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I want my kids to learn from the homework that they're doing, and I want them to do it.

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But sometimes that is just a difficult task.

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And to tell them, OK, go do your homework, it's just it's never going to happen.

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Pretty much every evening, a giant chunk of the evening has to be devoted to

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homework in order to give my kids enough break in between doing hard things.

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Music.

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Hello, I'm your host, Miriam Brown. In addition to my teaching certificate,

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I have a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's in curriculum and instruction.

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Spent the last decade as a public school teacher, and I want to give you insider

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tips on how to help your child do well in a system that might otherwise fail them.

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Today, I'm talking with Erin Coppin again about how she helps her ADHD kids with their homework.

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This is the third episode in our ADHD series. If you want to go back and listen

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to the other episodes about ADHD diagnosis and medication treatment,

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you can go ahead and do that. But you should be okay just to listen to this one first and do the others later.

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Music.

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So in our first episode in the ADHD series, we talked about some of the symptoms of ADHD.

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Inattentiveness, impulsivity, distractibility, and difficulty focusing.

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Obviously, if you have a hard time focusing and listening to your teacher,

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it will be really hard to get all your work done in school.

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In our district, kids in the primary grades aren't given very much homework.

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Often just they send home what the kid didn't finish in class.

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For most of my students with ADHD, there was a lot of work that they weren't

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able to finish in class, so they ended up with a lot more homework than my other students.

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That's hard because they'll have a lot more homework, but doing homework is

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also twice as hard for a kid with ADHD than a neurotypical student.

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The parent is going to need to step in and help them out, and it will be years

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before they can do it independently. By about seventh grade, most kids will be responsible enough to manage their

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own homework. But there is a developmental delay for kids with ADHD.

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And from my experience, parents will need to be involved for three or four years

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beyond that in order for their child to develop successful study habits.

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Yeah, I would agree with that. As far as homework and getting things done,

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that takes a lot of effort with your kid with ADHD.

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I want my kids to learn from the homework that they're doing and I want them

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to do it. But sometimes that is just a difficult task.

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And to tell them, OK, go do your homework. It's just it's never going to happen. When my kids are first going into middle

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school was when they really start getting a lot of homework.

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Pretty much every evening, a giant chunk of the evening has to be devoted to

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homework in order to give my kids enough break in between doing hard things.

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And then kids with ADHD, oftentimes they're emotional.

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They come home from school. They're exhausted.

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Their meds are often wearing off. And a lot of times there would be emotional

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outbursts that we would spend an hour, hour and a half or more dealing with

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the emotional outburst. And then she's exhausted by that time. And now it's getting close to bedtime

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and we have 15 minutes or a half hour to try and do the homework. work.

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And so sometimes, no matter what our best efforts were, she still didn't get it all done.

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We tried to do our best, tried to communicate with the teachers as best we could

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and still hold our kids to, hey, you've got work you got to do.

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And unfortunately, it doesn't always come as easy to you.

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You're going to have to learn how to work hard and get through this stuff because

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they don't just redo the life just because you got ADHD. That's not how the world works.

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A lot of the ADHD websites I've seen recommend having a definite routine,

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a specific time, and even a specific place that your child does homework every day.

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It's very important to be consistent.

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And those routines are really, really important for kids with ADHD.

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Yeah, I would agree with that. The more that you can be consistent,

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here's the time when we do homework so that your child understands and expects this is the routine.

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That does help. The other thing that I find when the routine changes up,

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that causes them stress as well because they don't know what to expect.

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And so I think that's where routines can be really helpful. So I got kind of

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confused a little bit in the parenting research.

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And one of them talked about how you have to be consistent as a parent.

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And then another one talked about how you have to be flexible.

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And to me, that's confusing. I would say you have to be bold because all the

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time you're trying to develop routines.

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I mean, consistency helps the kids to know what to do, when to do things and

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helps them make that transition from school to homework and that kind of stuff.

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But the more that you do it and are consistent, it does make it easier.

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But then again, you have to also recognize when your kid has had enough and

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you have to say, OK, we're done for tonight. You know, we're not going to continue

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to push and push and push when the rain is fried and they've put in all that

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they can do that day. Consistency helps.

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But also being willing to be flexible. So just now listening to you,

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what I'm hearing is that there was probably never a day where you're like,

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we just forgot to think about homework today. Yeah, that's for sure.

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Well, there are times my daughter was like, nope, I don't have any.

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And we didn't delve deep enough. Like, let's go through class by class. And at times, that's what you actually

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have to do. Okay, what did you do in this class today?

