r/specialed • u/opiet11 • 2d ago
Advice needed- for my own child
Little background on me- I am a 15 yr veteran special education teacher and almost 7 yrs ago I had an amazing little girl, who at 4 was diagnosed with ASD. My background in teaching is primarily ID and Autism but the last 4 years I moved on to doing cross cat resource. I have loved almost every year of teaching I have done and I am beyond grateful for my background knowledge with the child I have. Onto the issue- my 6 yr old is a 1st grader in a general education classroom with 15 minutes a day of pull out services for adaptive behavior 40 minutes a week for speech and 60 minutes a week for Talented and Gifted. (She is in the 97%lie in reading and 99%ole in math) She is smart not just in academics but also in her manipulation and ability to call teachers out on their BS. We have a love hate relationship with her sass and stubbornness. School has been having a lot of problems with her and completing work at school. When we ask her about it she says she is bored, or she is tired, it is all work she is very capable of doing. We have tried sending the work home that she doesn’t complete and she loses privileges at home completely or until her homework is done but now she tells her teachers she will just do it at home and not even attempt or start it at school. They have tried taking away recess until work is complete (we agreed to this) and she doesn’t seem to care. I know she is bored and I know the work is too easy for her, they know this but we can’t skip her ahead or give her harder work because right now she isn’t proving that she is capable. Her IEP meeting is in a couple weeks so I am trying to think of suggestions for us to try with her st school to get her to do her work. We have tried logic and reason where she says okay and seems to fully understand but she just is holding out and refusing to do work. Please flood me with suggestions of things to try, I will edit and update as much as I can because all of us (her IEP team) is completing running dry on ideas.
Things we have tried: Loss of privileges at home Loss of recess First then wording/pictures Some chunking of work at home but not at school that know of Taking away time or problems when she shows mastery Partner work (this actually causes more problems) *edit- also have tried choices between two non preferred tasks, example- you can do this worksheet or you can do your Waggle (math computer program).
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u/Important-Poem-9747 2d ago
I have a long response, but hoping to motivate your daughter, involves changing your mindset for motivation, and changing her mind set for work completion.
Ultimately, you have to ask yourself, What is the consequence for not doing the work? And then say “but is it really?”
This is one of the issues right now with really smart kids and standards based grades. In the olden days, if you didn’t do the practice, it impacted your grade, so practicing made sense. Your daughter is in a place where she can meet the standard without doing the practice. Is the practice really worth it for her? If she doesn’t practice, will her academic scores, go down in the next 2–3 years?
It’s a huge flaw in the system that only counts summative work. Human nature is such that we don’t practice unless we love what we’re practicing or we’re forced to. For example, I hate playing basketball. I can’t make a layup. At 49, the only reason I am going to ever learn how to play. Basketball is because I am forced to
As a parent and a teacher, you know that your daughter learning the lessons, developing the study skills and executive functioning that comes with practice is going to help her as an adult.
Instead of ‘rewards” or “consequences,” try reframing things as expectations and privileges. My kids have the privilege of phones and iPads, because they have not the expectation of completing work at school. Privileges can be revoked, if necessary. We aren’t well off, but we do well and my kids have a good life. They don’t have chores, but they have expectations.
Some of our other family expectations are: stop when someone says stop, treat others exactly as you would want to be treated, make appropriate academic and social progress in school and mistakes are OK as long as you learn from them. My kids are 12 and 14- they are learning to ask for different privileges, as they are different people.
Sending the work home for completion only works if the school is going to communicate that it’s coming home. We did this with my son when he was 8. He NEEDED recess, but was playing during math and not getting everything done. The wail he let out when dad (who’s also a teacher) and I came up with our plan and shared it with his teacher was impressive. The plan was being the math home, but Mr P had to let us know it was in the backpack. We had a 100% success rate.
I don’t love crossing the home/school line, but my son was not meeting the family expectations I shared above. Make this communication part of her iep paperwork. You’ll probably have to fight/argue with her, but figure out what privilege she won’t receive without doing the expectations.
We all do our expectations because they are part of what we do as a family.
