Homework taking 8 hours?
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Anonymous
| My DD is a freshman at a pretty rigorous private school, and she has recently been spending 8-10 hours on homework every night. She finishes her homework around 12:30-1 and wakes up at 6. She admits that she needs more sleep than the average person, so I'm shocked that she's handling this? I assumed that she was getting distracted by texting/social media, but I took her phone away and made her block distracting websites on her computer. She's always been good at time managemeny, so I'm very confused that this is such a problem. Am I worrying too much about this? Is this normal? |
Anonymous
| Not normal. Is she being obsessive or perfectionistic? Could she have a learning issue that wasn't apparent before now? |
Anonymous
| It's not normal, and I'd be trying to get a better sense of what's taking that long. Have you reviewed her assignments with her to get a sense of how much homework she has? Is there a particular subject where she's taking longer than you'd expect? What else is she doing during that eight hour period? Most people don't stay focused for that long without needing breaks, so she's probably not working straight through. |
Anonymous
| My son is having similar issue. We are getting him screened for ADHD- inattentive. |
Anonymous
At this age it's the course load or the school. Seriously you're just looking for drugs to solve the problem. |
Anonymous
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OP here:
We had her tested last year, no LD's were found... You're right about the not focusing for that long period of time. Is calling the school too out of line? |
Anonymous
Calling the school before digging further into this to get a sense of what the problem is would be out of line. Go talk to her now about her homework and review her list of assignments. Look at what she's already gotten done since she started. What do you observe? The school isn't in your home to figure out what the problem is. You have to actually parent here, not expect the school to do it for you. You need to tell them what's going on at home before they can help find a solution, and just "it takes her eight hours to do her homework" isn't enough information. |
Anonymous
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Specifically, it's a processing speed issue.
But it's largely diagnosed with inattentive ADHD. Please get her evaluated by a reputable psychologist. My son has inattentive ADHD and very low processing speed, and his ADHD medication makes him work much faster, that is, nearly up to average speed. |
Anonymous
This may be the answer, but right now it's only one possible explanation of many, and less likely given that the kid was just evaluated last year and they didn't find anything. OP doesn't have nearly enough information yet to start drawing conclusions. |
Anonymous
The OP already did that. She needs to drop a class or needs to do homework at the dining room table. Kid's are goofing off on their phones or the computer and not doing what they're supposed to be doing. |
Anonymous
| You need to see the assignments - sometimes, you have a bunch of teachers who each assign homework like they're the only teacher a child has. If you get too many of these, you have the homework death spiral. The answer, though, is more likely a bit your kid, a bit the teachers. |
Anonymous
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Another vote for not normal. There is a three day weekend this weekend. Time to sit down and go through it with her to understand where the trouble is. The trick will be getting her Tom be willing, but what she is doing now is not sustainable.
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Anonymous
| You need to sit down next to her with a stopwatch while you read a book. When she starts math homework start timer and end timer when she finishes. Write down the time. Make sure she is not texting or looking at websites, etc. Do this with all subjects. My daughter was taking hours to do homework -like from 4:30 to 11:30. I made her sit at kitchen table next to me and took her phone away and monitored her computer. The one week I did this homework averaged 2 1/2 hours. One night was three hours but another night was 90 minutes. If she really is taking hours and hours you can go to the school with data to ask if this is the expected load. Hours and hours of homework time is wasted texting and goofing around online- kind of like what I am doing now on DCUM instead of putting laundry. During the week I sat with her, her phone never stopped pinging from text messages. |
Anonymous
Actually, no. He has shown ADHD tendencies in the past with anxiety and possible OCD issues. And we are not looking for drugs. Actually visiting with a theriapist tomorrow. So bite me and leave your high horse assumptions for another time thank you. |
Anonymous
I said a reputable psychologist, which automatically rules out anything the school offers. I recommend testing again with Stixrud or similar. This is NOT normal and needs to be resolved ASAP. |