Unorganized child (long)

[Blfarm]

I’ll apologize in advance for the long post here, I just needed to vent and hopefully get some feedback or opinions from other parents.

My DS (10) is in 4th grade this year, and is struggling to stay organized and turn assignments in. His teacher mentioned towards the end of the first quarter that he sometimes seemed distracted, but didn’t seem overly concerned about it when I asked for more information on how/what was happening. Then came second quarter – I noticed a missing assignment on the available online student records, so I emailed the teacher. She responded by stating DS hardly ever turns in any work and has had the maximum amount of allowed late assignments for the quarter so all further late assignments would receive a grade of 0.
I was shocked since I had not heard anything about this, and when asked why she never contacted me she replied that she assumed DS had told me about the late papers. I asked her to keep me informed, and that I was open to any suggestions she may have or any services she of the school would recommend. She has been keeping me informed, as I usually get the daily email “DS was playing with his hair a lot today”, “DS had too many late assignments this week, and was sent to see the principal”, “DS has a messy desk”, “DS is so unorganized, he needs to improve on this or he will not make it through the year”, etc.
Whenever I ask further questions, the teacher tends to get very defensive – I tried explaining to her that I just want to understand the whole picture so I can do whatever is possible to help my son. I’ve tried talking with my son, punishments, rewards, etc … nothing seems to help.
The last two years he didn’t seem to have any issues – although those teachers were different and they had very hands on project oriented (they did or made something for just about everything) teaching methods. In first grade, my son also had similar reports from the teacher – I followed up and had an ADHD evaluation done and the psychologist determined that he was well with the normal range for a child – in fact the teachers had rated him lower in the inattentive and hyper portions of the evaluation than I did.
I finally contacted the school Counselor/Psychologist and she agreed to do an evaluation on my son – I am scheduled to meet with her and his teachers on Friday. However, his teacher emails me today that she took a firm stance with DS because his desk was “unorganized and filthy”. She confronted him and he wouldn’t give her a response on why he had loose papers and paper airplanes in his desk. I responded with “Thanks for letting me know, and I hope that our meeting on Friday can help lay out a plan of action to get DS back on track”. However, she’d prefer that I talk to DS tonight and let him know that he “must provide an explanation to her in the morning about his actions (unorganized desk)”. I have no problem talking to DS, but he is already afraid of his teacher and getting into trouble that I’d prefer to address this in our meeting on Friday – is that wrong?

I’m just overwhelmed and don’t know what to do next … Now, I was an only child and didn’t have any cousins my age growing up, so I don’t have much to compare the behavior/experiences with and when I talk to parents of my son’s friends .. they all seem to be having similar experiences and tell me not to worry. I don’t know what to think anymore … I’m not sure if there is something wrong with my son, with my parenting or perhaps I just need to let some of it go.

[MMFreak]

I can sympathize with you. This same thing happened to my son however it was when he entered the 7th grade. My son was an accelerated student and when he graduated from 6th into 7th and into the next school everything went downhill. The first year I had NO communication and at the first sign of trouble I spoke to his principal then his guidance counselors and then his teachers. I still would not get any communication. I was told I was a non participating parent. After showing proof of how much and how often I did participate in my sons education and still getting nowhere I finally had no other recourse but to have a conference with the superintendant. My belief is that this school is just terrible. The left hand doesn’t talk to the right hand. I heard from his guidance counselor “well if I called every parent every time a student was getting behind I would never be able to leave my job”. When I asked his teachers at a group meetings how could they possibly justify not getting in touch with a child’s parents when they are failing miserably, especially when coming into the school the child was an accelerated student? The reply to this was “we wondered how your son got into our accelerated program” It was like dealing with a bunch of juveniles that did not want to take responsibility for beating a child down and letting them slip through the cracks. The following year was hard as well as my son was so beaten down that he started to mingle with the wrong sorts of people. I had to be on my toes every second of everyday and watch what was going on. My son had the worst two years of his life in 7th and 8th grade He has now moved on to the high school and he again is doing much much better. I just think that some teachers should not be teaching and you cannot make all kids fit into your perfect stepford mold. If a child is a bit messy who cares do what you were trained to do teach him math, teach him English, spelling, whatever a messy desk is small potatoes compared to what they are doing to these children’s psyches.

I probably did not help you very much but I just wanted to let you know you are not alone. This happens everyday. I would wait until the meeting and not give in to the teachers ridiculous expectations. His desk was messy he's a kid!!!!

[Zippy 1]

I have a few questions for you. Is your son also unorganized at home? Is he easily distracted from work at home?
Now without answers to this I do have a few suggestions for school. You (with his help) can make a log. In this he logs daily assignments with due date with his teacher checking it over before he leaves daily. Then at home you and he can go over the log and create a timetable for when the work is due. When the work is turned into the teacher he can highlight it in his log to know he has done his part. As a former teacher I have found this works well. Although you have to have a teacher willing to work with him. As far as cleaning his desk this is normal behavior for a child his age. We use to have a desk cleaning day once a week.
I think you are correct in getting the counselor involved. If you do not feel you are getting the help or answers you need from the teacher feel free to take it all the way to the principal until you see results. You are your childs best advocate! It sounds like maybe the teacher needs some training in communication and how to handle children who are unorganized. She should be communicating with you the moment there is a problem - since you have asked for that. You sound like and involved parent and that is wonderful!! Hang in there and feel free to pm me if you need any other ideas for helping him. I am very involved in making sure kids get the support they need and not letting anyone fall through the cracks in my daughters school.

