Has anyone boycotted homework?

[Anonymous]

My son was like this in 3rd grade. He is now in 8th grade and things are still a struggle. He's a smart kid and could be an A student, but he won't put in the effort required.

I agree with the other posters who have suggested an assessment. Call a place that does them and they can explain what is involved and how they may help. Even if he just has "executive functioning" issues (i.e., has a hard time following instructions and staying on task), the assessment may help you understand why.

While many posters have indicated that medication has helped their kids, no one can force you to put your kids on meds. An assessment doesn't necessarily lead to a recommendation of medication. They can help you understand the issues that hold your child back. In his case, they may find out that he has problems with the physical movements involved in writing and may suggest an accommodation such as a keyboard for him. The difference between my son typing an essay and writing one is night and day.

Anyway, if you can afford an assessment, it is a great thing to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You need to have your son evaluated.

My son was like this in 4th grade, got marked down until he was failing and it was a horrible year for his self-esteem.
At the same time he won the Young Author's Contest for his school.
That summer he was diagnosed with severe inattentive ADHD, and the IQ test included in the assessment showed he has abysmal processing speed, which explained why he could not finish anything on time. Not everyone with ADHD has slow processing speed, but it is common for the inattentive daydreamer-kind of ADHD.

The school gave him accommodations (extra time etc) with an IEP. Now he is doing much better in 5th. The IQ test also showed he was gifted and under medication, his grades have shot up.

Where did you have your son tested? We have talked to the school about testing because my DS is a poor speller, but they have said that it isn't necessary and he just needs to learn to use his resources to compensate (which we are working on). They have never suggested that he may have ADHD. His grades are A/B, except for a C+ in writing because he still isn't good at using the resources and he gets behind because he avoids it. I think that he may be immature and bored, but I am not sure about the ADHD. Is this something to raise with the pediatrician or demand that the school test him? A lot of this I think is a basic problem with the educational philosophy and teaching by worksheet. I think he's just sick to death of worksheets.

Not sure if you're the OP or not. I'm PP you quoted.

First: no teacher is allowed to tell you that your child has ADHD, even when it's completely obvious. They will use words like "attentional issues", "distractible", "needs redirection", etc.

Second: 20 minutes of boring homework is the norm nowadays. You can boycott it if you want and if he doesn't get marked down, so that you can focus on the classwork he needs to finish which does get graded. Our son was not allowed to take his classwork home, so he received failing grades in a snap, since he couldn't finish anything at all during class. This year my son doesn't do spelling homework, for ex, because he's in the advanced spelling group and already knows all the words.

Third: not finishing classwork during the school day is a huge red flag. The teacher has already been flexible enough to let him take his work home, and has said he needs redirection. She cannot do or say more. You need to take it from here. We used Stixrud for a full neuropsychological

Fourth: please read up on ADHD, specifically the inattentive kind. By definition, it is an attention regulation issue where there are not enough neurotransmitters in the frontal cortex of the brain to signal effectively. As a result, the frontal lobes in a person with ADHD take longer to mature, sometimes several more years. The frontal cortex is the seat of judgement, reasoning and higher functioning. Kids with ADHD have incredible difficulty concentrating on tasks they dislike, and incredible capacity to focus on tasks they do like.

Fifth: ADHD is correctly diagnosed by a developmental pediatrician or a psychologist - both need to be experienced with ADHD diagnoses. A general ped can give you a reference, but should not do the evaluation themselves. A test just for ADHD may take a couple of hours and cost $700, a more full-picture kind of evaluation such a neuropsychological eval. will take 8 hours and cost a few thousand. We went to Stixrud, which has a great professional reputation, and only does neuropsychological evals. Paid $3.2K out of pocket.

Good luck.

PS: my best friend also has a child with inattentive ADHD. It's obvious to everyone, but for the longest time my friend and her husband were convinced that the school system was at fault, the teachers were bad, the work was boring, etc. The child is in 5th grade and not doing well, and the parents are slowly coming to the realization that there may be ADHD going on. It's difficult to observe a child's suffering as a third party, especially when you have an understanding of what's going on and can't help beyond giving gentle suggestions.

Thank you very much for all this information. I had not considered that my son may have an ADHD diagnosis, but I don't want to stick my head in the sand either. I will bring it up with his pediatrician and go from there. The $3k out of pocket is pretty daunting, though. That would be a challenge.

Some pediatricians will do the assessment for ADHD based on forms filled out by the teacher and parents. If you can do that, it would be a lot cheaper than 3k.

Yes, but you get what you pay for. There are so many reasons a child might not pay attention -- ranging from ADHD to learning disabilities to anxiety. A checklist will not tell you any of those things.

[Anonymous]

I boycott homework but my kid is in K, so it's entirely possible I may change my mind later.

I think it's really inappropriate for schools to expect kids to get home at 6pm and start homework at what, 7 at night? I'm not sure that a kid is likely to learn anything from that.

Agree with PPs -- the school needs to coordinate so that there's appropriate coverage of homework in aftercare.

