<p>I’m so proud. I just cleaned off the mountains of papers on my desk and put them in folders or the trash. I can see wood again. I’m sure it’s an undiagnosed disease of some sort.</p>
<p>** barrons** Golly, gee, that’s keen. You were very brave.</p>
<p>BUT next time you ought to be careful and ask for help because if you tried to clean your desk by yourself and failed you might be scarred for life AND it might not even be your fault because you might have an undiagnosed cleaning disability.</p>
<p>My wife certainly has diagnosed me with a real cleaning disability. (she’s right too) I think it goes back to my mother…</p>
<p>Not about boys, specifically, but about the importance of organization:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Better</a> organization, better grades - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2008/01/06/better_organization_better_grades/]Better”>http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2008/01/06/better_organization_better_grades/)</p>
<p>Wow, I must be a really mean mom, and my husband must be evil. I remember our son in third grade kept squirrelling his finished papers away in his desk. At a parent-teacher conference the teacher told us how much unfinished work he had. He said it was done and in his desk. We walked over to the desk and, sure enough, there it was, done and correctly, too. The adults explained to him that if it is not turned in it is not “done.” Dad and I then had him clean out his desk and throw it all away right then and there. He stopped doing that. </p>
<p>In fourth grade he was writing a paper. Holy cow, was it messy! 2 pages long, grammatical correct, well-written, but really messy. He recopied it 4 times that night, until 11 pm. He stopped being messy.</p>
<p>By the time he got into middle school he was swimming 2 hours a day after school, and he wanted to do his homework at the pool (with the other kids) during the 2 hours after school and before practice started. The caveat was that if the work wasn’t done during that 2 hours, he would have to start coming home and going back.<br>
He got it done. </p>
<p>High school - 2 hours of swim practice before school, school, 2 hours after school. One day he pulled dad and I into his room to show us his system. He had a whiteboard and he divided it into 2 sections, short term and long term, and he had prioritized his assignments by due date. Since he had so little time he organized himself. </p>
<p>I am a teacher, so I see the parental folder thing, and parents are always asking me to check their child’s backpack for homework (no) and make sure papers get home (exactly how?) and I have also seen primary aged children figure it out and create their own organizational methods. The key is it has to be the kid’s method or it doesn’t work. IMHO when they are bailed out they do not see the value. When they are impacted by natural consequences (missing a field trip, not getting to order books, bad grade, getting a sandwich for lunch if they forget their money, etc.), then it is more likely to be important to them. The problem is parents are not willing to let them take the consequences and repeatedly bail kids out.</p>
<p>I am of the let them fall on their faces camp, but I really think it has to be early on when the lesson can be learned with the least amount of risk.</p>
<p>Oh, and I did help with applications! :)</p>
<p>momof1– I agree that the “let them fall on their face” is best done EARLY in the school process. </p>
<p>S was bored to tears in public school. Transferred (at his request) to very college prep private school beginning in 4th grade. He got there and started to realize he was also at the top there. SO, he “forgot” to do homework starting the 3rd or 4th week of class.</p>
<p>School had a rule (which S had apparantly never read or thought surely didn’t apply to HIM). The rule was that after 3 no homeworks in any 6 weeks, Sat. detention for each one not turned in, including the first 3! </p>
<p>Smart guy rotated which class he “forgot” the homework in. The result was by the time the homeroom teacher got the reports of no homework from the other teachers, Son had amassed 8 missed homework assignments. Yep, 8 Sat. at school in a row serving detention. HE never forgot another homework.</p>
<p>It is important to make sure there is no underlying LD. Just making them fail, go to Sat school, etc is not helping if they do not get the tools needed to overcome the LD issues. It would be like asking you to drive a car without glasses when your eyesight is 20/300, and then punishing you for running into things. Eventually you would quit trying. We went down those paths until S1 almost committed suicide. Then got the right testing done, found the LD, got the tutor and helped find ways around it. And he had been tested as gifted at an early age. Just made it worse. When he got the right help, he eventually graduated from major university with honors, and on his own. But after he learned new tools and coping techniques.</p>
<p>07 Dad,</p>
<p>Great example! They seriously do respond to accountability. I really commend you for making him go. I know so many parents who would have been at the school demanding that the consequence be lessened or done away with. I don’t really think they understand that a little bitter medicine early on can help quite a lot.</p>
<p>About the underlying LD issue, how can you have “undiagnosed” LD? How do you know it is a learning disability if it is undiagnosed? Or is the diagnosis avoided to avoid “labeling” the child. I agree, if a child needs a 504 or an IEP, by all means, that is what they need. I wouldn’t withhold insulin from a diabetic. And gifted and LD are not mutually exclusive. I would also say that many that are in the gifted realm may also be ADD, but as long as it is not seriously impacting their academics we don’t treat it medically but with behavior mod. Some of the same characteristics that make gifted kids so brilliant also make them scattered sometimes. We can only be firm, fair and consistent and hope they learn what they need. Of course, that drives mom crazy!</p>
<p>Seriously, I don’t know what I would do with a student who hadn’t learned to organize by high school. They probably would listen more to a 3rd party. Singersmom, I am glad that your son turned out so well. I am so glad that you persisted with testing, found the problem and were able to get your son the help he needed.</p>