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Oh, wait, I do have have homework. So there are definitely times that we didn't

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do homework because we didn't know that it existed and then later had to play catch up.

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Yeah, playing catch up can be really hard because it's not like the assignments

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stop and wait for you to catch up. They just keep going.

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And so you're just constantly one step behind.

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Staying organized is really important to help them stay caught up.

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And organization can be pretty tough for a student with ADHD.

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So something that I did with my students who were struggling with their organizational

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skills in middle school. They'd have a whole bunch of different binders or sometimes one big huge binder

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and I would give them just a small folder.

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They would put all of their pieces of homework that they had to do on the left

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side of the small folder and they only take their small folder home.

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With my daughter, the way you taught us was one folder and just put everything

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from each class that you need to finish in that folder.

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And then you go home, finish it, put in the other side and turn it in each class.

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That was even too complicated for my daughter. So we basically did that with each class.

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So she has like a red folder for say science and a blue folder for math.

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And this side is to do, this side is to turn in.

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And so she could just grab the folder for that class.

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But it did help more to simplify that.

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That's a really good point. There are a lot of people that'll give you good

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ideas, but you're going to need to tailor them to your own child.

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And it's not just remembering what homework to do that's hard for kids.

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Sometimes it's hard to just even get started. They'll stare at a blank page

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forever because it's overwhelming. Sometimes I'd let kids stay after school to get caught up, and even in a classroom

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with only a few other students, it could be really hard for them to focus.

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One thing I found helpful for them was to use a timer.

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I'd set it for like 10 minutes and then challenge them to see how much they

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could get done in 10 minutes or five minutes for some kids.

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And then they would get a break and then I'd start the timer all over.

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When they finished a whole assignment, I had this easy button that they got

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to push and it would say, that was easy.

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And I don't know why that was so motivating, but they loved it.

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Do you have any strategies that help your kids?

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Things change as far as what strategies we're working in one class may not always

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always transition to the next class. So trying to do everything exactly the same isn't going to work.

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And just like any other parenting, you know, when you're parenting little babies

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and you finally get the one thing that helps them go to sleep and then a week

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later this change. That's a little bit how it seems like with ADHD.

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We start to work on one thing and then something else pops up.

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I know it can be so frustrating. You're constantly having to look up new ideas. Luckily, these days we have the

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internet and there's a whole lot of ideas out there of what you can do to help

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your kid in any specific situation. But I think it's really important to keep trying. The most important reason

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parents need to keep helping their kid to do well academically is that it helps

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them feel confident and they don't feel like they're stupid or a failure.

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And I think it's extra hard when you have a student with ADHD to make sure that

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school isn't bringing them down. That is so true. And that is a lesson that I've really had to learn as a parent.

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So my son doesn't love the academic part of school.

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And I'm the parent that tends to ride my kids a little bit more with grades.

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And the part of school my son does love, he loves choir and he loves drama and

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he wants to be involved with those.

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And I at first was looking at those as the luxuries. Those are the electives.

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Those are not the important part of school. And I was starting to use those as a reward.

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Like, hey, if you do well in math and English, then you get to participate.

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But if you're failing these other classes, you don't get to spend your time

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after school being part of the school play. You have to come home and do homework instead.

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And this last fall, when my son was in a production of Macbeth, my husband said.

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No, we can't treat it like that because that's the thing that he gets excited

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about, that he goes to school, be a part of.

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And then on top of that, that is part of his education and becoming a well-rounded person.

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Being in a play, that's another way of learning and understanding what Shakespeare said.

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And he puts the effort in and works hard at these things. There is a lot of value to that.

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And the arts are the part where my son feels like he fits in and feels like he can be successful.

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And so I've had to rethink my parenting and what I can and can't use as a reward or punishment.

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That's a really important thing to keep in mind. There needs to be a balance

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between what they have to do and what they like to do.

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They have to be able to have time to do those things that motivate them. It's a balance.

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So thanks for sharing your ideas with us.

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So, helping your child academically will help them feel confident at school.

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It will require, however, that you help them with their homework every day for

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many years, probably into high school.

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Organization and remembering what they're supposed to do is not going to come naturally.

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It's important to stay consistent so that they know you are going to expect

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them to do their homework. It's also important to do homework in small, manageable chunks of time and give brain breaks.

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Be aware of your child's emotions so that you know when to call it quits.

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I hope this episode helped you get a few ideas about how to help your child

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get their homework done. If it did, share it with someone else who might need to hear it.

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They can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

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The next episode will be about teaming up with teachers to help your child get

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the most out of their education. So now it's time to put down your phone.

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Music.