[Anonymous]

Some pediatricians will do the assessment for ADHD based on forms filled out by the teacher and parents. If you can do that, it would be a lot cheaper than 3k.


Yes, but you get what you pay for. There are so many reasons a child might not pay attention -- ranging from ADHD to learning disabilities to anxiety. A checklist will not tell you any of those things.

I agree. We, too, forked over $3.5K to Stixrud in order to better tease out what was ADHD, what was LDs and what was anxiety. In addition to speaking MCPS-ese, they also speak FCPS-ese. Our school had declined to evaluate our DS because 'nothing about your child stands out'.

[Anonymous]

4th grade here as well we do 2-3 hours per night. That includes studying. I'm dreading 5th grade

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only people that would actually complain about 40 minutes of HW are parents that either work too much and have no desire to sit down and help - or ones that run all their kids around in 100 activities and don't have time to sit down and help. The rest of us can handle 40 minutes of HW in a span of 6 hours.

Why are you helping your child with their homework? Didn't you already pass ES? No I'm not sitting down to help them. They do it themselves and if it's wrong and/or incomplete then the teacher knows how my children are progressing. She doesn't need to be evaluating me. She needs to evaluate them. Tiger mom much!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:4th grade here as well we do 2-3 hours per night. That includes studying. I'm dreading 5th grade

That is strange. We don't have anywhere near that.

20min of reading
Spelling test on Friday we have to study for
10-20 min to complete online math
Some studying for social studies and science

Excluding reading, no more than 30min.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You need to have your son evaluated.

My son was like this in 4th grade, got marked down until he was failing and it was a horrible year for his self-esteem.
At the same time he won the Young Author's Contest for his school.
That summer he was diagnosed with severe inattentive ADHD, and the IQ test included in the assessment showed he has abysmal processing speed, which explained why he could not finish anything on time. Not everyone with ADHD has slow processing speed, but it is common for the inattentive daydreamer-kind of ADHD.

The school gave him accommodations (extra time etc) with an IEP. Now he is doing much better in 5th. The IQ test also showed he was gifted and under medication, his grades have shot up.

Np: sorry to hijack, but my son sounds very similar to yours - did the meds really improve things for him? We're hesitant to start them because of side effects and the thought that they don't work as well on Inattentive Type ADHD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4th grade here as well we do 2-3 hours per night. That includes studying. I'm dreading 5th grade

That is strange. We don't have anywhere near that.

20min of reading
Spelling test on Friday we have to study for
10-20 min to complete online math
Some studying for social studies and science

Excluding reading, no more than 30min.

My kid is at a coveted N Arl school. 4th grade.

Math worksheet he knocks out in 10 min.
Reading log (reads but fills the log out one weekend day 15 min top)
1 2 paragraph writing prompt (15 min).

He hasn't had to study.

I can't imagine 1-2 hours of homework at this age. Seriously??? Though we opted out of GT screening early years which was a 'more homework' program. Not based on scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:4th grade here as well we do 2-3 hours per night. That includes studying. I'm dreading 5th grade

Wth do you go to school?!???!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You need to have your son evaluated.

My son was like this in 4th grade, got marked down until he was failing and it was a horrible year for his self-esteem.
At the same time he won the Young Author's Contest for his school.
That summer he was diagnosed with severe inattentive ADHD, and the IQ test included in the assessment showed he has abysmal processing speed, which explained why he could not finish anything on time. Not everyone with ADHD has slow processing speed, but it is common for the inattentive daydreamer-kind of ADHD.

The school gave him accommodations (extra time etc) with an IEP. Now he is doing much better in 5th. The IQ test also showed he was gifted and under medication, his grades have shot up.

Np: sorry to hijack, but my son sounds very similar to yours - did the meds really improve things for him? We're hesitant to start them because of side effects and the thought that they don't work as well on Inattentive Type ADHD.

I can tell you frankly, the stimulant he takes is nothing short of a miracle.

Before, we tried social skills groups and I coached him on study skills, and sat with him to help him with his work, which would last all afternoon and into the evening... all to no avail, since his brain wasn't available to benefit from any of it, poor guy. He couldn't follow his friends' chatter and thus couldn't keep friends. He grew quite despondent in 4th grade as he began to fail grade-wise. He was so slow and scatter-brained, I yelled at him nearly every day, which killed me because he is actually a very sweet and compliant child - albeit one who takes 15 minutes to put on his socks because he stares into space holding the socks in his hand for 12 of those 15 minutes. And everything is like that: he can take an hour to eat his favorite breakfast, which is toast and a soft-boiled egg, he can never find anything he needs, even though he used whatever it was 5 minutes before, he has no idea of elapsed time... Since reading is his hyperfocus, he is not allowed to read or even glance at a book cover in the morning, because if he does, he loses track of time.
Then my husband FINALLY agreed to evaluated him and medicate him, and he smiled more right on that first day of his pill. Since then he has made and kept friends, he participates in class, his conversation is more rapid and to the point, his movements are quicker and more assured (he has a coordination disorder), his grades are excellent. He is just more "with it" and organized, checks his watch and plans his day, which is a 180 from what he used to be. The morning routine is still problematic because that's his low, un-medicated point. He can STILL take an hour to eat his breakfast and the no-book rule is still very much in effect!