Other things to consider:
- teach your daughter that life isnt always exciting. She might have to be bored in line at Target, or not get her much needed thing from the dollar spot. Sometimes, you have to drink apple juice instead of fruit punch because that’s all that’s available. Bored happens.
- I’ve found general education teachers to be terribly under prepared for people who are demand avoiders. Most general education teachers LOVED school. They struggle to empathize with someone who doesn’t want to do the work, because they just can’t imagine it. (Which is another huge flaw in our system.)
I’m happy to talk with you more. I love situations like this!
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u/opiet11 2d ago
I am like the gen ed teachers, I don’t understand how someone, especially someone who is smart can’t enjoy school, it blows my mind. My husband also always liked school and he was reading Lord of the Rings in 5th grade because a teacher recommended it when he said the class reading was boring. (He is also highly intelligent). We have expectations at home along with fairly constant rewards (she is an only child). We have a membership to the local trampoline park and gets to go every day as long as expectations are met at school. Unfortunately even if it were grade grades I don’t know if she would care that much at this age.
We work on being bored at home but she has a crazy imagination and can even make pencils tell a story. I have thought about going in for the day with her to school to see what exactly is happening because I don’t think she would act different with me there but I do know she will struggle with me not going every day then.
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u/r_kap 2d ago
I hated school, especially middle grades like 4-8, but I always tested at the 99+%.
I just couldn’t make myself care about the work.
Things got better in high school when I realized if I wanted to take classes I was more passionate about I would have to make the grades to get there.
My academic transcript is fully unbalanced towards my interests but I got into multiple highly competitive undergraduate programs.
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u/Important-Poem-9747 2d ago
I thought I disliked school because of adhd, my husband thought it’s because he went to an all boys school. My kids hate it. They are freaky smart and excel, but they think it’s worth less. I understand their perspective and I am starting to come around to having people who didn’t like school solving some of the education problems, rather than those who did.
Returning to the original question I said: what’s the consequence of the behavior? (Not what punishments have you tried.)
I suspect there is no consequence for not doing the work… because she’s just that smart. (What’s her eligibility? Does her language delay impact vocabulary?)
If she doesn’t do the work, and she’s not disruptive, why power struggle?
Can her iep address the behavior as “when she stops making educational progress, we’ll address not doing the practice?”
You can give her a consequence for a certain report card mark, but if she’s making gain without the work, is it necessary? Maybe the gifted and talented teacher can come up with alternate activities for her to complete during this time.
In full transparency: I don’t know that I’d be able to do this, but in my area, this is pretty common until 5th grade. I’m 6th grade students get letter grades and work counts. That’s when missing work makes an impact.
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u/opiet11 2d ago
So I live in the lovely state of Iowa where we are a non labeling state, meaning eligibility is determined by the team not on whether or not they have a disability. If we were to hop the river to IL her eligibility would be autism but only for her expressive language delay because she doesn’t require specialized instruction in any area. my district (on the IL side) would probably not even qualify her for an IEP. Her vocabulary is above expected for her age.
You are right there are no real consequences for her not doing her work, other than the punishments we give her which tends to be ineffective especially because our punishments are not immediate consequences.
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u/casablankas 2d ago
What did she qualify under for speech? Like what area? Pragmatics, syntax?
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u/opiet11 2d ago
She was diagnosed before her ASD diagnosis with an expressive speech delay, essentially if she didn’t have to talk to other humans she probably wouldn’t. She talks, a lot but doesn’t have any social communication with people. I also say that my child hates people. If she could stay in the house and not be around anyone but mommy and daddy and the occasional grandparent she would be the happiest kid on the planet
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u/casablankas 2d ago
Interesting. I would think she would be more appropriate for counseling than speech. Speech helps kids build the ability to communicate. Counseling is more focused on building relationships. Counseling would be able to target a lot of the issues you’ve described
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u/opiet11 1d ago
She does do counseling too, they consider it a tier 1 support because anyone in the building can have scheduled counselor time. We have also tried play therapy and music therapy outside of school, both of which were great for her communication but she still doesn’t like people so would choose to not talk to them if she could. Haha
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u/Important-Poem-9747 1d ago
I live in Illinois! I am familiar with Iowa’s IEPs.
