Help me get chores and homework on my aspies agenda!

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My son is in 5th grade (diagnosed just over a year ago). This year he is not getting things done. School, etc doesn't matter. Last year was a good year. He is doing his own thing - not chores and school work. Any suggestions as to how to get stuff on his "agenda"? If he doesn't want to do something - nothing and nobody can make him do it. I am pulling out my hair.

Susan

I find rewards work best for my sons with Asperger's.

Tie chores to his favourite activities. eg No computer games until your room is clean

Homework may need to be adapted to suit his special interests.

For example, my 7 year old had NO interest in homework until the teacher adapted it to make it about dinosaurs. Now he loves doing his homework because he is drawing and writing about dinosaurs.

Good luck.
Helen

A system of rewards and punishments has worked for hundreds of years. Restrict things he enjoys doing for after the chore and homework is completed, like 'no TV until the kitchen is clean' or something of that sort. If he gets stubborn and wont do it, then punish him, if you don't believe in spankings ((please say you do, I'm sick of sounding like the evil mother on these boards -_-;;; )), try grounding him, or removing privaleges.

Also, with homework, maybe some one on one attention is needed. If you sit there and help him some, you know he'll do it. If he likes the attention, he'll learn more, if he doesn't he'll work to do it before you come over to help. ^_^

hugs smelena, nice to see you again

i just want to say that you guys are awesome for caring so


and that i feel good for your children that they have such support


my parents never tried too much different stuff to help me i just pretty much stayed grounded and without prevledge..
to the point that i was making a big problem for my mother to punish me anymore bc she didnt have anything else to take away from me and i just didnt care anymore about privledges or things.

as for suggestions i have none.. i was never able to keep my room clean or keep up with homework regularly though i was always pressured to.. and there were times that i wished i could have but just after all the frustration over it i just didnt feel good anymore and there was a lot of negativity tied into these things that i would just start having anxiety that had nothing to do with the actual chores or homework itself.

i know that one on one attention helped me learn a lot and did make my homeworks easier. it didnt help if it was my mother trying to help me bc of all the tension that was there,, but in the rare occurance that i could have a peer or a teacher tutor me i really felt like i could understand things and remember things better.

I always did my own homework. I wasn't especially diligent about chores until I was in high school.

I agree with the above posts about using rewards. For my son, no computer till homework is done. Oh, you want to go outside and ride your bike? Just get that homework done and you may go. Whatever the child wants to do, just use that as a reward (not a given) until he does what is required. As far as chores, it's the same thing. Don't come out of the room till it's cleaned. You will still meet with plenty of opposition but eventually he will learn that you mean it and hopefully, he'll start doing what he needs to do. Good luck!

I agree with the reward system. With my 9 y/o AS daughter, it's no computer or video game time until chores are all done. It's hit and miss most days. She often puts off the chores until the last minute, gets overwhelmed and stressed out, then gets pissed off she doesn't have as much time to play her games as she wanted. She is ultra messy and sloppy and careless with her things, with her berdroom, etc- and she shares it with a 4 y/o sister, so it's a huge problem with us. LOL!

Although we butt heads often on when things should be done, it does work in the end. I usually have to leave her the space to do it in her own time and rearrange my work around the house around her chores(she empties the dishwasher and sometimes we end up with a sink full of dirty(but rinsed) dishes before it gets emptied and I can load it again. It's easier for me to do that than battle with her on a daily basis.

Laely, even the smallest, most routine chore seems like pulling teeth with her. She's been in quite a mood the past few weeks.

The best advice I can give is to pick your battles carefully. I've learned to let a LOT slide with 3 kids, 2 who are on the spectrum(5 y/o is speculative- evaluation is this month). I'm a neat freak by nature, so it's been hard for me to let go of things and let it slide, but for the sake of my sanity and my kids' happiness, I have to.

Try and set up a clear schedule with clear times for homework and chores. If these activities are completed have some kind of reward system if not a loss of privledge. You could do this on a weekly or monthy points system where you total the merits and demarits at the end of the time period for a lager reward or in a more immediate system with smaller rewards/loss of privaledge whichever works best for you and him.