Now for the side-effect: Focalin XR, like many stimulants, suppresses his appetite, and he's at the 10th percentile for height and weight, so we are vigilant about him eating a hearty breakfast before his pill, and as much dinner as he can. It's also a struggle to get him to eat a bit of lunch, because he's not hungry and wants to socialize with his friends (he didn't have friends before!), but it's critical because his medication is an extended release one that gets metabolized too quickly by digestive enzymes unless he can get something into his stomach. One pill is therefore supposed to last the whole day, until mid afternoon, when it begins to slowly taper off. It's better than taking a booster in the afternoon, since it avoids ebb and flow symptoms, *unless* he forgets to eat at mid-day.
We have not observed any other side-effect.

I hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

I'll bet you a million bucks the teacher has no children. I think they don't understand if they don't have kids. Just do hw for 40 min max and send in a note saying we finished this much in 40 minutes. Don't listen to the other people. It's 4th GRADE!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not an expert here, but wondering how much time your son gets to run around and have unscheduled time alone. My kid can't focus as well if he hasn't had any break after school.

OP here-he attends SACC after school and they have some playground time and then homework time after. For a while, he was getting everything done during that period but there was a teacher there monitoring and assisting the older kids in another room so he was able to stay on task. That has stopped and now, he's in the gym with all the other kids and lots of distractions and all the things that are going on are a lot more interesting than the hundredth math or language worksheet he's trying to do.

The teacher responded to my DH's email basically saying that DS has enough time to do everything and that he requires redirection to stay on task. She had been using some strategies to help him with that but that seems to have waned. I am not sure how I am supposed to monitor that when I am not sitting in the classroom with him all day. He seems to find all these worksheets boring and would rather read or talk to his friends or stare out the window. It's a bit of a vicious cycle and I don't know how to help him. Of course, he has to learn to manage his work and his time but I don't really see the benefit of multiple worksheet packets and homework every single night for a 9 year old. Isn't running around and playing with after being in school all day important?

And no, I have no reason to think he has ADHD.

OP you said DS runs around with all the kids in SACC so in fact he is getting out a running. As for the idea your son " would rather read or talk to his friends or stare out the window" well most kids would rather do that than work.
You need to figure out a way to keep your son on track at school. You tell us the teacher has given you some strategies so it is not like she isn't helping.
If your son did his school work in school and his homework in SACC or at home he will have plenty of down time to relax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I boycott homework but my kid is in K, so it's entirely possible I may change my mind later.

I think it's really inappropriate for schools to expect kids to get home at 6pm and start homework at what, 7 at night? I'm not sure that a kid is likely to learn anything from that.

Agree with PPs -- the school needs to coordinate so that there's appropriate coverage of homework in aftercare.

It is not the school's fault your kids gets home at 6. It is not like school ends at 5:30.
Ds is in 1st. The days that I pick him up on the later side I tell him he needs to do his homework in aftercare. He usually does it and when he does not he has to do it at home.
Those are rushed nights, but running around instead of doing homework at aftercare was his choice.

It seems like OP thinks the teacher should give less homework and SACC should make sure her son does his homework. I am not sure how OP is not understanding that as the parent she needs to make sure her son does school work during the day and his homework sometime between school end and bedtime.

If OP thinks DS might had issues she needs to get him evaluated. If not she needs to explain to him that he needs to buckle down in class and get his work done

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I boycott homework but my kid is in K, so it's entirely possible I may change my mind later.

I think it's really inappropriate for schools to expect kids to get home at 6pm and start homework at what, 7 at night? I'm not sure that a kid is likely to learn anything from that.

Agree with PPs -- the school needs to coordinate so that there's appropriate coverage of homework in aftercare.

It is not the school's fault your kids gets home at 6. It is not like school ends at 5:30.
Ds is in 1st. The days that I pick him up on the later side I tell him he needs to do his homework in aftercare. He usually does it and when he does not he has to do it at home.
Those are rushed nights, but running around instead of doing homework at aftercare was his choice.

It seems like OP thinks the teacher should give less homework and SACC should make sure her son does his homework. I am not sure how OP is not understanding that as the parent she needs to make sure her son does school work during the day and his homework sometime between school end and bedtime.

If OP thinks DS might had issues she needs to get him evaluated. If not she needs to explain to him that he needs to buckle down in class and get his work done

It's not anyone's fault that kids get home at six ... what a weird way to think of it. But if teachers are assigning homework and expecting that kids are able to learn and reinforce classroom material at 7pm, they are kidding themselves. Young children are not going to be learning effectively under those circumstances. And if they are expecting that kids are doing this at 4pm, they need to better understand the contexts of the kids lives.

Does your aftercare provide homework support? A quiet place where kids can sit and concentrate? (And what is SACC??) Ours doesn't--not for young kids. In later elementary (4-5) they do, but those kids are also much more able to independently be organized and engaged in doing their homework independently.