Homework issues & inattentive ADHD

[Anonymous]

My child is in first at a pretty intense private school and is pushing back a lot against nightly homework and I’m concerned about her listening in class.

For homework, there are about two pages a night M-Th in addition to 15 minutes of reading and math and reading are also required on the weekends (sat, sun). We skip Friday evening though math and reading should be every day.

My child came home this week and didn’t know how to do some of her homework. I asked her to ask the teacher about the information the following day (it was regarding Orton Gillingham red words and I could try to cobble together info online but wanted her to have the experience of following up on something she didn’t understand and I also don’t have any foundation for explaining this particular concept and don’t want to confuse her if she teacher is explaining differently). The following day she said she asked her teacher but then admitted she didn’t. We spoke with her teacher at the start of the year about her focus because we suspect inattentive ADHD and she has a spring birthday and is one of the youngest in her class. Her teacher said her focus was age appropriate and that she wasn’t concerned at this time.

She’s always done well in school and reads at or slightly above grade level, is quite strong in math, and is in the mix socially and very sweet. All that said, focus came up in her teacher comments last year and her K teacher gave us strategies to reinforce over the summer to help deal with some of the focus issues that we expected in the fall with the transition to first and a new/bigger campus.

I’m concerned that she’s missing lessons because of distraction and exhausted from battling with her on homework after five weeks of school, but her teacher is saying she is not concerned when it comes to focus especially due to my child’s age and the fact that the average age of kids in her grade is 6-7 months older (although I’m interested in what her comments will be like at the end of the semester).

For those who have been there, might it be worth discussing with the person at the school who handles this stuff whether we should pursue ADHD testing. We would lean into parent coaching to see what progress we could make through that before considering medication given my child’s age.

My biggest concern is that she’s taking in much less than she could be due to distractions and with the homework, I’m getting progressively more exhausted fighting with her about it. I have two preschool ages children too and am making dinner and watching them during homework time, after my workday ends, and I have to put tons of time and effort into just getting her to sit and then not get distracted and she yells and complains and says she hates school and at the end of the day it’s just a lot. I have tried bribes and I have tried taking things away, but now that her homework is getting harder and longer it feels very defeating to spend 45 minutes before dinner literally asking her to do it and having her ignore me or do a small portion of it and then having to stop for dinner and then continue with that until bedtime while cleaning up and trying to stop my preschool aged children from getting into trouble because I’m not paying any attention to them. And the frustrating thing is she gets it all done quickly when she wants to. My husband comes home at 7 pm, so at the point it’s not really helpful with respect to homework as we are trying to get the kids through the bedtime routine and into bed (sometimes I have my child do the reading before bed, but then she draws it out and makes it miserable and I have no time to read to her or her sibling which makes her sibling upset and rightfully so; my husband puts our youngest to bed and our youngest won’t let me do it if he’s there or the process becomes very long and drawn out). We don’t do TV at all during the week, so screens aren’t the issue.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP, I sympathize with you—I have a DC with ADHD in 4th who I have to sit with every day to get him to do his homework. That said, he’s not in a very intense private school—I’m pretty sure a homework-heavy environment would not be a great fit for him. I keep telling him school gets better in college when you get to choose more of your classes!

Have you tried breaking up the assignments? Maybe doing some in the morning or at a different time?

Can you drop the reading part for now if it’s just meant for practice and can be any book she wants?

How much exercise, sleep is she getting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP, I sympathize with you—I have a DC with ADHD in 4th who I have to sit with every day to get him to do his homework. That said, he’s not in a very intense private school—I’m pretty sure a homework-heavy environment would not be a great fit for him. I keep telling him school gets better in college when you get to choose more of your classes!

Have you tried breaking up the assignments? Maybe doing some in the morning or at a different time?

Can you drop the reading part for now if it’s just meant for practice and can be any book she wants?

How much exercise, sleep is she getting?

The homework packet has four pages and can be done at any point between Monday after school to Thursday evening, so we could try to do some in the morning but mornings are tough because we both work and need to leave the house by 7:20/7:30 am.

She is on a competitive swim team and practices twice a week and also does tennis and gymnastics after school on days she doesn’t swim, so she gets 45 -60 minutes of exercise after school M-Th in addition to gym 3-4x a week at school and recess. She also does a sport over the weekend and we go on walks over the weekend and she bikes. She is very active and a good athlete.

She has really struggled with sleep over the last few weeks. I think some of it is due to the transition (moving from a smaller campus with PK/K to a larger campus with older kids in first) and some of it is due to ruminating about what is happening socially at school. One of the girls in her grade has been bullying her since last year and it’s gotten more intense this year because she started to push back more. They are in separate classes, but have friends who overlap and recess and lunch are where this girl has continued to act aggressively towards her. She is well liked and very social; she has three very good friends and then a larger group of good acquaintances. She is also one of the youngest girls in her grade and less mature than most of the girls, which is a disadvantage socially. I generally see the disparity in maturity more at the start of the school year though. As the school goes on she adapts and things are easier.

