You know something? I’m really, really trying to stay out of Gavin’s homework. I’m trying to remain uninvolved because helping Gavin with his homework while he is intentionally misleading us, was way to stressful. It was causing so many problems in the house because when we would catch him lying to us, he would explode into a rage.
I have to be honest, washing my hands of Gavin’s school work, while the right approach, feels terribly irresponsible.
So tonight, in a moment of weakness, I looked over Gavin’s homework. I don’t know what I was thinking… Perhaps I’m glutton for punishment or maybe I just want to keep tabs on my son. Either way, this was a horrible mistake.
This is just one example of what made me want to beat my head into the wall……. There were plenty others just like it.
Every sheet of homework he had was basically the same. He’s not reading directions and who in the hell even knows where he’s getting these answers from?
His teachers are having the same problems at school. They say Gavin refuses to read and follow the directions.
This is a perfect example of him not reading directions…..
He doesn’t want to do the work and so he just throws random answers out there. His teachers keep saying that he can do the work, he just doesn’t want to do the work.
To muddy the waters even further, he is having cognitive and memory problems and they very likely play at least some role in this. However, at this point, it appears to everyone involved that he’s being difficult, more than anything else.
If you go off of this paper, it’s seems as though he’s not comprehending the directions. However, you can also get the same result from not reading the directions as well.
Looking over his homework tonight was a horrible mistake on my part.
Gavin totally freaked out and that in turn got the other boys wound up and freaking out as well. I posted on Facebook after this happened and said that at this point, I have no choice but to stress eat tonight.
I need understand that being a good parent, doesn’t always feel like your being a good parent.. š
This site is managed almost exclusively from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3.Ā Please forgive any typos asĀ auto-correctĀ HATES me. š
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Rosie Calabro you know, everyone’s situation is different. I understand what you are saying and I’m far from offended. š
The truth is that we all have our challenges be it verbal or non-verbal. What I think is happening is that people are forgetting that we are dealing with many, many things, on top of the Autism. This makes the situation very complicated and if Autism was all we were dealing with, things would likely be very different.
Unfortunately, the most prominent challenges we face with Gavin have little or nothing at all to do with Autism.
I give Gavin credit for every tiny thing he does. However, in this case, he doesn’t want to do the work. He wants others to do it for him and it’s become a power struggle. The Reactive Attachment Disorder plays a huge role in this because he’s compulsively lying to us about everything and it’s horrible.
It’s important to remember that everything is relative. š
How do I send u pics? I posted my Ryry for u to see.
sorry atleast was what I meant
if you or anyone finds the answer to the “I don’t think the directions were read, not trying or too much too comprehrend therefore I wont even try” problem let me know!!! I will say that having the school help with homework and parents helping with the life skills makes things alot less stressful!
Hey Rob,
Let me start by saying I am totally on your side, and think you’re completely right in your assessment of Gavin. Looking at the homework you posted, though, his answers aren’t all just random numbers– for #1 and #2, he did almost the right thing: instead of figuring out the length of the school day by multiplying the hours * 60 (since there are 60 minutes in an hour) and then adding the extra minutes, he accidentally multiplied the minutes by 60 and then added the extra hours. His 606 and 1506 are really close– he just did (m*60)+h instead of (h*60)+m. Many of his other answers seem like he’s just writing random things to get it done, like you’ve noticed, but I just was impressed to see the logic behind his wrong answers– they’re the kind of mistake you’d expect from a kid learning this. Again, I don’t disagree with your overall assessment of the situation– I’m not in the “Rob is making things up” camp at all. He’s just got some method to at least a few of his answers.
I homeschool my oldest son (13) who is on the spectrum, so unfortunately I can’t stay out of his school work.. LOL. He fights me at every turn regarding school. My husband has taken over teaching math because my son and daughter both give me a hard time when it is math time. My 8 year old son who is also on the spectrum is still in public school in a special education classroom happens to love and excel in math. It amazes me how my boys can be so much alike but be so different. It is really hard not to react when we believe our kids are deliberatly not doing what they should be doing and knowing when it is defiance and when it is the “special needs”
STOP being so hard on yourself, Back away from the homework table! If Gavin is losing ground cognitively, time will tell. Ā If you provide him with the correct answers, what good does that do for him? Teachers are good at saying kids are capable of doing stuff, but in many cases they are wrong. They need to see if he needs a different kind of work to understand concepts. Ā You are not really helping him here, because he probably still doesn’t get what the right answers mean versus his answers. Give up the battle, Ā That.s being a good parent, as then he may eventually get what HE needs.