How far to push son w/ADHD (LHFHG)
Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 3:03 pm
We have started our LHFHG program. We've been doing it sort of hit and miss to say the least. My son who turned 5 in April doesn't want to do some of the work. He loves to write in a notebook (for HOURS everyday)- just random things he comes up with but when it comes time to do handwriting for school he moans and groans about it. He knows how to write all his letters upper & lowercase but he doesn't want to do it the way the book says.....like it's too exhausting for him. I've been having him do very minimal practice on each page to keep it as short as possible and still he acts like it's such a chore. Is it too boring for him since he already knows how to do it? I got the first grade Reason for Handwriting book to make it more challenging since I anticipated this problem coming up. What would you do? I was so looking forward to starting HOD but now I find myself putting it off cuz I don't want to deal with struggling with him. He also seems to get tired during his reading even though I feel it is appropriately challenging (we are doing BLFHG emerging readers). We are hsing for many reasons, one being that he would probably be labeled a trouble maker and stuck in a corner if he was going to ps. I know this is what is best for him but I'm having trouble with the follow-through. Any advice???
Since Colton is 5 yo and an active little guy, I would switch to doing LHFHG half-speed. I would do the left side of the plans one day, and the right side the next day. Many moms are doing this, and here's a thread where they describe how:
For him, when he was 5 yo, it was important he ran around outside before we started school to blow off some steam, or even just playing with one of his brothers for the first 45 minutes of the day. That made a HUGE difference for him. I do think it is important right from the start that dc understand that school is not something to barter about, or make a deal to do (the habit of work needs to be established from the start or it may not ever develop on its own 
). It is something that needs to be done in a routine, orderly fashion because learning is important. So, I think if we first take time to consider what we truly can expect of a child, due to their age/maturity level/learning ability, then we need to stick to our guns and expect them to do it. I think expecting your ds to do half-speed LHFHG and half-speed Beyond ERS is an expectation your ds can meet. Half-speed LHFHG took us about 45 minutes to do.