Procrastination by add kid

[Anonymous]

My add kid procrastinates incessantly. He will spend an entire day putting off writing a one page paper. (He is in HS) Are there any good tools, tips, books to help him overcome this? I know laptops and phones are a procrastinators dream, but he uses it to write the paper.

[Anonymous]

Same prob here and it getting worse.

[Anonymous]

My kid is not ADD but also a procrastinator. She now has to park the phone after school and can't use it until after homework is finished. Computer has parental controls to prevent visits to major procrastination sites. Child must do homework in family area -- can't sit in the bedroom and procrastinate in secret.

We also worked with her to use more tools like how to brainstorm for writing, outlining, using placeholders when writing so as not to get bogged down by a difficult section, leaving editing/polishing until the end so as not to get distracted. With my other child who does have ADD, we also have to use more tools like graphic organizers for writing, and to talk explicitly about perfectionism. It's not necessary to write the perfect paper -- just one that fulfills the question. Write a topic sentence, use details, provide examples (even if you don't love the example you can think of, use it), etc.

[Anonymous]

It's who we are...

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/10/31/adhd-experts-reveal-their-favorite-ways-to-manage-procrastination/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My add kid procrastinates incessantly. He will spend an entire day putting off writing a one page paper. (He is in HS) Are there any good tools, tips, books to help him overcome this? I know laptops and phones are a procrastinators dream, but he uses it to write the paper.

I have a younger child (middle school) but we still use a timer. 15 minutes of work, and then 15 minutes of goofing off (preferably doing something active). No, when writing a paper 15 minutes doesn't get you terribly far, but it gets you farther than bouncing up and down on your chair and doing nothing. I expect her to have written at least one sentence, found another point of support in a book, something in that 15 minute time period. It helps her to know she "only" has 15 minutes and then she gets a break.

I also still help her break down steps. Sitting down in front of a blank page can be so overwhelming. Providing her with a list of steps can be really helpful - brain storm topic, write outline, write topic sentence, write supporting facts, write closing sentence, add details, spell check, grammar check, read out loud, check against rubric, make any remaining corrects, is this work you're proud of or is it work you're just happy to be done with? (That last bit is specifically for my child since we're working with her to be able to identify when she's done a minimal effort job and when she's put in more effort - as long as it meets the rubric she can hand it in, but she personally needs to be able to identify whether what she produced was her best effort or not.)

[Anonymous]

So I grew up with ADD in the '80's and '90's and this was a major, major issue for me. In fact I still struggle with it in my professional life (although I am relatively succesful). I do think that taking away distractions and breaking a project into small steps---even for a 1 -page paper, helps so that your child can feel that they achieved some milestones. I wish there were an easier answer. I ended up staying up very late and writing stuff at the last minute a lot. Luckily I was still able to get good grades and go to a good liberal arts school and get by, but I know I could have done better if I had been better organized. Be aware that your son is probably pretty frustrated iwth himself too. Try to get at what really motivates him.