You have no idea how happy I am that someone read what I said and took it to heart. I've been feeling really helpless in terms of making people understand how difficult it is to survive in the narrow high school world with a learning disability. I go to a private school, so they're pretty much exempt from, well, everything...including the whole 504 deal.

I think a support group is an amazing idea. I've been wanting to do something like that, but I just don't have the resources. I really think it'd be fantastic if you could get people interested and listening. I'd kill for a support group right now. You're wonderful for caring so much and wanting to understand what your daughter is going through. She's very lucky to have you...even if she thinks you're crazy. hugs, Jill p.s. Thank you so much for praising my writing. I love words more than anything except my cats.

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Jill, you have made my day. I don't have much time to write you to night. AMERICAN IDOL is no.I love that show.I have to tell you your parents have done a good job by putting you in that school . It shows it by your words in your writing. Your teacher knows you can do it. Be proud of your self . It will pay off. Well i have to go. I wIll get back to you. Hugs Inga P.S Keep your head up and walk tall.

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My son is in trouble with his 8th Language Arts teacher because he took so many shortcuts on his research paper he has basically plagiarized. He just wanted to get it done and over with and wasn't motivated at all to put in the kind of time he would have needed to demonstrate mastery of the process. I probably nagged too much and the teacher thinks I did too much for him.

My question is this, how do you as parents determine how much help to give? Do I leave him completely alone so he flunks when he is struggling in every other class? If a person fails enough they will decide to stop working, it is inevitable. This is doubly hard because he is very intelligent in ways that don't count at school. Everyday when I drop my son off to middle school I wonder, "How does he do it?" I know that for the first 4 periods of the day he is in survival mode. Motivated to do homework? No way. In trouble with his teachers? You bet. Why won't anybody at school help this kid succeed?

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I think we can do enough without actually doing it. For my child., I will help her find things on line; or if I had the subject give her the resource material so she can find what she needs. I will review it and correct her so if it is to much then I do too much. I will have her read it out loud and make the tense corrections as it is being read. If it sounds too perfect then I am not too sure what can be done. for example she had an essay on the 1300 and what supured on the colonization . it wasn't in her book but easily accessed on-line that the plaque supported the colonization. To keep her motivated we give her cash for 90 and above 90-94 $1 95-98 $ 2 99-100 $3 A's on report card are 5 etc we know she loves cash and will do her best if she thinks she is going to get paid. I never tought about the fact we could be accused of doing it for her. Thank you for the heads up . Also remember to get arround the issue of plagism he need to reference his sources. an example is from a paper in nursing ? , Melinda Smith, M.A., Tina de Benedictis, Ph.D., Jaelline Jaffe, Ph.D., and

Jeanne Segal, Ph.D., (8/20/07). Domestic Violence and Abuse: Warning Signs and Symptoms of Abusive Relationships, retrieved 08/24/2007 from http://www.helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_types_signs_causes_effects.htm

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My son is 14 years old and I am a single parent trying to motivate him. I suffer from ADD too so I know how he feels. When you were writing about your daughter it made me really think about some questions to ask my son. I want more for him than I got when I was in High School. His father is in his life, but doesn't buy this whole ADD thing and isn't happy about meds, and I don't care what he thinks because it is all about helping my son. Did you ever have problems with having your daughter say I don't care out of anger or sadness? My son says it all the time and it concerns me so much. If you have any thoughts on that I would appreciate it. Thanks again you give me hope that my son can get this and go on to college too. Wow.........thanks again.

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heckelmeister said: You are describing what happened with my daughter in high school (she just graduated last June). Your description of her "just shutting down" is absolutely accurate because that's literally what's happening. We thought originally that it was a motivational thing, but what it turned out to be was extreme anxiety that eventually led to depression. Starting her on Cymbalta made a big difference, but that didn't take care of everything.

For my daughter, ADD means not only that her mind goes a mile a minute, leading to distractability, but also that once her interest is piqued, she will hyperfocus to the exclusion of all else. Combine that with the high school experience, where kids must take six and seven courses every day. Not only is she dealing with the distractability, not to mention great problems transitioning from one class and subject to another in the space of less than ten minutes, but they're also expecting her to manage several projects and homework assignments in many subjects every day. No wonder she became anxious to the point of paralysis!

If this sounds like what's happening with your daughter, here's one solution for math: find the best tutor you can who can literally be her teacher, i.e., not just someone to help with homework, but someone who will assume she has absorbed nothing in the classroom and so will reteach it anew at every meeting. We learned a long time ago that our daughter learns best in one-on-one situations--fewer distractability problems that way. Doing this, she went from a D in Algebra II to a B, an F in Statistics to a C. The teachers, by the way, would cut her no slack on the amount of homework and papers she had to turn in (despite a 504 plan to the contrary), so these grades reflect the same amount of work everyone else did. In fact, because of her anxiety and depression, we convinced the school that it was detrimental for her to even attend class (it didn't help that the teacher thought it would be "motivational" to remind her she was failing). They vetted the tutor and agreed to accept him as her de facto teacher. Not having to attend the class helped tremendously with the anxiety. What's the best tutor? Someone not intimidating to your daughter, but definitely not another high school student (we found a graduate student in math at our local university). By the way, the tutor turned in her homework for her, so the usual problem of forgetting to turn things in magically disappeared. :)

As for papers and projects, we found that her tendency to perfectionism led to her staring at the computer screen for hours trying to perfect three sentences, but if she dictated what she wanted to say, she could knock out a paper in a day. Dictating to me worked freshman year, but after that she didn't want to have to work with Mom. So we convinced her to hook up with a friend of hers who was attending the local university. My daughter would dictate, her friend would key in, then when my daughter would want to hyperfocus on a sentence or a paragraph, her friend would tell her it was good enough and get her to move on. It made writing a fun social experience, which in turn seemed to dissipate the paralyzing dread that used to accompany such assignments.