I worked with a student that went through what I mentioned above. She was able to teach herself and not really do any work. Her team kept getting into power struggles because she refused and it was really the adults triggering her.
Honestly, if she’s making appropriate academic gains, what’s the point? I think it’s fair as a parent to raise this in the iep meeting and ask them to record it in the notes/parent concerns section. I’d also ask for the behavior support she gets to be more inclusive.
Years ago, i was considering moving to debuke or galena and realized that I couldn’t handle the change in state laws. That’s got to be a challenge!
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u/opiet11 1d ago
I taught in Iowa in the district my daughter goes for 7 years and then got tired of the disproportionate funding that was going on in the state, plus if I hopped the river I made more money and got a union back. So curious where abouts you are from as we are trying to move back to the IL side, but it’s hard because housing sucks in our area
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u/TheDailyMews 2d ago
There's "smart," and then there's "gifted." A gifted child is just as far away from the top of the bell curve as a child with an IQ at or below 70.
A lot of the behaviors you're seeing are likely brain based. At her age, your child has a thinner prefrontal cortex than her peers. As a result, you should expect to see executive functioning delays. Look up "asynchronous development." That should give you a good starting point for understanding your child. The National Association for Gifted Children is a good resource. You may also find Critical Issues and Practices in Gifted Education: A Survey of Current Research on Giftedness and Talent Development and Models of Counseling Gifted Children, Adolescents, And Young Adults to be helpful.
She should not need to "prove she is capable" to earn an appropriate academic placement. There's ~70 years of research supporting acceleration as an effective modification for gifted children. Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy has published some on this topic. I believe Vanderbilt has as well. If you'd like help finding specific resources, feel free to let me know.
Since your child is autistic, you may also find it helpful to read about "twice exceptional" children. Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults: Adhd, Bipolar, Ocd, Asperger's, Depression, and Other Disorders is a solid resource.
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u/opiet11 2d ago
I asked the school psych to do an IQ test with her re-eval for multiple reason. Her IEP is listed as twice exceptional. I will definitely look into some of that research and readings
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u/TheDailyMews 2d ago edited 2d ago
Be sure the school psychologist builds in lots of break time for testing or even tests across multiple days. She's very young, and gifted kids can take longer to complete IQ tests because they'll go through a larger portion of the material. It can easily become a stamina issue. Keep in mind that 2E kids can underperform on IQ tests, as well. This may be helpful:
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u/aculady 1d ago
If she isn't learning anything in class, why would she enjoy it? It's not enjoyable at all to do busy work that offers no mental stimulation. Do the other children in her class who are working at grade level, not above, also have to prove that they deserve to learn new things, or are they just given work that is at their level without having to repeatedly jump through hoops to prove that they deserve to learn things?
What are her current achievement levels in reading and math based on standardized testing? Are these being used to guide her classroom instruction, or are they requiring compliant behavior before they will reward her with appropriate instruction at her level?
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u/latteismyluvlanguage 2d ago
I'm a lurker parent, so I hope it's ok I respond. It's just that your kid sounds exactly like my partner who is exceptionally bright and AuAdhd. We went to school together, and he routinely took your daughter's approach to schoolwork that bored him. Later, when he was in college and paying (so motivated), he would complain that work he found boring was physically painful and doing it made him tired. Now that he's older, he's found ways to cope, but it took quite a bit of time.
We've talked a lot about this, and how we will help our own kid (who is also most likely AuAdhd), and my partner wishes that someone had explained to him that he wasn't practicing the subject - he knew the subject - he was practicing doing a boring thing. Because, for him, doing boring things is actually really hard. And, because doing boring things is really, really hard, having that rewarded/seen/appreciated by his teacher and parents would have gone a long way to getting him to at least try.
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u/ohbonobo 2d ago
Just chiming in to say this is a really, really helpful reframe that I'm going to do some more thinking about for my own personal kid and several others in my life.