You can get either the chores done or the schoolwork. Aspie kids often get overloaded just pretending to be "normal" all day at school. Work out what is the more important - the chores or the homework and concentrate on that.

I think some parents expect far too much of their Aspie kids - much of the unwillingness to do chores and homework comes back to our perfectionism and fear of failure. Withholding privileges and spanking kids for things they can't help is just plain silly. It really makes me cringe to read about kids getting punished for things they don't understand or can help.

Work on the tiredness and fear of failure and the kids are probably more likely to do jobs around the house and their homework. Be aware that kids often need a snack of some kind to "recharge their batteries".

That could be disasterous. Taking away an aspie's preferred activity can often create more problems than it solves. I'd suggest something like you can play for one hour, but after that you'll need to clean your room. Then when your finished you can begin playing again.

As for homework why not try the same star chart type of thing in most classrooms. Everytime he finishes an assignment he gets a sticker to stick on chart. After X amount of stickers he'll get a reward like a trip to his favorite restaurant or the movie theatre. Work with him to find the rewards that will work best. You might want to start with weekly reqards than move on to biweekly, then monthly, but increasing the reward each time to keep his motivation. Like the weekly reward might be that he gets a cupcake, then when you move on to once a month the reward might be that he can buy a new videogame or toy as long as it doesn't exceed a certain cost.

I agree here. It's cruel to withhold favourite activities simply because a child struggles with their homework or jobs around the house. The world won't end if they don't get done all the time. It will be annoying but hardly life-threatening.

Better by far to focus on rewarding the times the child does the "right" thing and downplay the other times. Being a control freak only makes life more stressful for everybody in the household.

just be cautious about talking about loss of privileges or loss of reward........clear, measurable goals are best~ ie; once you earn 15 stars for completing your homework, and 15 stars for completing your chores then you will receive this prize. you will not receive a prize until all 30 stars have been earned.
when and if your child laments that they are not earning their prize fast enough, just empathize with them that it's sometimes hard to meet a goal, but you're sure he's capable of meeting this one.
best to keep it positive and not focus on reasons why son isn't meeting goal

I never did any chores OR homework until I, myself, found it necissary. I still rarely do. I like living in a messy room. Most of the homework I can do in my head or pick up at school.

I can't tell you any advices about chores. I don't think it would have helped me if I had been grounded, restricted, or punished. Then I'd just have been bored.

As a person with Asperger's Syndrome and a student aspiring to become a teacher in a few years, well, I can tell you that the only way to get ANY kids through homework without literally forcing their hands is to make the homework itself seem interesting. Interest is the only motivating factor until they reach adulthood and have to answer for their laziness directly.

I also think it's important to distinguish between the things that are important and the things that aren't.

It's important that he knows how to clean. Is it important that he DOES it?
It's important that he learns good manners. Is it important that he shows it constantly?
It's important that he learns a lot of things in school. Is it important to finish his homework?

I'm not saying homework is bad, but in many cases kids refuse or avoid school work in general simply because they feel they're not learning anything anyway. Maybe it's hard to relate to. Maybe it's too easy. Maybe his only sense of order comes from what others consider chaos.

I can't find my way around my room when it's tidy. I get confused, frustrated, and feel a strong sense of loss because things aren't where they are supposed to be and thus seem inaccessible.

It depends on the quantity of homework our housework, imo. If it's so much that they'd never get a chance to play if they did it all, ok, it's cruel. Otherwise, no.

It also depends on the severity of the problem. For example, suppose the chore is that he needs to pick up his toys in the family room. Is it so bad that you'd need army boots to traverse the floor safely, or are there just a few scattered around?

If it's something like picking up their toys in the family room and they don't do it after repeated reminders, get a couple of large plastic boxes and sling the toys into them and hide them for a while. If anything is said, reply "well, I got sick of seeing the same toys on the floor all the time so I have put them away for a while".

Also avoid toys with tiny pieces like the plague and ask relatives/friends to avoid giving them as presents.

Just remember the disaster that will inevitably incur if you pick up the aspies favorite toy in such a fashion.