ADHD & School Organization - Turning in Work, Long Projects: What's worked for you? Go!

[Anonymous]

Would love to hear "this helped" kind of tips. Your faves. Go!

[Anonymous]

Small class size, individualized instruction, constant reminders, repeat of instructions, check ins, chunking information, planners with slots or dividers for different subjects.

[Anonymous]

Turning in work: In ES, my son would go into the classroom fifteen minutes before anyone else was allowed in. The teacher or the special educator would have already taped a checklist on his desk, which he would complete. Then he would sit and read until school started. Once he hit MS, he already had the routine down because it is pretty much the same as in ES. But, he made his own checklists and put it in the front of his binder. For the first few weeks of school, he would use it and then he didn't need it anymore.

Long projects: We break them down into parts and put each activity onto a calendar. He is now at the point where he can do this himself as well, but doesn't always like the decisions he makes. For example, recently he didn't factor in his social activities when he made his project calendar. He got the work done, but wasn't able to hang with his friends a few days after school when he would have liked to. He could have avoided losing his friend time if he scheduled things in a different manner. Lesson learned.

[Anonymous]

This is OP. Great stuff! Thank you! Keep it coming!

[Anonymous]

Nothing worked for us until we found Commonwealth Academy. We tried everything including $$ private school with $$ tutors with $$ psychologist and $$ meds. C/A changed our DC's life and, in turn, ours. The school really "gets" kids with ADHD. And they apply all the techniques described by 11:03 and other modalities like moving to computers quickly. C/A's goal is to instill sufficient organizational techniques in each graduate so they can succeed in college. Now no meds, no psychologist, tutoring only on difficult subject matters and not on a regular basis, and - interestingly - no ADHD diagnosis. Now peddled back to executive function issues. No more missing papers. No more lost projects. No more angry teachers. No more calls to teachers saying "Help, we don't get the assignment". I can't speak for all the parents but this is the only thing that worked for us in dealing with what we then thought was an ADHD child. I'm not an administrator or anyone plugging the school on purpose, just a very happy parent who spent thousands of dollars on other privates and other ways of dealing with ADHD and learned that changing schools was the only way - for us as a family - to deal with ADHD and especially the homework issues. The most important change is that DC is gaining selfconfidence which DC lost in the other schools. We still have a long road ahead but even our home life is so much more happy with DC taking responsibility for DC's life and homework and schoolwork and becoming proud of DC's abilities.

[Anonymous]

These suggestions might help:
https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/executive-functioning-issues/understanding-executive-functioning-issues#item7

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothing worked for us until we found Commonwealth Academy. We tried everything including $$ private school with $$ tutors with $$ psychologist and $$ meds. C/A changed our DC's life and, in turn, ours. The school really "gets" kids with ADHD. And they apply all the techniques described by 11:03 and other modalities like moving to computers quickly. C/A's goal is to instill sufficient organizational techniques in each graduate so they can succeed in college. Now no meds, no psychologist, tutoring only on difficult subject matters and not on a regular basis, and - interestingly - no ADHD diagnosis. Now peddled back to executive function issues. No more missing papers. No more lost projects. No more angry teachers. No more calls to teachers saying "Help, we don't get the assignment". I can't speak for all the parents but this is the only thing that worked for us in dealing with what we then thought was an ADHD child. I'm not an administrator or anyone plugging the school on purpose, just a very happy parent who spent thousands of dollars on other privates and other ways of dealing with ADHD and learned that changing schools was the only way - for us as a family - to deal with ADHD and especially the homework issues. The most important change is that DC is gaining selfconfidence which DC lost in the other schools. We still have a long road ahead but even our home life is so much more happy with DC taking responsibility for DC's life and homework and schoolwork and becoming proud of DC's abilities.

I did not get the impression from OP that she was looking for a school recommendation but rather was looking for advice and tips from parents on what worked for their child.

[Anonymous]

The book: That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week
By Anna Homayoun has been VERY helpful for my son (and me in getting him organized and putting systems in place)

She shows how to break down work, how to study, how to schedule time and more.

[Anonymous]

Two products:

To be able to FIND the homework that has been done so it can be turned in: Case-It Zipper Binder

http://www.caseit.com/3-ring-binders/the-king-sized-zip-tab


To be able to plan longer-term projects -- a spiral bound, weekly paper planner

Have you student block off time in the planner to work on longer assignments. (DD has a 7 week assignment going on currently and she has blocked time over the holiday break to work on her assignment.)

Finally -- keep the system simple, and think about using color. (My daughter has her binder and homework tabs color coded.)

Link to presentation by Ann Dolin about getting organized:

http://www.fcps.edu/cco/prc/resources/events/documents/ADHDandExecutiveFunctionPresentation.pdf



And an article with tips for getting organized:

http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/5943-2.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing worked for us until we found Commonwealth Academy. We tried everything including $$ private school with $$ tutors with $$ psychologist and $$ meds. C/A changed our DC's life and, in turn, ours. The school really "gets" kids with ADHD. And they apply all the techniques described by 11:03 and other modalities like moving to computers quickly. C/A's goal is to instill sufficient organizational techniques in each graduate so they can succeed in college. Now no meds, no psychologist, tutoring only on difficult subject matters and not on a regular basis, and - interestingly - no ADHD diagnosis. Now peddled back to executive function issues. No more missing papers. No more lost projects. No more angry teachers. No more calls to teachers saying "Help, we don't get the assignment". I can't speak for all the parents but this is the only thing that worked for us in dealing with what we then thought was an ADHD child. I'm not an administrator or anyone plugging the school on purpose, just a very happy parent who spent thousands of dollars on other privates and other ways of dealing with ADHD and learned that changing schools was the only way - for us as a family - to deal with ADHD and especially the homework issues. The most important change is that DC is gaining selfconfidence which DC lost in the other schools. We still have a long road ahead but even our home life is so much more happy with DC taking responsibility for DC's life and homework and schoolwork and becoming proud of DC's abilities.

[b]I did not get the impression from OP that she was looking for a school recommendation but rather was looking for advice and tips from parents on what worked for their child.

Please keep snark off the Special Needs forum. People come here for help. Your comment offers nothing that is helpful.

[Anonymous]

How is your suggestion helpful when OP did not ask for school recommendations and not everyone can or wants to fork over $30K for private school? Maybe you can offer OP the tuition also.

[Anonymous]

DS, despite an IEP (for LD's and ADHD), really got little effective executive function help in elementary school. He just started middle school this year and the school does a decent job of helping kids in this regard. He has a binder and individual folders. He has come up with a system that works for him (not as logically organized as maybe we would like, but it's working reasonably well). He does not have trouble remembering what materials to bring to which classes. He is doing more of his homework on his own. The weak spots are turning in homework (although much less of an issue than we feared -- and we're fine with the consequences of that, which seem to be sinking in) and, most importantly, organizing for long term projects -- if it's not due the next day, then, in his mind, he has no homework in that subject. We and his teachers are trying to work with him on the latter but it's hard -- because of the age. I would say that working on getting a child to embrace both his/her challenges AND the accommodations designed to help are the biggest thing that could be done at this age -- and it's not easy.

I think our DS's difficulties are more severe than a non-ADHD child's but these difficulties are indeed common to all middle school students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is your suggestion helpful when OP did not ask for school recommendations and not everyone can or wants to fork over $30K for private school? Maybe you can offer OP the tuition also.

You don't know that. PP described the path they went through. All information is helpful. Please keep special needs snark-free.