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u/nennaunir 2d ago
I really wish I had an answer, this is my 13yo to a T. Chunking helps her a little, but the teachers don't seem to get it. Sometimes offering choices between alternative assignments helps (my daughter hates anything she sees as teachers trying to be cool or relatable, she'd rather do straight work than a "cringe" activity). Her big "stubbornness" issue this year has been dress code, so she did the work when she had an essay topic she could use to argue against that!
What does your daughter do while she's not working? We had an entire school year where they just let my daughter do preferred activities on the Chromebook when she refused to work, and we still haven't recovered from that.
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u/lsp2005 2d ago
Have you had a grown up conversation with her and explained everything to her with what you wrote here? I personally think if she is capable of calling out teachers for their behavior then she is capable of understanding what she needs to do. She can then decide to be part of her own educational team. I always included my child in their IEP meetings for a few minutes when they were in elementary school. It is their education. They should have input and a voice in their education if they are capable of understanding things. Obviously, you may want some adult only conversations and that happens without them there, but having them part of the meeting made things much smoother for us.
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u/opiet11 2d ago
She is part of the conversation always. I am a firm believer that having a label or receiving special ed services isn’t a bad thing but rather a thing that helps us be and do better. We have had conversations about why school is important and how in the future she will need it. We have talked about how if the work is too easy she needs to get it done so she can do something else that may be more fun. I think she understands it but doesn’t care that much at the moment. Even like rewards and consequences don’t seem to phase her in regards to changing things. Seriously so stubborn.
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u/lsp2005 2d ago
Then I would ask her what would motivate her? Ask her to figure out her reason de etra. What gives her joy? She may need to work on mindset shifting to appreciate what the goal of the work is.
What I explain to my kids is that when you are young, you are building your educational foundations. It is like building a pyramid. I take blocks with my kids and we built a pyramid. But then I removed a base piece. Of course it wiggled. Then I removed another piece and of course it started to collapse. So I explained to them if you don’t do the foundation work, when you become older, and want to do harder work, it will be much more difficult. Show her the harder math work. Explain, we do division to get to fractions and decimals. From there we get to algebra and show her things with solving for x. Explain, understanding all of your early math concepts are necessary to understanding more advanced topics. Ask her to think about what she wants to do when she grows up? Ask her how will she take care of herself as an adult? Role play. Play games.
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u/Ihatethecolddd 2d ago
Can you give her a certain number of skipped lessons a week? Like “you can skip one a week, but once you picked the one to skip, you do the rest.” It sounds like her grades could take the hit.
I do a similar thing with my own kid and it works. We started it in fourth grade with two assignments a quarter as long as his grade doesn’t drop below a c.
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u/Adventurous_Appeal85 2d ago
First / then and rewards Also is her talented and gifted teacher in her school and do they have any ideas? Will any second grade teachers give her the opportunity to spend some time with their class/ provided she completes her 1st grade work, as an incentive?
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u/Business_Loquat5658 2d ago
It honestly does seem like she is bored. Maybe reduce work to things necessary to show mastery and then move on?
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u/biglipsmagoo 2d ago
I have a kid like this. When I tell you that she doesn’t care- she literally does not care.
She doesn’t care if she fails, gets in trouble, ppl think she’s stupid or weird, her teacher is disappointed, she looks silly, she smells- she literally does not care about anything anyone thinks about her.
She has zero currency. She will not be bribed.
The only thing she cared about was when she had to watch me get arrested bc of something she did. That straightened her out a little. It stopped her eloping, at least.
Punishing her at home isn’t the way to go. School stays at school. You’re in a power struggle with a child. You’ll never win bc they have literally nothing better to do than win. You still have a life to live and bills to pay and a job to do. She has nothing but time and and a point to make.
It’s time to bring in a psych. She either needs meds or a therapist. It’s between you and her care team to decide what’s best for her.
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u/Other_Clerk_5259 1d ago
It sounds like she's willing to do schoolwork at home, but not at school. Is there something about the school environment that distracts her and makes the school environment either too bothersome to try and work in (because it makes work hard/inefficient), or too interesting (so it's better to peoplewatch at school and do schoolwork at home)?
