Homework

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How do you address homework with your child's teacher? I have told my son's teacher (he's 13 HFA in the 7th grade) that I don't want them sending home work that he has no idea what to do with, but she continues to do so. And if it doesn't get done, he gets upset and they give him grief at school. I am sick of doing homework. I graduated a long time ago. Not to mention two jobs and two other kids to deal with. I find myself spending hours brushing up on algebra. My other two children come home and do their homework without much assistance. Occasionally, they will ask for help with something, but more often not. I have to ride shot gun over Kevin just to keep him at the table. Then find myself looking up the answers and telling him what to write. What is the point in that?

Does anyone have any advice? Is there something I can get in his IEP?

[/quote]How do you address homework with your child's teacher? [quote]/quote]Does anyone have any advice? Is there something I can get in his IEP?[quote]

Our methods & resources teacher actually suggested having no homework. We're working it out with the teachers, because I think I can help my dd improve in certain areas by doing selected assignments and projects. She will be on a modified program, so I think we'll probably ditch the math homework... last year we were spending 2 hours a night and getting nowhere. I don't want her to miss recess at school to get help, either, and her abilities seem to indicate that expectations in some areas will have to be kept pretty low.
This article by Tony Attwood was mentioned by the new M&R teacher:
http://www.child-autism-parent-cafe.com/homework.htm
Although a total homework exemption is suggested only as a final resort, it is justified in some cases.
J.

An AS poster here suggested something a while back that I think is genius: homework gets done at school. Is there an afterschool program where kids are helped with their homework? (This is a common enough part of afterschool care) Or perhaps the school can hire a tutor to help your son in the library after school.

Changing their mindset from school-brain to home-brain and then back again for the time it takes to do homework is no small task. If you can get them to stay in school-brain, things may be easier.

I have some of the same homework issues with my 4th grader, and I totally agree with the school brain and the home brain. Since he is routine oriented, I actually have them send homework home every day so it's consistent. It's the first thing he does when we get home and it works for him. If my husband doesn't make him do it on Friday (I have a second job and work Friday nights) it's a major argument doing it at another time, and it can get ugly. He never had an issue with doing it in school, but at home he actually could do the work but he tells me he can't to get out of it. I wonder if your son really has trouble or if he is trying to get you to do it for him. I've had many an argument over what he can and cannot do, and what questions he really should be asking. He complains I don't help him, but I do, it's just not the way he would like

If his grades are suffering because homework is too hard for him to do at home, then you absolutely should be able to get some help via IEP. They can modify the work so he can do it in school or give him study time with a resource teacher. I would fight for that definately.

Thank you all! I love the "school brain" "home brain" terminology. I have always said he works better in school because home is home and school is school so he fights tooth and nail to get work done at home. Now I know what to call it.

There is an after school study hall set up at his school and I signed him up, but when I tried to get him to stay he announced, "no, school is over at 3:15." So we haven't pushed it.

Sometimes it is him just not focusing, but I still think some of the work is way over his head. Sometimes it is way over mine.

I get that same argument too. Maybe you can tell him that school is not over until he leaves. If he's in the building, he's "in" school, therefore it needs to get done then. My son works well with incentives. If yours does, maybe you can start off incenting him to do it there, where he can get the help if he needs it, rather than at home. It's there where you will learn more if it's over his head or if he's playing you. Then you will have a better idea where he needs the help, and then you can approach the teacher with more definitive information in an effort to get something in his IEP without allowing him to fail.

I wish you a lot of luck. I keep telling my son that it's just going to get worse so he should be happy he only has about a half hours worth.

Okay - this is what I'm talking about.

Today's science homework: Draw pictures for vocab words.

Vocab words:

Scientific inquiry
experimental error
data
related trials
hypothesis
variable
control
scientific theory etc.....

How does one draw a picture of these?

Uggggh, we have so much trouble with homework. Every day it is a battle!

Last night my daughter (3rd grade) had math word problems (her achilles heel-she loves math but HATES word problems!).

Question #1 was something like "Richard has 30 marbles. Paul has 12 marbles. How many more marbles does Richard have?"

Question #2 was something like "Richard has 14 pencils. He gets 16 more pencils. How many pencils does he now have?"