[MNNHFLTX]

I don't know that I can compare situations, but my son has also had issues with organization, especially in mid to late elementary school. He is still not a whiz at it as a senior in high school, but has at least developed a basic system that keeps him on track. This is a common issue with boys, from what I have heard--their brains are just wired differently than girls. And while I hate to generalize, sometimes I think our elementary schools tend to teach in ways that are conducive to the way girls learn, not boys, perhaps because so many elementary school teachers are female. I noticed that when my son had a male teacher for half a year in 6th grade, he tended to be much more focused and organized on his own (without cues from us).

As far as your son's teacher requesting an immediate "explanation" from your son as to why his desk is so disorganized, I think that may be unreasonable at this point. I bet your son himself has no idea why he cannot organize himself the same way some of his classmates do. I would talk to the teacher today or tomorrow (either on the phone or in person) and re-emphasize that both you and your son are a bit overwhelmed at this point and that you would rather wait to air the whole issue at your meeting Friday.

Hopefully with awareness and involvement from the school, teacher and yourself, you all will be on the same page in finding some strategies for helping your son succeed in school and in organization. So hang in there and don't beat yourself up too much about it. And kudos to you for continuing to be an advocate for your son. That's what a good parent does. :hug:

[BigRedDad]

Hey!!! You described me to a T growing up. I am no psychiatrist, psychologist or anything else. I can only tell you from my experience.

I was bored to death. I hated school, always wanted to be somewhere else, and doing something else. I was great at math and science and could not be challenged enough in elementary school for those subjects. English, History, reading, etc would put me to sleep.

A traditional classroom setting never worked for me. I did much better in small groups or learning it on my own. My brain worked kind of backwards. In math, I knew the answer without doing anything. I could put the answer down and figure out how to get it by working backwards. For science, I could learn nothing from a book. Put me in a lab or experiment center and I could solve anything. It was more hands on interaction than book learning. I am still completely unorganized. However, I know where everything is in that state. If it gets straightened up, I could not find anything and get completely frustrated.

I am not sure what to offer as encouragement. I graduated college with a degree in Electrical Engineering, work is paying for my MBA, and I would say that I am relatively successful.

Try finding out what he enjoys and what can keep his attention. It sounds exactly like I was all the way through college. Also, it may be a discipline (not punishment) thing. You may, as a parent, have to be on top of everything he does. Don't make him spend 2 hours doing homework. Maybe make him do 15 minutes at a time: once when he first gets home, one right after dinner, and once right before bed. This may be all he will do regardless of what you try to force him to do. If I had better learning and study habits in elementary school, I would have probably been a genius.

Somethings not to do at least in my case:
1. Do not take away the one thing he looks forward to. This will only cause him to go deeper into his state. In my case it was football. My parents threatened that and it left nothing to look forward to so why pay attention at all.
2. Do not threaten him. It will be counter-productive. Work with him to find out methods that are most conducive to his learning habits.

Some things to try:
1. Find out if he has a learning deficiency. For me it was reading. For me, I sounded like a blubbering idiot when I had to read. I have the same issue now. I have to cover up all lines of text except the one I am reading. Otherwise, my brain and eyes see all lines a single line and I am lost.
2. Find out how he learns. For me it was hands on. I could sit and build computers before anyone ever heard of them. I could not spend two minutes reading about them for the life of me.
3. Going through the school guidance counselor or psychiatrist may not work. You may need to take him to a private counselor to find out what it is. My problem was not diagnosed until I met with one who was posed as a reading tutor. He concluded I had no learning disability and that I was not retarded (sorry for the term, but that was the classification in the 70s). He found that I learn completely different than most kids and that I actually learned much faster in the situations that I was comfortable in. He was the one that found out why I had difficulty reading and found out that my eyes and brain wandered with full pages of text. The same text on single lines were perfectly simple to follow and comprehend.

One other thing and it may not be what you wanted to hear. He may be entering puberty. That could be having a drastic affect on everything. I started much earlier than most.

[clausjo]

I'm going through this exact same thing with my son. He started last year when he was in 4th grade. He wasn't turning in assignments on time, wasn't writing down assignments in his agenda, etc. The only thing that helped was constant communication with his teacher. We started out 5th grade pretty good, but recently he's started missing assignments again. His teacher is now checking his agenda daily and signing off that he's written everything down properly. She's also letting me know on a weekly basis if he's missed any assignments for that week. I'm hoping that this helps. By the way, he too always has a very messy desk. Last week she dumped it out. I'm not sure that humiliating him was the best course of action, but hopefully he'll remember that he was embarrassed and try to keep his desk a bit neater in the future. As far as providing the teacher with a reason why his desk was so messy, I'm sure your son will say the same thing mine did, "I don't know" and it's probably true.

