Mom of a middle schooler, feeling helpless! Advice please!

bopper I wish I had written your post- you made the point I wanted to make so concisely…it seems he is not being properly accommodated.

@bluering – a combination of meds plus counseling, and the passage of time, did wonders for my son.

Such thoughtful and kind advice. While I don’t agree with everything that has been said, all the information has been provided with love and kindness from parents who have been there. Man, if only politics were like this thread—, people giving their opinions in a thoughtful manner and others adding their own comments as well—we’d be in a better place.

Coming in late, but once you find out what else might be going on with you child, you might want to read “The Organized Student” by Donna Goldberg, which provides much practical advice on both school and home study systems. Wishing you well.

Thanks for more great responses. We just had a 504 meeting last Monday. I left his accommodations alone because I thought they were sufficient, but now I’m thinking I should have asked what others were possible. He gets extended time on tests, preferential seating and frequent reminders to stay on task. His teachers all allow all students to finish classwork at home if they don’t finish it in class. I just wish they could take a second to remind him to take home work to finish it, but that might be too much to ask when there are 23 other kids in the class they have to worry about. He had a project on Egypt due today. It wasn’t even that big a project, just an essay with a visual aid of his choice. It was like pulling teeth to get him to get it done over the weekend. The bike is off the table for now. I finally accepted that he just doesn’t belong in advanced classes. He is gifted (135), but doesn’t have the drive to be in advanced class. He got pretty upset when I mentioned asking his school to move him into regular ed classes. He’d have the same teachers, just in a different order and with different classmates. I’m still feeling helpless. I wish I had just asked his psychiatrist to up his dose instead of letting her ask him how he felt. The comments from his teachers on the conference form all said things like “Parker is capable, but he is frequently distracted, off task and unmotivated to complete his work.” I’m still feeling pretty helpless, but I might request another 504 meeting and am going to buy him one of the accordion files that another poster suggested.

Six years ago I could have written this post. My son was close to the top of his class in fifth grade…and yes has ADHD. Three elementary schools feed into one middle school. We had no idea that anything was wrong until our 3 minute (yes 3 minutes) conference with the team teachers. First quarter fine. Second quarter…by 2/3 of the way through he had almost all F’s including a 29 in math. Yet no teacher saw any need to let us know. (No grade portal.) So they put him in an Executive Function class which to him felt like punishment. What we learned was that every boy from his 5th grade class was in it as well…his teacher had done nothing to get these kids ready for middle school executive function skills.

Keep pushing at school to get accommodations built into his 504 and then stay on top of it. You have a lot of work ahead of you…I can’t lie…but it will be worth it. Your son is worth it. Just make sure you stay on his side…even when he is fighting back.

Godspeed.

You may accept that he doesn’t belong in advanced classes but you may not be right.

His brain doesn’t work like yours does. That doesn’t mean he’s going to find the regular track classes stimulating or interesting.

I don’t see any evidence of a problem with his drive btw. And I bet if you’d asked him to do a project on the history of the roller coaster he’d have done a bang up job.

I think the physicians AND the school AND the family AND your son all need to get on the same page here. I say this with love- you are all over the map, and if you think buying an accordion file is going to fix his brain chemistry, you are wrong.

The goal is not to make your kid hate school which seems to be the path you’re heading towards.

Talk to the doctor. Do not get railroaded by a school which agrees to accommodations but can’t remind EVERY kid (not just yours) that unfinished work goes home every night to be completed. You are not asking for much here- and I doubt he’s the only kid that needs reminding.

Agree the bike needs to wait a bit though…

I get it. I really do. Sorry the “bribe” didn’t work. Sometimes it does. Worth a try.

I’m not sure though that putting your gifted kid into regular classes would make a difference. It may very well make things worse. He’s gifted with a problem. And the problem is not that the classes are too difficult. He’s capable from what you say.

A new problem of being bored (or even more bored than he already is) and then low self esteem on top of that could be worse. If he doesn’t want to go into a lower class listen to him. Maybe he actually needs higher expectations rather than lower

" He had a project on Egypt due today. It wasn’t even that big a project, just an essay with a visual aid of his choice. It was like pulling teeth to get him to get it done over the weekend."

I don’t know what the project was but I can relate. Way too many assignments have no ties to present day or are not made clear as to what the learning purpose is supposed to be. Sometimes it’s simply answering the question about "why do we even care about Egypt? Where is Egypt? What did they ever do for us (lol)?

