Today Alex had 5 papers to do, the same as Tim and one more than each of the girls. Instead of doing his work, he chose to scribble all over his folder. This is something he has done in the past and I have asked him to stop, so when he was doing it today I told him he could now erase his whole folder. He spent so much time crying and whining over it he made himself sick--literally.
After the third time he threw up (with no fever) I sent him to bed for the rest of the day.
He is by far my biggest pain in the rear when it comes to doing work. He can do everything he's being given, and if there's a chance he can't do it or I think it's something we need to reinforce, I sit down with him and we go through it and do several examples. And then he still sits and whines about it instead of doing it. But find some kind of motivation and all of a sudden his work gets done. He just doesn't seem to be motivated by much--and believe me I've tried.
The other day he was whining about a fill-in-the-blank paper, and I finally looked at him and said, "Alex, they can't make it any easier for you. All of the answers are in the box at the top of the page." But instead of filling in the blanks, he spent an hour whining about doing it at all. I spend a lot of time rolling my eyes (I try to keep it out of sight of the kids, but I'm sure I don't always succeed. ;)). I have heard of other kids doing this--sometimes for years!--so I'm hopeful that at some point he will just decide it's easier to do his work than to whine.
But we're certainly not there yet!
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My Kole, who is now 11 and going in to the 4th grade (because his Ukrainian mom didn't send him to school and he had to start at the beginning here but still makes all A's and B's on his report card) has to do some work over the summer so he doesn't lose everything, makes a big production over having to read one chapter in a book - like tears and "Why am I the only one who has to read (though he's not). So yea, we're not there yet, either. My big issue is that he is so big. Not gigantic or fat, just one of the biggest kids in his class. So, this kind of behavior looks even worse on him. I have no suggestions, just commiserating with you.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons we want to homeschool Alex. He was passed on to third grade (he just turned 9 last month) but I think with his reading comprehension it would really be a struggle for him. And the other kids (in his class) are starting to notice and tease, and we don't need that on top of everything else! :)
Courtney, what is his learning style? Solomon is tortured nearly to death (and tortures me nearly to death in the process) by even slightly difficult activities when they aren't conducive to movement. He's large motor kinesthetic - Lord, help me- and any new learning experience that causes stress makes his body want to move in order to assimilate the new concept. When I work with his learning style, instead of trying to be all traditional, he does much better.
At any rate, I can relate to the eye rolling. Mine nearly get stuck back in my head some times.
My almost-10 gonna be 5th grader is barely better. He's bio, so it's not just an adoption thing! Is that reassuring? I hope so. sigh. It's not so much the whining that he has to do work, it's the extreme over-reacting to being corrected: hitting the desk, scowling, tears, intensely scribbling out the whole problem instead of just erasing the section that was wrong. So, yeah, I get your frustration. With mine, I know that part of the problem is the upcoming move to TX, lack of routine for the summer, etc. His Asperger's isn't helping. I'm hoping it will ease up a little once school starts and he makes some new friends.
As Red Green says, "We're all in this together." Hope it gets better at your house, too!
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