homework | Autism PDD
Any ideas on how to motivate Mason to try homework...he misses a lot of work during the day because of his meltdowns and napping. So they send some extra work home for him to try...they don't push that he does it but it would be nice if he would at least try it. All I can get out of him is him getting mad at me and saying "that at school." Even things I know he would enjoy doing, if it has any relation to school he won't try it! And no rewards have been bribing enough. I don't want to push it and make it worse, so I've been leary about saying you can't have___________ until you do this...maybe I should??
Anyone go through this?
My son just usually has a coloring or cut/paste activity for homework but I tell you it take a while for him to get it done with his attention problems.
Maybe rewarding him for completing it. Not you can't have this until you do this but if you do this much you get this and if you do this much more you get this. Maybe some treat that he usually does not get.
Or you could use a toke board and every page he completes he gets a token and when he gets so many he gets a surprise. Even if he takes days.
Some ideas...
I would have the teacher do a social story for him about homework, and how we do it at home at our special "homework desk" and then put our homework in our backpack to bring to school the next day.
If you don't already have one, get one of those cheap kid-sized small tables with chairs and make it the "homework desk." Kids concentrate best when sitting upright with their feet planted firmly on the floor. Maybe let him pick out some special pencils with characters on them and an electric pencil sharpener. My son LOVES to sharpen his pencils for homework. It's a big treat that sets a nice tone for the whole exercise.
You can also incorporate rewards as others have suggested. We tend to do homework right after dinner. Once the boys complete their homework then they can go into the pantry and choose a snack (usually a fruit snack).
Thanks guys...I think I do need to break it down for him...I've been offering a reward once the work is completed, because it really is easy stuff and would only take him a few minutes to complete...but that might still be way to much for him to comprehend...if I break it down, some little reward after each step or question that might really motivate him, and then still offer him his computer time or whatever the bigger reward is after he puts all of his stuff away. That might work!
And Kristy I like the idea of the pencil sharpener for motivation...I can see Mason just loving that!!
You can get a iep that says no home work at all. Snacks are necessary before homework. Just see that it's healthy. Daniel is a go place finatic and he must do school or he goes no place he likes at all. Pizza hut/Braum's /six flags all have reading incentives for all elementry kids Here. How about a treasure box or a specail outing or treat next time at the store. Daniel also loves getting a smilley face for a good job on his work. He loves sticker's also. Things your kids want are good incentives for our kids. We reward as we go...a m&m for each sentence/whatever - so it keeps him going...I had the same problem when my son was in the school system. The biggest thing that I saw was that by the time he got home, he was just exhausted from the day. Exhausted from his meltdowns, from sensory bombs every where he stepped. He did not even want to look at his work. I got to the point where I wouldn't even present it to home.
There are other parents in our area that are refusing the homework thing, because the teachers are using the meltdowns with the kids as an exuse for them not to do their work at school. The teachers get away with not doing their job, our kids get shoved through the system with all the weight thrown on the parents.
Provide the correct enviorment, and instructors. Our kids will learn minus the meltdowns.
Now that he is at home. He has No problem doing his work. We do it in 30 to 45 min time frames. With No arguing. When he needs a break, he lets me know.
We do some sensory stuff before we sit down to work. Whether it's brushing therapy, jumping on a trampolene, or dancing in the kitchen.
He knows what books we have to work in and knows it has to be done. I just set the work books he is working out of for the day and set them out so he can visually see them.
Wish I could help more, thats just how I did it and still do it.
We've had our ups and downs with homework. Our eldest son has had a hard time accepting that his philosophy "home is home and school is school" isn't the grown-up's philosophy. We don't argue with him about that, just acknowledge his feelings and say "that's not the way it works."
This is how we've gotten past the worst of the resistance:
- limited time requirement. I've read that for typical kids the rule of thumb is 10 minutes for every grade, but I cut back on that since my son doesn't function at his grade-level. He's in 4th grade, but I never insist on more than a half hour. Sometimes he volunteers to put in a little extra time.
- homework that's appropriate for his level, ie not too hard. Open-ended questions are for some reason about the hardest thing for him.
- he loves Legos, and for a week or so, we hid his Legos away and told him after homework he'd get to make a "homework creation". We asked him if he'd like to make a vehicle, a building, or an action figure. This really helped us push past the worst of the resistance.
Here's my collection of homework resources, for anyone that's interested:
http://www.autism-pdd.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=19740&am p;KW=homework+resources
Good luck with everything!
I honestly don't think you should push him to do homework. We got to the point that it was soo overwhelming for him and for me that I told them not to send anything home. What is at school stays at school. The only time we had them send home work was for the weekends...and no more than 2 papers that consisted of coloring or cutting pasting.
No amount of bribing or restricting helped Jesse...he struggles with short term memory as it is so keeping him on task is very difficult. It has gotten somewhat easier now that he is 11 but he can only handle 1 assignment...and luckily he gets everything done at school so we don't have to deal with the issue right now. Next year is Middle School so who knows what to expect then.
There are some nights Payne just isn't going to do his homework...we don't force him if he's going to meltdown about it...not that big of a deal, but we do try to get him to as often as possible.
Michael has always resisted to doing anything that the school has sent home, cutting coloring pasting, lacing anything.
What i usually do is just give the teacher a call and let her know his resistance, She's ok with it and just says take your time or don't push.
But what i do is give him the same types of activities but with things he's interested in. We cut out pics of Thomas the train and paste them on contruction paper just for fun and he doens't mind doing it. I do this just to reinforce the skills he is working on in school.
Same with lacing cards, I made him some of thomas and some street signs to work on.
I also bought him a few store bought workbooks for math and reading which he really enjoys doing, We keep them in with his toys and he doesn't see them as being school related. Also Michael and i will search the internet sometimes looking for fun stories or worksheets. HOTCHALK.com has some free printables and also ABCTEACH.com
hope this helps.Ahhh Homework, indeed, I too fought my parents, telling them that schoolwork = school and home = free time. This logic didnt work unfortunatly for me, and once elementary school ended and middle school began then it was time for serious homework, so i guess in the end it was better i adjusted to having it so I was prepaired then to not have it at all.
My parents always had me complete my HW after dinner prior to being allowed outside, or to watch tv or play my Sega Genisis. That was motivation enough, tho some may need extra incentive. My parents were very predictable when it came to the homework thing and ill admit for a while at first things were not so smooth, but as I got into the higher grades in elemntary, I was better able to do it on my own so I can have the free time I desired.
I simply loved the idea of having special pencils + and sharpener, indeed, the thing that got me thru school and happy about at least writing on paper was the fact I had my mechanical pencil, a nice fancy one, tho they often got lost, i simply would not write without one.
<quote>- homework that's appropriate for his level, ie not too hard. Open-ended questions are for some reason about the hardest thing for him.</quote>
Heh, I wonder why that is, other then some of my math HW in school (tho I can do math fine, i did not like the way they WANTED me to do/learn it.) Indeed, open ended questions are very difficult.
I wish ya luck, I think its something that improves with age, actually itll have to probably
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