Way too many classes have a “busy work” component that simply doesn’t register.
The extra “art” component or having to compete in some contest, or just assignments that don’t seem to have any purpose make it worse.

Only you know your kid and the school --but I do know for myself that “doing dishes, ironing, washing clothes and vacuuming” (all necessary) are super easy to do. Just do it and be done! No brain power, no nothing! And I’ll do anything to NOT do them. It’s dull, repetitive and boring. And no satisfaction whatsoever… I never saw the value in dusting as a kid.
Some kids don’t see the value in busy work–and honestly --at least housework has some purpose to it as much as I hate it…

Take a look at the book “That crumpled piece of paper was due last week.”

Great strategies (which all take some discipline ) as well as great rationale for doing it. And great explanations of different ways to procrastinate.

Finding and adhering to a system that works is hard – and continues into adulthood. But not finding one is soooo stressful.

Do you think he’s learning, despite not doing the work? Does he focus at home, on home tasks? Is it possible that, gifted, the process in class bores him?

Agree with everyone that moving a 135 IQ kid into regular classes is going to make the problem worse, not better. He CAN do the work, he just can’t find the motivation. Less interest → less motivation. It’s that simple.
Yes, it’s not too much to ask to have „make sure kid takes incomplete work home to complete it“ included in his 504. That’s the point - he needs reminders that others don’t need.
There is not much beyond that that you can do as far as school is concerned, because you are not there, but you are there at home.
Motivate him. Find his currency. I have found that screen time works wonders for one kid, snacks for another. A half hour work (don’t make completion a condition, just sitting down and doing the work) earns him half an hour of screentime. Make him stop work, then make him stop screen time and make him sit back at the table. Another half hour.
It’s incredibly hard work for the parent. But he doesn’t currently have the frontal and parietal frontal lobes to do the work for him, so you need to use yours to do it for him. If he fights you on it, remind him that the school will eventually kick him out of the gifted program (I assume).
And try out upping his meds.

Does he take his medicine regularly? Do you monitor that?

Are you able to look at other schools? Are there any private schools in your area that might be a better fit? Everyone has given you great advice. Hang in there and good luck.

He does take his meds every morning. I give them to him as we’re getting ready. If I forget, he reminds me. He says he likes the way they help him, and doesn’t like how often he gets in trouble when he doesn’t take them. I just think that the dose needs to be upped. Changing schools is an option, but I hate to do that this far into the year.

His grades are slowly going up as his teachers enter new grades. His history grade is now up from an F to a C after she entered in some makeup work that he did. His science grade went up from a B to an A. His math and ELA grades are still Fs, but there haven’t been any tests entered for math (worth 45%) so a good test score could make a big difference there. After working on some makeup work with him the other night, he seems to understand the work. He even corrected me a couple of times when I was trying to work stuff out. ELA is a little harder since tests are worth 60% of the grade and he’s already had 2 test grades entered and failed both of them. She said in the comments for both that he could do grade recovery, but that’s something that she does in class and I have no idea what it entails. He can still save the grade though.

I just ordered “Crumpled Paper” and found an audio book that I downloaded on Audible called “He’s Not Lazy” by Dr. Adam Price. I’ll start listening to it on my drive home.

As far as the Egypt project goes, he was very interested in the content. For his topic, he was to choose 3 famous pharaohs and find out when they lived and what they did to impact Egypt. He did a Google slide show for his visual aid. He loved seeing the pictures of the mummies, tombs, death masks, contents of the tombs and all. He liked hearing about what they Egyptians believed about the pharaohs and was asking questions like “Did the pharaohs think they were gods or did they know they weren’t really gods?” He was grossed out when he read the Tutankhamun was married to his half sister and that a lot of them married within families in order to continue the dynasties. He also liked making the slide show and showing me what he could do on the program (effects and all).

It was just getting him to make notes from the websites about what he read and actually write the essay that was like pulling teeth. He sat and read a website for about 20 minutes without writing a single thing down. So, the topic was interesting to him, but doing the project was not. I feel him though. In humanities class, I loved seeing the old art and learning about the artists and what they were trying to express with their art. I did not want to memorize all of the details and be tested on it though.

@GatorGrad2016 I don’t have any experience with this, but a couple of things jumped out at me in your description of the Egypt project.

