gcvmom
Here we go again!
This is a question I'll be posing for difficult child 1's therapist on Friday, but what do you think can be done to help a difficult child who gets stuck on details and can't ever seem to finish a project because of it? (Holy cow, he's a carbon copy of MY dad!)
For example, difficult child 1 was to color a WWII political outline map based on whether the country was part of the Allied or Axis group, and label the map. That's it. Sounds pretty simple, right?
Well, he took it one step further. He attached a list of every single country, no matter how small and seemingly inconsequential to the "big picture". Then he color-coded the list. Then he colored in the map according to the country's alignment during the war. But then he started reading further and realized that some countries switched their alliances mid-way through the war. So he struggled with how to handle that data. I told him to forget it and just pick where they were in the middle of the war and go with it. But he kept going back to his list and editing it over and over -- adding some countries, removing others (I have no idea what it was based on since I'd decided to let him work on his own as much as possible this week.) Then he'd sit for hours worrying about formatting of the list -- the autonumbering wasn't working right and it was confusing him. Finally I told him to remove ALL the numbers and just list the countries!
But he just wasted so much time on this one simple project that now it's the evening before all his work is due and he's not finished with the rest of the assignments (hasn't finished the chapter reading, hasn't taken his 2 online quizzes, hasn't written his 1-page essay, hasn't done today's French assignment). Plus he put stuff off this week and opted to play around, so now he's freaking out. Even earlier today he kept going outside with his paintball gun to try to hit a ground squirrel that keeps digging in our yard.
I'm just so frustrated -- he had two more days this past week to work on the assignments than he had the first week he started at this new school and he still isn't ready for tomorrow. The big difference is that I did not hover and micromanage him like I did last week.
Are there cognitive things we can work on? Is it just a matter of me sitting with him more to help with the time management? Is it a medication issue? What?
Whenever he has to write on the computer, he gets caught up in the formatting and wastes a ton of time.
I do know that the strategy for next week will involve saving the project for LAST, and I will probably have him write his essay long-hand first.
For example, difficult child 1 was to color a WWII political outline map based on whether the country was part of the Allied or Axis group, and label the map. That's it. Sounds pretty simple, right?
Well, he took it one step further. He attached a list of every single country, no matter how small and seemingly inconsequential to the "big picture". Then he color-coded the list. Then he colored in the map according to the country's alignment during the war. But then he started reading further and realized that some countries switched their alliances mid-way through the war. So he struggled with how to handle that data. I told him to forget it and just pick where they were in the middle of the war and go with it. But he kept going back to his list and editing it over and over -- adding some countries, removing others (I have no idea what it was based on since I'd decided to let him work on his own as much as possible this week.) Then he'd sit for hours worrying about formatting of the list -- the autonumbering wasn't working right and it was confusing him. Finally I told him to remove ALL the numbers and just list the countries!
But he just wasted so much time on this one simple project that now it's the evening before all his work is due and he's not finished with the rest of the assignments (hasn't finished the chapter reading, hasn't taken his 2 online quizzes, hasn't written his 1-page essay, hasn't done today's French assignment). Plus he put stuff off this week and opted to play around, so now he's freaking out. Even earlier today he kept going outside with his paintball gun to try to hit a ground squirrel that keeps digging in our yard.
I'm just so frustrated -- he had two more days this past week to work on the assignments than he had the first week he started at this new school and he still isn't ready for tomorrow. The big difference is that I did not hover and micromanage him like I did last week.
Are there cognitive things we can work on? Is it just a matter of me sitting with him more to help with the time management? Is it a medication issue? What?
Whenever he has to write on the computer, he gets caught up in the formatting and wastes a ton of time.
I do know that the strategy for next week will involve saving the project for LAST, and I will probably have him write his essay long-hand first.