As for the usual motivational techniques of taking away car keys and privileges, it's not going to work because this is not a problem of motivation. Believe me, the desire is there, but it's like there's a brick wall preventing her from doing what she really does want to do, and at least for my daughter, that made her feel even more helpless and hopeless. Working with a very sympathetic principal, we learned in her junior year that our daughter didn't need to take a full load every semester in order to graduate. She helped pare down our daughter's schedule from seven courses every day to four. That also helped tremendously.

There's no way to sugar-coat this--high school is going to be a really rough ride for you and your daughter. All I can say is that it really is true that college is a whole lot better (at least so far) because it's not seven courses every day all week long.

Good luck.

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I too need help motivating my teen. He was once on Strattera and Zoloft and did fairly well but quit taking those. He didn't "like the way he felt and was tired of taking meds." His grades can go up and down at any given time but now they are in the toilet. He doesn't care and doesn't get the information straight to do it right. He doesn't want any suggestions or help. He excels in sports and we were hoping that would be motivation but he seems to think that D's are ok and they are not failing. It is a fine line when you take everything away also. He will then just go into a depression and give up. I have tried counseling but he had a bad experience and refuses to go back. He is basically a great kid but we are at a loss on what to do. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

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I have an almost-16-yr-old son who continues to fail classes due to failure to turn in work or apply himself. He began his inattentiveness and focusing problems in 4th grade. I can't say I have a lot of help or advice for anyone else because we have now been dealing with his problems and he just finished his Sophomore year in high school. He is very bright, smart, and loving kid who doesn't skip school, is not a behavior problem and just goes by under the radar and has for a long time. He is active in our church and is a Life Scout in Boy Scouts, on his way to Eagle Scout, and he is highly praised for his continuing efforts in scouting by the staff who admire and think very highly of him which makes us very proud.

I feel like we have been dealing with this part now longer than the time when he was in elementary school. We have the same conversations with him 364 days a year (and all throughout the school year as well). He starts great and sinks midway through the year and then in a desperate attempt, he thinks he is studying and doing his best and he fails over half of his classes. I know his teachers on a first name basis and I am very involved in all three of my kids' schools. I knew it would help to get to know the staff since we are so accustomed to dealing with his academic problems. We've had him privately tested around 6-7th grade and his scores were so high they were off the chart.

Then I began home schooling him for the remainder of 7th grade when the teacher couldn't account for his entire trimester of Language Arts. The students were required to read then produce an indepth book report with over 10 requirements. He read the entire trimester and produced zero reports. But because he wasn't a behavior problem and he was actually reading, she didn't notice. I continued to home school him and then we moved and we felt it would be best to get him into the neighborhood school for 8th grade so he could make new friends. We had him evaluated for ADD ADHD having the outcome "undetermined" and then a second opinion and they wanted to mediate him which we did around 8th grade but it really made no difference. They increased the amount and even changed the meds and still no improvement. One time while being evaluated, the clinician said he was "great to have in the group evaluation and he even helped administer the testing to the other kids who were involved. At different times, we have taken away everything from cell phone (which he's only had since high school) to his entire room (seriously the whole room except the bed!) We even had to take away reading - which is really one of his great passions and that really made me cry.

My husband and I just can't figure out what his "button" is. I feel that we have exhausted every possible option. One last thing we are currently considering is having a friend employ him to go menial labor grunt work for the summer in hopes of him realizing that getting his education will keep him from having to "settle" for a hard labor job. When you know that your child is more than capable and chooses not to perform in school, but because he is such a great guy and is not a delinquent it makes it very difficult to just sit around and hope for the best for his future. We have told him that doors are closing all around him and he doesn't even know it (the doors that could possibly lead to a successful future). Choices are being made and he doesn't even realize it. We have two girls 12 and 9 and I stayed home with them and they have a solid family life so please don't try to tell me that those things have any bearing on this. He is basically extremely lazy and it spreads throughout his life. Any tasks given at home rarely are completed with any accuracy and the frustration just mounts. He realizes this too and he just makes more excuses for his inability to complete the most basic of tasks. Of course when he knows that we are frustrated he jumps to attention and is willing to try at home but he keeps us snowed most of the year and even with the tools provided on the computer from the school dist. He doesn't follow up on missing assignments even though he says he will. This past semester he spent the last few months telling us the teacher had his assignment and she just hasn't had a chance to enter the grade when in reality she never received it and when she said she would accept it late, it never materialized. So here we are again 364 days later and it just keeps going round and round. Does anyone out there have any advice???????? This is definitely not the part I remember bargaining for when we decided to start our family, yeah I know the good with the bad and I realize that we don't really have it that bad, but believe me in our house the level of apathy is so distracting that I can hardly deal with all of the issues that come up with my other two kids. They are really the ones that lose out in this deal because of no fault of their own, they are missing out on time with me, their mom, and I desperately can't find a solution. I often tell my kids to stop focusing on the problem and start focusing on the solution and now I find that I can't even take my own advice. I feel that we have tried everything short of shock therapy! Signed, Beyond frustrated :( I see that these posts are from 1/08. I hope someone is still reading these.

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