Could he have a problem with dysgraphia, so that his brain is functioning much quicker than his physical writing? Instead of taking notes, what about highlighting relevant parts? Or instead of a note, bullet points with just a word or 2? Instead of writing the essay, what about dictating it?

About the essay, has he been taught how to write an essay? I’m just wondering if he was shying away from that part of the assignment because his skills in this area are weak. I remember when my D first started writing essays the kids were given a formulaic template…first paragraph is the intro with 3 sentences, last paragraph is the conclusion with sentence 1 being X and sentence 3 being Z, etc. After mastering the template they moved forward with better writing. I’m wondering if your S had that template in front of him and treated it as just plugging in the information, whether that might get the work flowing a bit better. Particularly if he could orally provide the information rather than writing it.

Sorry if this isn’t helpful.

6th grade was a huge shift for my younger son as well. In many ways it was a lost year, and one i’d rather forget. Like your son, he was tested as both gifted and dx with ADHD. As others have stated, these issues often present later in ‘gifted’ kids.

Medication zapped my son of all motivation and put him into a depression. After cycling through numerous meds and similar results at the lowest doses, we took him off medication and sought out an expert in LD’s in bright kids to either confirm the ADHD diagnosis or delve deeper into his learning issues. (edited to add that my understanding is that puberty can also impact the efficacy of meds). I am thankful we did. LD’s present differently in gifted students. While the process took quite a while to work our way through, at the end of 7th grade we did find our son had both dysgraphia and an auditory processing issue. His ADHD dx was removed. Once we were able to really understand his issues, things started turning around.

I understand that private testing is expensive, but I think it is vitally important to pursue testing with someone experienced in how ld’s present in gifted students. If there are additional issues, you will have the time to get him support and get on track for high school. I would not worry about his placement in advanced classes just now. He can always ‘catch up’ or move ahead once you have a handle on what is going on.

I’m sorry you are experiencing this. It is hard as a parent to see our kids struggle.

He has been taught how to write an essay, and has demonstrated that he knows how. He just hates to do it and hates to read, so he avoids it at all costs.

Middle school Special Ed teacher here, and I also have a son with ADD.

First, I would definitely go back to the dr’s with the teacher reports and discuss the medication being upped. For sure puberty and growth and just time can make meds ineffective. I would also see about executive functioning classes. There are groups that meet and discuss ways and strategies to implement to help students become more independent learners. Cost can be prohibitive, but it might be worth looking into!

Second, with essays-can you scribe for him? Have him text to type? Google Read and Write is an extension for google that does a really good job of dictation, not sure how much it costs, but a lot of the voice software has gotten really good. If he is staring at a blank piece of paper a sentence starter might help, too. Did he use a graphic organizer for the notes? These are also some things that might help for 504 accommodations.

I don’t think you are asking too much to have him reminded to bring home unfinished work. While he’s learning these executive functioning skills he is going to need reminders to write in agenda books, to bring things home, etc. Do you have a person/manager for his 504 you can contact? Our school is well aware of all students who are deemed ineligible (D’s and E’s in core classes) and we work hard to get those students motivated to bring those grades up. For us you would go through the team leads or counselors to develop a plan.

Is there a homework club after school? We have a once week club that meets. We also have an advisory period that is 26 minutes long for students to catch up on work, reteach/reassess, etc. Other things we do is keep kids in at lunch, bring them in before or after school, and for some students who just can’t get their work done at home (meds wear off, there is too much, etc) we have a resource class. Maybe there is something you can use here?

Finally, don’t panic. I like the construction metaphor of a young teens brain. They literally have holes in their brains as neural pathways disconnect in order to reconnect in a more efficient way. Kids who were once organized and motivated may lose that for a bit. My D22 was one who had anxiety and would NEVER forget to turn in work, until one day she just couldn’t remember! It was infuriating, but it eventually worked itself out.

OH! I definitely wouldn’t pull a bright student out of gifted classes. Boredom is a motivation killer. He belongs in gifted classes, you just need to find the accommodations to even that playing field.

Chiming in as another bright student’s mom. My son doesn’t have ADD but hated to write in middle school, and had a strong mental block around it. He could stare at the screen for an hour and not know how to start. I used to help him by discussing the topic and pointing out a possible first paragraph from the discussion, or forcing him to write whatever comes into his head and then edit (that didn’t work so well but it does for some people), or having him talk and record (I had to transcribe at some point). He improved slowly and now is a very good writer.