It has been a smooth start to the school year for my son, but I don't want to start celebrating too soon as he has only had one full week of school so far. As it stands now, when my son comes home from school, I ask him his plan for his homework, which he begins 45 minutes after he walks in the door. As usual, he is almost completely independent with Math, Science and Social Studies. His biggest challenges are Spanish and Language Arts, and thus far he has done his work for those classes with minimal assistance from me, that assistance primarily being that he runs all of his answers by me before he writes them down in those subjects. Additionally, I am reading the chapters of the book he is reading in LA (the current book is The Pearl by Steinbeck, one of my favorites) so I can understand his answers. The question now is how to move him away from having to process his answers aloud with me before writing them, to having him write his answers and proof them himself.
This week I listened to the ADDitude magazine podcast "How to Stop Hovering," by Peg Dawson, the co-author of the "Smart but Scattered" book series. Dawson recognizes the unique challenge for parents of children with ADHD, i.e., not letting children fail (because, she says, children with ADHD often do not learn or benefit from failure), yet not providing so much help that a child does not internalize the skills necessary for homework autonomy. The key is providing scaffolding and supports that are taken away gradually as the child moves towards independence.
An example of scaffolding is the to do list. Dawson says that one of the issues with children with ADHD is that they think their working memory is a lot better than it actually is; in reality, they can't keep all that they have to do in their heads despite their insistence that they can. Unfortunately, children often don't want to take the time to write a to do list either. Dawson suggests that parents start by writing the list for their child, and then transition to writing it together with their child, until finally the child is able to write the list on his own.
As for me, I may start by using a blank weekly calendar with my son, which is something I use for myself. We can write down what he says he is going to do each day of the week towards tests and long-term projects (such as time studying for a quiz at the end of the week) and he can check each item off as he gets it done. At least it is one more step towards independence, which means independence for him and for me!