Best of luck to you and your son. Hopefully the conference you're having on Friday will help you and the teacher determine a plan of action that will help your son.

[crazypoohbear]

my advice is not to give up on him.
don't let the teacher enlist your help in bullying your son.
Keep all the written information you have on his late assignments, hair twirling, daydreaming, etc.
then go to the SPED department and tell them you want all the teachers to fill out a Connors scale on ADD (inactivity).
Then if the teachers say he is not inattentive, or disorganized take out the other documentation and ask them to explain the difference.
Some teachers dont' believe in ADD, inactivity and think that boys are just lazy.
Don't punish him, help him get as organized as he can
1 get a homework planner
2. color code all his books
i.e. red book cover, red note book, red folder all belong to reading
green book cover, notebook, folder all for math
etc.
that way when he goes to get what he needs for each class all he has to do is remember the color he needs then he grabs everything that color out of his desk or locker.
3. Tell the teacher if she notices that he is distracted in class to approach him in an NON confrontational way and redirect him. i.e. putting her hand on his shoulder to "bring him back"
4. Tell the teacher that she needs to check his homework planner after each class to insure that he wrote down the assignment and she should sign it.
5. When he gets home you check the planner, make him do the homework, show you the homework then put it in his backpack RIGHT then. Then you sign the planner
6. Reward him for good performance.
7. Give him a caffiene boost at lunch, either a soda or chocolate. see if this helps keep him focused.
My son has ADD and I had teachers tell me all the time he wasn't performing to his potential, I kept all the notes and progress reports, when I had them do the connors scales these same teachers said daydreaming and distraction wasn't an issue. When I pulled out all the other papers and asked them to explain which is the correct assessment, they were stunned I had kept everything they had ever said about him!
Good luck to you and please don't give up!

[Rekenna]

I'm sorry about your situation-but, what good advice from everyone!

My oldest son DS11-is in 5th grade and where we live they just moved the 5th grade to middle school, so he has to change classes for every class. He was having a really hard time (he is a very good student, super smart-and started missing assigments, etc., although I don't think he has ever had the issues with any of his teachers as your DS sounds like he is having). One thing that helped him get organized was a folder system, it's one of those folders that has a spiral loop and has 6 folders, all different colors. This sounds so simple but, it has really helped. We check the folders every night, ask him why/why not he has assignments and so forth.

I don't have any girls, and from what the other posters said this seems like a boy thing. He's a really good kid-but for some reason feels the need to fib about stupid little things-like brushing his teeth.

It sounds like we are all in the same boat-I'm sorry your son is having such a hard time. My comments probably aren't much help, but it seems like the other posters have some really great ideas.

Good luck!:thumbsup:

[Blfarm]

Thanks for all the replies - It is nice to know I'm not alone! And for all the suggestions -

As for some of the questions raised -
No, he really isn't all that disorganized at home - things are usually picked up and put away (although getting the towels off the bathroom floor can be challenging :) ). Otherwise his room and things are much neater than I remember mine being at his age.

He does log his assignments - but it is at the end of the day and his teacher doesn't look it over (would take too much time, and the kids need to take responsibility for their work).

Doing the homework isn't a problem for him - after grabbing a snack when he gets home, he goes off to his desk and gets it done without me nagging him.

Hopefully Friday's meeting will bring some answers!

[Kenny1113]

Wow! Nice to know this is more common than just my son (it sure feels like it when the teacher is talking to you). I am having the same issues with DS8 (3rd grade). He has been having them since 1st grade and getting worse each year( he starts the year out great!). But he has gotten drastically worse since they got back from winter break! I too have tried punishment and rewards. Neither seems to work, he just won't pay attention. Even in activities he loves (swimming).
I am so happy to hear success stories! Please keep us posted as to any suggestions you receive.

[crazypoohbear]

Just wondering how the meeting went and if they teacher had an suggestions on how to keep your child focused and organized.

[MadMadamMim]

I am a Special Education teacher with a Masters Degree in Special Education so if you would like to speak via PM ever let me know. I actually teach a study skills class to high school students and one of the main things we focus on is organization so I'm glad to be of assistance! :mickey:

[Ian]

You pretty much just described me as a child to a "T." Although my onset was a little later ... mine started around 6th grade.

I'm honestly not sure what it was, to tell the truth. Part of it (I think) was that I was very, very advanced in elementary school and things came very easily for me. I never had to develop work habits because I didn't need them. I showed up, listened, figured it out nearly immediately (if I didn't already know it, that is), and that was that.

So when school became a little more challenging and I had to actually work to keep up I hadn't built the skills I needed to do that. I guess I compensated by basically tuning out. It took me years to recover, too, although if it makes you feel any better I'm reasonably successful as an adult and I'm highly organized.

My personal opinion is that this is something that needs to be addressed at home. Very, very few teachers have the skills or the patience to give your son the kind of attention he'll need to figure this out. Talk to him ... don't punish him ... don't yell ... don't get angry. He's almost definitely not "lazy" or doing it on purpose. He's probably just a bit lost.