I understand your frustration with the internet, but as someone who had similar problems, long before the internet (much less Youtube) was available to teens, the problem may be more related to your teen as the distractee than whatever is distracting them.

When I was a teen, I’d be distracted by whatever book I was reading, or by reading ahead in textbooks, or by entries that caught my eye looking something up in the encyclopedia or dictionary. When a kid ends up reading ahead in their grammar book or gets lost in the dictionary, you have to accept that you’re going to be hard-pressed to find things less distracting.

As an adult, I’ve come to believe that I have ADHD. Perhaps early diagnosis could have made my life a lot easier. Usually, there seems to be all the time in the world, until I blink and I’m out of time. I’ve noticed that a lot of times I procrastinate about something I’m uncomfortable doing. I also tend to be a perfectionist, and that certainly didn’t help. I think I always felt I could do more on an assignment, so if I started early, it would just drag on forever. I’d unconsciously avoid a task (despite wanting to do better and feeling guilty for not being more productive), until I knew I absolutely had to get something done because I had no choice - at which point, I’d do the assignment in a panic-induced frenzy, turning in whatever I could manage to produce.

I’m 53 now and still haven’t started my taxes despite resolving last year to do better when I panicked to turn in my taxes on the last day of the automatic extension that I had requested in a panic on tax day. I just realized that I should probably be working on them, rather than this post, but they just seemed so far off they hadn’t registered on my radar.

I hate the internet too (as I sit here and use it)

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps I am a dinosaur, but is math homework no longer pen and paper?

Kids have to check their answers using the answer key which is posted online.

Block this on your router at home.

Tell her for every single time you catch her using her computer for anything other than homework that's an entire day without screens and she can go ahead and tell her teacher she didn't get her homework done because she keeps lying to her parents and sneaking on Youtube instead of doing homework so they took it away.

And then you email her teachers to tell them that too, in case she doesn't tell them.

Anonymous wrote:My son has severe ADHD and autism, and high school was the worse in terms of screen addiction. Our system was to have him do homework at the dining room table, where any one of us could walk past and glance at his screen. He had to be called out a million times a day.

Now he’s in college and mostly studying things that interest him. Of course his screen addiction gets in the way of everything else, like socializing and exercising… but he’s keeping it together. Frankly it’s a relief not to have to police him every day!

That's good to hear a success story

Anonymous wrote:Is it negatively impacting their grade? You can always opt out of chromebooks and your child will be given paper assignments only.

Yes, the teacher sent me an email that this quarter assignments are not getting done. Strong overlap of timing with getting around YouTube block.

My son has severe ADHD and autism, and high school was the worse in terms of screen addiction. Our system was to have him do homework at the dining room table, where any one of us could walk past and glance at his screen. He had to be called out a million times a day.

Now he’s in college and mostly studying things that interest him. Of course his screen addiction gets in the way of everything else, like socializing and exercising… but he’s keeping it together. Frankly it’s a relief not to have to police him every day!

Is it negatively impacting their grade? You can always opt out of chromebooks and your child will be given paper assignments only.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps I am a dinosaur, but is math homework no longer pen and paper?

My junior is frequently required to watch videos as part of her AP Calculus homework.

I love that khan academy exists but my ADHD kid has so much trouble battling the distractions once on a computer. What is the solution? Do we go Amish?

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps I am a dinosaur, but is math homework no longer pen and paper?

My junior is frequently required to watch videos as part of her AP Calculus homework.

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps I am a dinosaur, but is math homework no longer pen and paper?

Correct it used to be ixl and now it's a lot of Delta math. I would give anything for a textbook and paper.

Also the more internet they watch the more they act like a jerk. Same thing doesn't happen when they're actually doing the math homework.

Perhaps I am a dinosaur, but is math homework no longer pen and paper?

Teen is so frequently claiming to be doing homework and instead is watching YouTube. I said I hate the Internet but I actually hate the dishonesty. Just tell me, "I just need to veg out for a while." That's fine. Everyone does sometimes. Don't tell me you're doing math homework.v school used to block it on the Chromebook but the kids all found a way around it just like when parents block it. What's left for a parent to do?