Holding your 13 year old accountable

[piplab]

My son ADHD and Dyslexic (mild on both on meds for). How do you keep your middle schooler accountable for turning in HW and keeping good grades at school. I know my son is smart and can make all A's ... Trying to set up life lessons in doing hard work...and all that. So when he has a C or below he gets no devices during the week. He had several chances to turn in a form to bring up a quiz grade- doesn't turn it in.

Grades are in....I have friends who don't punish much for grades because of having ADHD...but and I respect that too. I struggle with keeping him accountable but don't want to hurt his "spirit". BUUUT I want to teach him to get his stuff done...hard work will pay off. He's a great kid love him to pieces but this school stuff makes me nutty - especially when teachers give him many chances.

[Onthemove1971]

My son is the same age. One thing that I think is important to think about is that our children might be 13 years old but they maturity wise are really like 11 year olds.

Our goal has always been to have our son take responsibility for his own life, including school work. Which may mean he has to work better with the teachers to complete all the work.

I know as far as "punishment" is concerned this is something that should be directly related to school and missing assignments ( not taking phone or video games away). For us we prefer to reward and not punish. For us we use sports and like school if he doesn't get to play with below a C. This has motivated him to do well.

I highly recommend him seeing a counselor to discuss why he is not doing better with homework and school.

Sometimes the demands are to much for our kids and we need to reduce the workload for them ( not comparing them to children without ADHD) to be successful.

Hope this perspective helps.

I recommend listening to the Podcast- Parenting ADHD with Penny William's. I wish I had this when raising our son. She has an episode on punishment.

Take care,

[regardingtheboys]

I encourage my kiddos to prioritize the deadline over the content. I tell my boys that turning in poor or incomplete homework sends the teacher a message like "I'm trying. I heard you. I need more time. I need help". MISSING work sends the message "I don't care. I don't respect you."

[Them2boysmom]

I follow the same approach on electronic restrictions. I say good job mom

[reg2018]

We use a combination of rewards and consequences because there are both in life, right? Our middle schooler uses a tracker. The tracker is a daily paper that lists his classes where he writes down what he needs to hand in for each class as well as what assignments are given and upcoming due dates. There's a box for the teachers to circle his behavior in class and for them to sign and comment as well so I know he's using his tracker every day.

I reward him for using his tracker by giving a "fuzzy" for each signature as well as a fuzzy for each "great" that the teacher circles on the behavior range. When his fuzzy jar is full he can pick a reward. Because he has seven classes there's a potential for seven signatures every day and seven behavior fuzzies. That jar can fill up fast, depending on him.

I give him a certain number of days and reminders to take care of missing assignments as well as retakes for tests before removing video game privileges because I know that it's harder for kids with ADHD to get these things done. At the same time, life has natural consequences and it's when we experience these natural consequences that learning also happens.

Work first, and play second.

[willandgrace]

I am in the middle of the SAME problem, except my son is 15. I took his phone away (which is the worst thing I can do to him!), and I'm wondering too if that's the way to go. He had plenty of time to do it, and chose not to because he had his hockey game on his mind. We had a big fight, and now today Im feeling bad. but I think he needs to be held accountable because in our family, shirking responsibilities is not ok. I want to teach him that because I think it can become a habit if we let it slide. And I prefer to handle this kind of thing by taking his phone away rather than letting him get a bad grade. unfortunately, bad grades have an effect on GPA and college. Im just not willing to go down that road. I think I am cutting him slack for his ADHD by not letting his grade suffer (instead I take his phone). But I just feel bad about it today.