These questions drive my daughter mad. In question #2, she will say that she doesn't know who "he" is. I will say "they mean Richard". She'll say "you can't know that, what if they mean Paul?". And in question #1 she'll argue that she doesn't know how many more than who? Even if I draw a line through "he" and write "Richard" she becomes mad-and says that I don't know that! And this goes on, and on, and on...

A simple page of word problems took 1.5 hours and lots of tears and frustration.

I don't know what the solution here is. I talk with my daughter's teacher every day to try to brainstorm what we can do to solve these "pragmatic" issues. But even without the pragmatic issues, one day she was supposed to cut out flash cards-or else get a zero grade (for math)-and after cutting out 2 of the 5 pages she was crying because her hand hurt, she couldn't cut "perfectly" on the line (perfectionism), and she winds up just feeling like a failure.

It's almost like regular academic instruction (why is cutting out flashcards academic?-I don't know!) sets them up to fail-I wish I could find a solution.

My daughter is in 4th grade. She has AS & ADHD. I put my foot down this year and insisted that homework be limited to the weekend. By the time we finally get home and get dinner, it's 6:30-7pm. Her medication is long worn off and what should be 20 minutes of work takes 2 hours and ends with one or both of us in tears. Now she does her work on Saturday and Sunday mornings when she is medicated, better able to concentrate and when we have time to focus on the work. It's made a huge difference in just the few weeks since school started. We've also asked the teacher to be more selective on the quantity of work she sends home. She's good about letting us know what is important and what can wait or be skipped if time is an issue.

Homework was always a nightmare for my daughter (while she was still in school). By the end of a school day she was absolutely exhausted. It used to take her forever to do homework because she was so stressed.

A homework club at school can go some way to help - but even then it isn't ideal.

Curiously enough I made a blog post on this very subject a few days ago (see link in sig).

It isn't uncommon for parents of Aspie kids to have to be in the homework business with their kids. There is often a big developmental gap between the teacher's expectations, and what our kids can manage, it has nothing to do with academics, but with developmental readiness. Since you want your smart kid to keep moving forward, you end up acting as a bridge.

Is your son programmed into academic support? At the end of 6th grade we decided to give up an elective and put my son into academic support as a type pf homework study hall. It worked really well for him, having another teacher overseeing a high percentage of his homework, and interfacing with the other teachers on understanding instructions, etc.

Seriously? Oh my word. Definitely, absolutely bring this "homework" assignment to the IEP meeting and say "REALLY?!?" Perhaps being really clear about how he needs something concrete to work with. This stuff quoted above, that's just. wow. no words.

My son is also very concrete, his homework is a little bit simpler because he's in grade 4, but boy did he get hung up on the "The Name of the Best Book you Ever Read" and "My Hero Is:" because he only reads for fun, he doesn't have a best book ever, and he DOESN'T HAVE A HERO (that's him screaming at me ). Just could not get past the words "best" and "hero".

Mama_to_Grace: re: the cutting, I found a (rubbermaid brand) wrapping paper cutter for my son, it is great for straight and somewhat straight line cutting. He cannot manipulate the scissors well enough to cut evenly, so this is a good option for him for straight line cutting. Just a thought...

I'm loving this idea of homework/schoolwork happening at school rather than at home. I feel like a lightbulb's just gone off! My 17-year-old has been doing most of his homework at school during his spares and at lunch this term, and seems to be doing much better following through and getting things done. I'm going to monitor this throughout the term and see if this is actually a more effective strategy for him than bringing stuff home and trying to get back into school mode here.

We've always noticed that he's exhausted when he comes home from school and needs significant downtime afterwards. Maybe keeping schoolwork in the school compartment would help. Hmmmm.

Thanks for sparking my thinking, momsparky.

Update: I sent and email to his ASD teacher telling her these words were way too abstract to draw and she replied that the reg ed science teacher sent that home and she didn't realize that the words were that abstract. She actually agreed that she doesn't know how anyone would really draw these words. She told me to email her anytime I think the homework is too difficult and she'll make sure it won't count against him. I feel better.

I must say, then that that's one out-of-touch science teacher!

We have the same general problem as original poster with our 17yo. What has helped some is having a set routine - when he comes home he relaxes and has dinner, then from 7pm Monday to Thursday he has to get down and do homework.

That stated he is crashing out of his penultimate school year this year, and we have the basic problem mentioned of doing his work for him (which is still harder in the final years of school) - and what is that achieving except for his parents learning some school work?