There have been several times in the past year where I've wanted to post to this board, but I forgot to bookmark it, and couldn't find it again! Nightmare!
As a background, I'm stepmother to an 11-year-old boy (12 tomorrow) with ADHD. He lives with us full-time. His mother has supervised visitation right now, and is an on/off drug addict. She's recently made a play for full custody (which is out-and-out ridiculous, given her history with CPS and drugs). My stepson hasn't been diagnosed, but we HIGHLY suspect he has ODD as well. We've learned a lot of coping strategies from his counselor, books, and websites. We are trying to deal with all of this in good humor, with love, and with compassion, but I'd be lying if I said we weren't struggling. He is a very bright child, and we want to see him do well.
Right now he is on restrictions. Last weekend he ran away from home for no apparent reason. My husband found him at around 12PM, told him to come home...he didn't. We were unable to find him again. At 5PM we called the police. My stepson willfully evaded them and eventually came home on his own at 10:30PM. So he's on restrictions, with priveleges to be earned slowly back for good behavior (counselor's recommendations). I wish I could say this is the first time he's pulled this sort of thing.
We are very careful to walk that line between punishment and maintaining an amicable relationship. Right now he is behaving reasonably well for us at home and doing his homework. But he is refusing to turn it in. This is the email I received from his math teacher - after I emailed her asking about his missing binder.
Ms. Ehlena,
It has been an interesting week with difficult child. He has decided to make his own agenda for what he is to do in this class. Every day I have to ask him to get his work out, does he have work to show me?, write this down, work with your partner, etc. and he refuses to follow my requests. He wants to sit and write nothing down or bother the boy sitting next to him, or two days ago, he decided to clean out his binder and put everything in the small folder that you mentioned. When I stood right over him, he would just sit, stare down and not participate, when I walk away to work with the rest of the class, he goes back to what he wants to do.
I have the binder. It was given to me empty. (sorry about that). I also have another folder that he left behind. I will give them all back to him today.
He is not showing me any work. He is not doing the classwork. The day he worked on cleaning out the binder was a day he was to work with two other classmates on a group test. I explained to him that it was important to be a team and work together on the test. He refused to even look at the test. The other two people in his group were quite perplexed. I do not know what to say to him to get him to participate and follow directions. He is putting forth a solid stand against doing anything in here. I do not want a create a scene by "forcing" him to do the work. What to do?
Any ideas you can give me to smooth out this situation would be appreciated.
difficult child's Math Teacher
I don't know what to tell her. My husband is starting to worry that difficult child is missing out on his childhood, since he spends so much time grounded. The counselor hypothesizes that difficult child feels safer being grounded, since he has difficulty maintaining friendships with other children.
I think our first step will be emailing his other teachers and seeing if his behavior is the same in their classes (I get the sinking feeling it is...). But I'm unsure of what to do after that.
His birthday is tomorrow.
As a background, I'm stepmother to an 11-year-old boy (12 tomorrow) with ADHD. He lives with us full-time. His mother has supervised visitation right now, and is an on/off drug addict. She's recently made a play for full custody (which is out-and-out ridiculous, given her history with CPS and drugs). My stepson hasn't been diagnosed, but we HIGHLY suspect he has ODD as well. We've learned a lot of coping strategies from his counselor, books, and websites. We are trying to deal with all of this in good humor, with love, and with compassion, but I'd be lying if I said we weren't struggling. He is a very bright child, and we want to see him do well.
Right now he is on restrictions. Last weekend he ran away from home for no apparent reason. My husband found him at around 12PM, told him to come home...he didn't. We were unable to find him again. At 5PM we called the police. My stepson willfully evaded them and eventually came home on his own at 10:30PM. So he's on restrictions, with priveleges to be earned slowly back for good behavior (counselor's recommendations). I wish I could say this is the first time he's pulled this sort of thing.
We are very careful to walk that line between punishment and maintaining an amicable relationship. Right now he is behaving reasonably well for us at home and doing his homework. But he is refusing to turn it in. This is the email I received from his math teacher - after I emailed her asking about his missing binder.
Ms. Ehlena,
It has been an interesting week with difficult child. He has decided to make his own agenda for what he is to do in this class. Every day I have to ask him to get his work out, does he have work to show me?, write this down, work with your partner, etc. and he refuses to follow my requests. He wants to sit and write nothing down or bother the boy sitting next to him, or two days ago, he decided to clean out his binder and put everything in the small folder that you mentioned. When I stood right over him, he would just sit, stare down and not participate, when I walk away to work with the rest of the class, he goes back to what he wants to do.
I have the binder. It was given to me empty. (sorry about that). I also have another folder that he left behind. I will give them all back to him today.
He is not showing me any work. He is not doing the classwork. The day he worked on cleaning out the binder was a day he was to work with two other classmates on a group test. I explained to him that it was important to be a team and work together on the test. He refused to even look at the test. The other two people in his group were quite perplexed. I do not know what to say to him to get him to participate and follow directions. He is putting forth a solid stand against doing anything in here. I do not want a create a scene by "forcing" him to do the work. What to do?
Any ideas you can give me to smooth out this situation would be appreciated.
difficult child's Math Teacher
I don't know what to tell her. My husband is starting to worry that difficult child is missing out on his childhood, since he spends so much time grounded. The counselor hypothesizes that difficult child feels safer being grounded, since he has difficulty maintaining friendships with other children.
I think our first step will be emailing his other teachers and seeing if his behavior is the same in their classes (I get the sinking feeling it is...). But I'm unsure of what to do after that.
His birthday is tomorrow.