinforce and build the skills so that they will eventually become automatic enough for him that he can be independent. I got the idea originally from reading about a mom who had hired a college student to pick up her child after school and do those same things - go through his list of classes, list out the homework assignments with him, and do the locker check. In her case, the college student picked her son up and did this for 2-3 years during early high school, but by his senior year he was independently doing all of it and no longer needed the extra help. But that's another potentially not-terribly expensive option for helping out when you've got so many things on your plate already.

I hope it doesn't sound like I've actually got answers or anything -just trying to throw out some ideas. I think all of us who are 2e parents here can empathize with what a tough situation this is - especially when you're parenting a teen and trying to figure out whether a behavior is due to 2e-ness or due to being, well, a teen.

Hang in there!

polarbear

Polarbear, what is a reading specialist & how do you find one?

Regarding checking back in with the last neuropsych who tested dd, unfortunately that isn't an option b/c she was very unhelpful. She wrote into her report comparisons to our other dd (she had asked for family history), stated that dd's needs weren't that atypical despite numerous ceiling scores on IQ & said that dd shouldn't be placed in GT classes b/c she doesn't like to stand out, stated that there were no LDs despite things like first quartile scores on reading speed on the GORT and all other parts of that test being in the 4th quartile as well as wildly varied scores throughout all other tests, and stated that all problems were due to parental pressure.