How Do You Motivate a Very Bright 11 Yr Old with ADHD to Get Oganized?

She could try doing it with her. Does she have an assignment notebook? Does she use a different color notebook and coresponding foler for each class? Make a list of the classes she's in and at the end of the day ask her (for each subject) "What did you do today? Any tests or quizzes coming up? Any projects going on? When are they do? Any homework due this week? Any homework do tomorrow?" Help her learn how to be organized, don't just tell her that she needs to be more organized.

She does need someone to hold her hand, at least for awhile. At only 11 years old, that might be asking too much of anyone. Show her how to do it. That's what my dad needed to do for me, and I don't have ADHD.

I have a 12 yr old with ADD, and my 15 yr old neice also has ADD. These kids will never be organzied the way you think of organized. BUT - they will get some of the way there. I'm the ADD kid in my family. At age 52 my house is always the disorganized house - my two sisters homes are always in order - even though they might be messy. My office has stacks of stuff instead of neat files. I struggle to get things in their e-files - it's just not part of my make-up.

After the first week of school I sat down with my very bright 12 yr old son to organize his notebooks. This is the first year (7th grade) where he has 7 different teachers - (in 6th grade they are "eased" into the class change concept with only 3 or 4 teachers). The plan was to set up a morning notebook and an afternoon notebook - with folders in each for loose papers, test, etc. I t hought it was pretty straight forward - let's go by period through the day and set up the sections by class. It took us almost 90 minutes. It was painful and I was having a tough time staying patient.

People with ADD are not linear thinkers. We don't go from point A directly to point B. We pause along the way, look at stuff, turn things over (in a physical *and* mental sense). ADD people are the creative ones in a group, we often have good people skills - but we will never be the organized ones.

Now that expectations are properly set - here are some things that will help:
1) use a planner - our school district give them out to all students 4th - 8th grade. enlist the teahcer's help to ensure that "Susie" writes all her homework in the planner. This year we are trying to enter things not only on the dau date - but also on the day it was assigned. We try to build a time line in the planner of waht needs to get done each day. Susie will nto do this on her own - she needs to be walked through it
2) SEt aside a time & place each day for homework and review. WE use hte kitchen table right after dinner. No TV, no music. The kids clear the table and clean it - and lay out their planners & books while I finish cleaning up the kitchen / dinner. I can observe, nudge, push, encourage while not hovering over them. BAsed on our family's schedule this does not always work out the way we'd like it to. Tonight we'll be doing homework sitting in the bleachers at the marchign band festival so we can watch my older child.
3) Give them post-it notes or a small notebook to make lists. List things to do when he gets home, things that need to be done to clean his room, books to remember to get out of his locker at school, etc.
4) Make sure the teachers are aware of the ADD. They probably already suspect / assume as they notice your child drifting - so being an involved parent goes a long way as it relates to the teachers attitude about your child, and their willingness to go above and beyond to guide and help Susie learn.
5) Realize that ADD is not a bad thing - it simply means your child does not learns best in an aritifically created environment. 150 years ago, and for all time before that, kids were not stored in building / rooms / desks to learn. They learned along side their parent - whether it was cheesemaking, farming, blacksmithing, house building or butter churning - they learned by doing - not by sitting and listening.
6) Know that most kids with ADD are very bright - they might be C students but they often endup as the highly paid sales people, company execs, inventors, and movers & shakers of the economy. If properly channeled adults with ADD who had been the kids at school always getting in trouble end up being wildly successful. There are some great books about the postive aspects of having ADD one in particular is "The Gift of ADHD".

Best of luck - all kids are challenges - it just depends what theirs is! My son who has ADD is the biggest blessing to me and makes us all laugh. He's the popular kid who has many friends and just knows how to have a good time. He makes everyone feel welcome. He'll do well in life if we can make sure he graduates from HS! ;o)
4)

It isn't about motivating a child with ADHD to be better organized. It's about understanding that this is one of their great challenges with this condition. They may want to be organized with everything in their being, but just can't be because they're not wired that way.

Is your friend's daughter on medication? If not, that can make a HUGE difference. Our son is much more organized when his medication is active; when it's not, forget it.

I second the recommendation of subscribing to ADDitude magazine. This is a topic frequently addressed in that publication.

I've found that with our son, he must do homework the second he gets home from school, when the medication is still active. I also must be around him when he works on it to keep him focused.

We haven't needed an IEP for our son because the medication has been so amazing, but it sounds like your friend's daughter would benefit from one. She just needs to get in contact with the district psychologist to request the evaluation for one and get the ball rolling. Once an IEP is in place, the teachers and school must legally comply with the accommodations.

ADHD or not, you have to teach some people how to get organized. Some people are naturally organized and some are not. Its just like some people can sing and sing well. Others cannot carry a tune in a bucket.

Here is what I wrote when some one else asked a similar question yesterday.

I had a son that I would make sure he did the homework and make sure he would put it in his backpack. He would take it out of his back pack and not take it with him or not turn it in.