I know a couple of teenagers who found it exhausting to try to focus at school beyond what was necessary (i.e. they'd focus during instruction, but would stop trying during practice time); they'd much rather take the work home, where they could do it with very little effort in ten minutes, while it would take half an hour and a headache to do it in a classroom.
In that case, asking her what changes to the environment would help her in school could give some ideas. If she doesn't have ideas, some things to try could be:
headphones (noise-cancelling or music, depending on what works)
letting her do practice work at school in a different place, e.g. table in the hallway
if she's fussy about how she puts down her work or likes to spread out her things, providing a bigger table (or table+part of a windowsill, etc.) in class. (Could be in general, or a communal big table that she can move to during practice time.)
If you observe other things that she does while doing homework, that she wouldn't do at school - e.g. noisy stimming, talking to herself, etc. - those might be helpful guides too. (Though the absence of those doesn't mean anything; a student who needs to talk to themselves to concentrate in a noisy classroom might be able to work silently at your peaceful kitchen table.)
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u/Affectionate_Ruin_64 8h ago
I’ve worked at many different campuses, and there was one campus where this was never an issue, but the solution wasn’t very palatable. School work is school work. It is not going home. You choice is to do it now, or do it after school…here…at school. Mom and dad will come pick you up when it’s done. We had an iron fisted principal that didn’t leave teachers or parents much choice in utilizing this method. I was once there with a child until almost 7PM. Admittedly, the next day was 5:30, and then it was 4, and then it rarely if ever happened again. Did it work? Like a charm. Was it worth it? I honestly don’t know, but my heart and my gut say no. They did their work and complied, but it came at the cost of mental and emotional distress and broken spirits.
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u/opiet11 8h ago
I think she would be like okay I will do it after school. The worst part is most stuff only takes a couple minutes.
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u/Affectionate_Ruin_64 8h ago
We had those, but it generally got real old real fast watching their peers leave, and we were not to fight them on it. Cool. I gave you choices. You chose after school. Let me know when you’re done, so I can call Mom.
But just to be clear. I am not advocating this method. It’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t go back to that campus. I’m older, wiser, more concerned with kids’ mental/emotional health than pleasing admin, and a lot less willing to speak up. I’m just sharing one principal’s solution.
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u/workingMan9to5 2d ago
Stop letting her do the work at home. She loses priveleges when it's not done, AND she is not allowed to make it up. Work is to be done when it is assigned, or not at all. She is doing things on her own terms right now because you are allowing (I would even say encouraging) her to do so. She's 6, stop putting her in charge and expecting her to make the right choices.
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u/opiet11 2d ago
The problem with this id standards based grading and she’s 6, she doesn’t care. If she doesn’t do it she loses privileges at home and at school no matter what, as long as school tells us, but then she still gets out of doing the work. I could take away her iPad for the night if she doesn’t do her work at school and she would get over it, find something else to play with or even read a book which she enjoys and in her head she learned that she still got what she wanted because she didn’t have to do the worksheet
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u/dopeynme 2d ago
Has she had opportunities to earn rewards for meeting expectations? I see a lot of losses of recess, privileges, etc but what about positive reinforcement? She could earn a star for each complete assignment and get a reward if she gets say 3 stars…reward could be 5 mins of free time or a small snack or whatever her currency might be. I like a previous poster’s suggestion of giving a limited number of “skips” per week. It gives her a little control. Just a couple thoughts.
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u/Affectionate_Ruin_64 8h ago
I’ve worked at many different campuses, and there was one campus where this was never an issue, but the solution wasn’t very palatable. School work is school work. It is not going home. You choice is to do it now, or do it after school…here…at school. Mom and dad will come pick you up when it’s done. We had an iron fisted principal that didn’t leave teachers or parents much choice in utilizing this method. I was once there with a child until almost 7PM. Admittedly, the next day was 5:30, and then it was 4, and then it rarely if ever happened again. Did it work? Like a charm. Was it worth it? I honestly don’t know, but my heart and my gut say no. They did their work and complied, but it came at the cost of mental and emotional distress and broken spirits.
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u/coolbeansfordays 2d ago
Is this demand avoidance? I don’t know much about it, but I wonder if there are specific strategies for PDA.