[Anonymous]

My experience (with public school at least) is that the teachers have an expected amount of time that is spent on homework (at this age I would think 10 min for math) and if it is not completed then parent draws a line and initials that the child spent the required amount of time and completed up to this point.

Also, your child is very young to have much homework at all, and is probably in too many organized activities to let her brain unwind. I would prioritize sleep and free play at this age.

[Anonymous]

Talk to school about adhd testing. Starting early evals pays off.

[Anonymous]

Might as well get testing done. My kid definitely has inattentive ADHD and needs accommodations at school, medication, morning workouts before school, and nutrition and structure at home. Going into high school, we are adding an executive functioning coach.

[Anonymous]

Coming back to say that it’s worth it to explore an evaluation, discuss strategies with the school to best set your daughter up for success, and parent training.

Also, if you’re not already subscribed to ADDitude newsletters, I find it a helpful resource: https://www.additudemag.com/

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Have you tried parent training?

[Anonymous]

No 1st grader needs nightly homework. Whether your kid has adhd or not this is not a battle you should be fighting with a 6yo. They’re in school all day. After school is not for more work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No 1st grader needs nightly homework. Whether your kid has adhd or not this is not a battle you should be fighting with a 6yo. They’re in school all day. After school is not for more work.

Agree—this is ridiculous for a 1st grader. It sounds like this school may not be a good, long term fit for her. Look at Bullis. Their lower school is excellent and the new building is amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No 1st grader needs nightly homework. Whether your kid has adhd or not this is not a battle you should be fighting with a 6yo. They’re in school all day. After school is not for more work.

+1

[Anonymous]

I have a junior in HS with inattentive ADHD. An intense private school wouldn’t have been the right environment for him at any age. Think about whether this is a good situation for your child. It’s not worth sacrificing their mental health and self esteem.

[Anonymous]

You’re getting ripped off by this private school if they can’t get through and reinforce developmentally appropriate during the school day. They are preying on your fears by throwing inappropriate work to be done at home so you can feel like “my kid has had every opportunity and I did not drop the ball.” You also have her in too many activities for her to have any down time.

You need to think about what your priorities should be. I wouldn’t have her do any homework other than quiet reading (and make sure she doesn’t have to do a stupid journal which can suck the fun out of reading).

She may have ADHD, but that’s not what’s going on here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP, I sympathize with you—I have a DC with ADHD in 4th who I have to sit with every day to get him to do his homework. That said, he’s not in a very intense private school—I’m pretty sure a homework-heavy environment would not be a great fit for him. I keep telling him school gets better in college when you get to choose more of your classes!

Have you tried breaking up the assignments? Maybe doing some in the morning or at a different time?

Can you drop the reading part for now if it’s just meant for practice and can be any book she wants?

How much exercise, sleep is she getting?

The homework packet has four pages and can be done at any point between Monday after school to Thursday evening, so we could try to do some in the morning but mornings are tough because we both work and need to leave the house by 7:20/7:30 am.

She is on a competitive swim team and practices twice a week and also does tennis and gymnastics after school on days she doesn’t swim, so she gets 45 -60 minutes of exercise after school M-Th in addition to gym 3-4x a week at school and recess. She also does a sport over the weekend and we go on walks over the weekend and she bikes. She is very active and a good athlete.

She has really struggled with sleep over the last few weeks. I think some of it is due to the transition (moving from a smaller campus with PK/K to a larger campus with older kids in first) and some of it is due to ruminating about what is happening socially at school. One of the girls in her grade has been bullying her since last year and it’s gotten more intense this year because she started to push back more. They are in separate classes, but have friends who overlap and recess and lunch are where this girl has continued to act aggressively towards her. She is well liked and very social; she has three very good friends and then a larger group of good acquaintances. She is also one of the youngest girls in her grade and less mature than most of the girls, which is a disadvantage socially. I generally see the disparity in maturity more at the start of the school year though. As the school goes on she adapts and things are easier.

When we were initially going through this with our inattentive ADHD darling we discovered that they did better and were able to focus immediately after swimming.

It's a trial and error process.

[Anonymous]

Op, if your instinct is that something is off about your child’s attention, just have them tested.

I have a second grader and we had her tested last year for ADHD even though her teachers (small private) were not reporting attention issues - she’s my youngest and I knew something was off, and my older kids have ADHD combined. My DD tested off the charts for poor attention when we did the formal testing.

My DCs are all at a small private (not known to be academically intense) and in first grade they get about 10 min of night of homework(math and word work) and 20 min of reading, although not over weekends, so it doesn’t seem like the amount of homework your DC is assigned is too crazy. It sounds like the challenge is getting your DC to start it and focus, which could be ADHD.

I’ll caution though that medication is not typically helpful for homework - it wears off as the school day is ending. You will need to invest the time to sit with your DD and develop good homework habits. You could offer a sticker chart or some sort of recognition system - I do lots and lots of praise and encouragement.