I finally told him I would go to his classes and sit next to him or sit in the back of the class. And I did. (I took a week's vacation.) He didn't believe me. I really embarassed him unintentionally and he told me that if he would do all his home work and turn it in, would I PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE not go and sit in his classes any more. So he did and I didn't sit in his classes any more.

A couple of my other kids would not do their homework on occasion and all I had to do was ask them if they wanted me to sit in on their classes with them and my son would always pipe up and tell them what I did accidently and my other kids got their homework done and turned in.

BTW, my son with the homework problem ended up graduating salutitorian (#2). He Graduated USC Medical School and is now a Dr. of Pharmacy. Do I think it was worth it? You betcha ! ! !

Good luck to you and yours.

Oy vey.

Your friend NEEDS to go here: www.additudemag.com /& here http://www.amazon.com/You-Mean-Lazy-Stupid-Crazy/dp/07432...

- Dyslexics don't have problems reading because they don't want it bad enough / don't care enough.

- Diabetics wouldn't have healthy insulin levels by getting motivated (or punished/rewarded when their insulin is normal or low)

- Schizophrenics don't have imaginary friends they need to grow out of

- Paraplegics can't walk no matter how bad they want it and keep trying to walk like everyone else.

ADHD and 'forgetting stuff' is NOT a lack of will, desire, motivation, or skill. And it won't go away, get better, or change.

So you take that as the BASELINE. AN ADHD PERSON **WILL** FORGET. Why we forget is a complicated answer, and it has to do with how our brains function.

(Similar... ever had a child throw a tantrum at a store? Are you able to remember your shopping list *while* they're screaming? No. You're dealing with the tantrum, instead... that's because your brain is prioritizing the tantrum over your list. How about ever been in a car accident or had a kid about to step out into a busy street or had a kid fall off of something? What happens? It's not something you can control; when there is an immediate threat your brain shuts off every other thought to *immediately deal with* the danger that is at hand. ADHD brains are like a normal brain that sees perceived danger. You don't keep folding socks when you hear a crash and your kid screaming... you RUN to go find out what happened. The difference with ADHD is that the perceived danger is CONSTANT. That we're able to fold socks at ALL -or turn in homework- is a minor miracle, and a testament to the HUGE AMOUNT OF EFFORT ADHD people put into doing mundane tasks with our brains screaming at us to 'investigate the emergency'.)

Now... is *change* possible?

Depends on what you mean by change.

Will she stop forgetting/ be able to get more organized? No. Absolutely not.

Will she be able to turn in most/all of her homework? Yes. Absolutely.

They're called 'coping mechanisms', and what they are is they take the BASELINE OF 'I will forget', and deals with THAT (rather than the neurotypical approach of 'not forgetting').

You can write you list on your hand with ADHD and NOT SEE IT. You can have planners and neurotypical organizers coming out your ears and NOT be helped 1 iota.

The ways in which NEUROTYPICAL people 'remember' things, and 'get organized' WILL NOT HELP. In many cases, they will make things WORSE. (like being punished for forgetting)

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There are many ways to help an ADHD kid deal with homework. One of the best is to NOT HAVE HOMEWORK.

This doesn't create problems later in life, for the PURE AND SIMPLE REASON that never in your life will you be taking eight subjects again, with no syllabus to plan from, with arbitrary deadlines, on disparate topics.

In college they don't even LET a student take eight classes a quarter (40 credits a quarter is flat out disallowed, an extreme course load is 16-21 credits a quarter, but most people take 10-15, aka 2-3 classes per quarter). Why don't colleges let students take 8 classes a quarter? For the same reason that an ADHD kid should never take 8 classes in k12. It's too much, too different, exhausting, and almost impossible to keep up and keep everything straight.

I DARE you to find a single person who works 8 different jobs.

The kind of "mass information bombing" that happens in k12 just *does not happen* in the real world.

YES you may have 8 projects running IN your single job (although most don't), but they're *all related*, because they're part and parcel TO THAT JOB. You're able to focus, as is an ADHD person.

Many schools will IEP a no-homework or no-homework-except-for-projects clause into their ADHD students' plans. ((Many gifted and prep schools already don't have homework for *any* of their students)). If hers won't there are a NUMBER of 'work arounds' for the obscene reality of so many disperate classes at the same time. Including doing all of her homework AT school, or with a tutor that can act as an 'accountant' or 'conductor'. They're not helping WITH the HW, they're there to make sure everything is accounted for.

SYLLABI are absolutely invaluable to ADHD people. It's the "spring" that happens in K12 to students (designed to keep them from becoming overwhelmed) that completely and totally overwhelms ADHD people. YES we will put things off to the last minute, but when we know they're coming (because our 10th copy we've printed off, having lost the other 9) tells us they are... low and behold... ADHD people in college and classes with a syllabus (an actual 'this is *everything due* and when syllabus, not a broad strokes kind given to highschool kids) the vast majority of things gets turned in.

These are only 2 of DOZENS of strategies for ADHD in the K12 system (really, nothing could be worse designed). For far, far, far more... have your friend check out the two links above, and know that a lot of them will NOT make sense to her (like blasting music during HW time to aid in concentration, when it would drive her absolutely batty... loud music helps US, but distracts neurotypical folk), but they WILL make sense to her daughter.

Lol! I am ADHD (and very bright... Calculus in elemetery school bright) and I am going to tell you right now, the poor kid could very well already BE motivated but can't DO it! In fact having other people put requirements on how they must orginize something makes it worse in 99% ofmall cases (the only time this wasn't so was when my teacher was also ADD and so organized like I thought made sense!)

You M. just have to let it go and help her survive until she gets a teacher that will let her orginize on her own ( that is if she hasn't been told she is a failure so many times that she isn't just emotianally crushed by that point... Yes that happens rather often!)

I do strongly recommend you follow these great ladies' advice (or rather, suggest it to your friend). I will go there myself. My son, 8th grade, borderline fits a lot of what you are saying about your friend's daughter. He has never been tested nor diagnosed--he has always been a B-C student with the random A's here and there also, so he is not failing and depressed, and he is not hyper. He is more the distracted, unfocused, daydreaming type. (Husband truly doesn't see the upside to testing, and please don't blast me on this ladies, regardless of what a diagnosis might show, he still will have to figure out what works for him and there is no "cure").

I have tried to help him get "organized" a zillion times. It doesn't work. Calendars don't work (if you don't write something in it, it isn't there. If you don't look at it, it doesn't matter). Neither do the school issued agendas. Or ones purchased by Mom. Matching colors of books/folders don't matter, if they are forgotten at school. Having an organized backpack doesn't help if they are required to leave them in their lockers, or the papers just get shoved into the pack and not into the "designated" areas. Having a single folder to put completed homework assignments in to take back to school (the ones that actually do get brought home to start with) are no good if he leaves it in his locker and doesn't take it to class.
Teachers assigning THEIR OWN required method of organizing a binder AND GRADING ON how well they do this, just lower their grades and don't help. I could go on.

In the end (well, we're not at the end though, really, are we?), my son has to figure out what HE can do and what works for HIM. He is getting there after much trial and error and many ideas being offered and suggested and tried. For YEARS his bedroom looked like a dump. Literally. All the moms on this site have tons of advice about how to handle this issue: from close the door, to remove everything but the mattress. We chose to "stay on him" and keep requiring that effort be made. That he give a hoot to take care of his things. It's never been perfect. To add to the mess, he is a pack rat and fiercely sentimental over even the smallest trinkets. In the last year, starting mid-7th grade, he started taking personal responsibility in this area and cleaning ON HIS OWN. I no longer go in and clean for/with him, because then I am interfering in his way of organizing things. His room still isn't perfect, but he doesn't lose things and the floor is clear of mess. His bed stays made. He keeps a corkboard on the wall next to his door on which he pins things he wants to refer back to later (like math formulas). :))

I like to think that he is maturing a bit and figuring out what works for him. I'm sure his brain is learning over time to deal with the things he must deal with. He will have to do this in all areas of his life, not just his bedroom cleanliness. And over time, he is. He's a work in progress as we all are. He is home/cyber schooled this year, so lost and missing assignments are a thing of the past, at least for this year. But I can see him working out for himself mechanisms to help him accomplish the things he must do.
And, yes, he likes to listen to loud rock music to go to sleep to, lol. Perhaps I should let him do his math to it also... ? ;)

What I have tried to remind my child, through it all, is that he is capable. Some people have to work harder than others in certain areas. Such is life. He is also blessed with certain talents/gifts that others will struggle to figure out. Everyone is different. But we all have to function within the parameters of the lives in which we live. One day he won't have school, but he'll have a boss. Or an investor in his company. Or a customer. And he will have to deal with people who see things differently than himself. Best to learn how to do so respectfully and graciously, even if he disagrees with them.
Sorry, I have rambled on... maybe my son comes by it honestly, hee hee.

She has to be on board for everything. The worst part is she will think something will work and then after buying it, doing it, realize it doesn't. You need to make sure she knows if it doesn't work, tell mom and they will try something else! Otherwise she won't do it and you will be unaware.

One huge thing is those bright sticky note tabs. Taking notes are 20 levels of hell. So what you do is number a pack for each text. You have your notebook for each text. So the teacher is lecturing about pg 141. You put tab one on page 141 then in your notebook just write 141.1. Then you only take notes on what isn't in the book. You can also add say a yellow if you are using pink that means the teacher said this would be on a test. Green means reports, stuff like that.

What you want is easy ways to remember what is what.

Homework, stick a red sticky in the top of the book and folder that needs to go home, at the end of the day she grabs whatever has a red tab.

Really feel free to message me if you have specific situations. I have been herding cats for years, including myself. :)

If she has a medical diagnosis, she should be able to get the school to compile a 504 Plan for her. It is essentially like an IEP, except she would not be "qualifying" for services with a special ed teacher. The 504 Plan will outline how to help her be successful in school with her ADHD. This way, the teachers will have to help her and they will have to make some reasonable accomodations for her.