My Child Doesn't Focus

A.,
My best advice would be to have the school do a "time on task" assessment to evaluate how much time he is able to focus. A school psychologist is usually the one to do this although the school counselor can do it too. My oldest son (10) has struggled with the same problems and others ever since he was in Kindergarten. His original "time on task" was done when he was in 1st grade and we were told he was fine. His behavior/problems continued and finally when he was in 3rd grade we had him professionally evaluated outside the school. He was diagnosed with ADD.
I am certainly not saying that your son has this as well and it was not a diagnosis that was made without thorough screening by several doctors (pediatrician, psychiatrist, psychologist). The "time on task" is not a sure fire way to evaluate your son but it is the best first step to take with trying to help him. If the test comes back fine just keep watching him and keep in good contact with his teacher. We have found that email works great for this.
If he continues to struggle, talk to his pediatrician to see if he/she has a referral to a reputible place to have him screened further. Some pediatricans are quick to just hand out meds. Please, for your son's sake, have him professionally evaluated before going that route.
Some things that have helped my son stay a bit more focused at school are having his seat closest to the teachers desk and close to the front of class.
I hope this helps and I pray that you will find what you need to help him. :)

Have you tried taking him to your family DR. to have your son evaluated for ADD or ADHD. Your family doc will be the most helpful one to go to for this advice. Good luck
E.

Have you ever had him tested for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)? Here is an excerpt about it....

Overview of ADHD - ADD/ADHD is a behavioral disorder most commonly diagnosed in childhood. However, symptoms can last into adulthood. Some problems associated with ADHD are poor performance in school, inconsistency in work, emotional immaturity, and social difficulties.

There is a lot of information on the internet about this disorder. Too many times people think that these type of children are ill mannered and obnoxious, when in reality they have this disorder and need blank walls and nothing on the table to be distracted while doing homework, or something else more structured.

I don't know a lot about this, but I do have a friend who's son is ADD (he is 9)and are learning some very interesting things from a new psychologist they started to see. I'm sure if you wanted more information on this you could talk with her. Email me privately and I could get you this lady's information after I ask her if it's okay!

I hope this helps! Best of luck!

Shelly

A., I read the other responses and they all seem fine to me. You may want to consider taking him to his Dr to evaluate him. But before you do that, evaluate his diet. Is it high in sugars and carbs? Now I'm not talking soda and candy although those do matter but even fruits, pastas and juices can add alot of sugar to his system. My mother works for a mental health center and sees many children with parents screaming ADD and ADHD and once their diets are evaluated most of the time it turns out they just have way too much surgar in them and some food changes are all that need to be made. Some others that my mom has seen are soy allergies that can cause the same symptoms as ADD as well. So I would say over the next week or so write down everything your son eats and the amounts eaten and be honest! Even if its one little bite of this or that write it down! After the week you'll have a good idea as to how much sugar your son is getting and your doctor will want to see that too. Then if changes need to be made you know where to start from and that's a whole lot easier than treating ADD. Good luck with this and best wishes.

C.

My first question would be if he is able to communicate to you why he might be having this behavior. If he can't explain it then a trip to the doc might be a good idea (for allergies, food sensitivities, sleeping issues - not just ADD/ADHD). My son has a lot of energy - but was diagnosed w/severe sleep apnea (which amps them up because they are constantly trying to keep themselves awake). Now he still has energy, but we work around it and have a set schedule for activity, eating, and homework. He does well with it - but has his moments daily. It's been a hard lesson for us to learn, but important because our son does not have these behaviors on purpose, he's just being his amazing self. Hopefully, this helped. Good luck!

I really do not think there is too much to be concerned with. It sounds like he is soooo excited about the end results he doesnt think what he is doing is that important. I have a 9 year old who is Autistic and he doesnt foucus cause he is in his own world. As long as he isnt haveing ticks or any other problem I think you could find something to make him foucus ..like consequences I use it for my 7 year old daughter and it works well. I would play with different things cause not every child is the same and we all react differntly He will come around:)

I have the same problem and I am looking for help too. My son is 13 now but it starts earlier and I was looking for the age that he gets mature but no ____@____.com

is he in public school or a private school? i think he may be too smart for his classes. he is just getting bored with the work because he all ready knows it. he needs more of a challenge. talk to his teachers and see what programs there are for kids like him. he is not a bad kid, he is just not getting the stimulation he needs. my kids are not in school yet, but my little brother was the exact same way, and it was cause he was too smart and getting bored. good luck! dont worry it will pass! -chelz

IT not about motivating factors it seems to be out of his conscious control. My daughter is about the same age. We had a neuropsych. eval done for her. Some of her attention problems are due to a head injury. Small head injuries can lead to this problem also an overload of stimuli as well as ADD or ADHD. They can have attention problems however without the ADD or ADHD. The school can actually do testing. Remember however that the school will want to only do academic testing and then stop. And if the academic turns out fine they won't go further to check out the other options. However, they
need to do as much testing as you request and that would include all available tests. Simple accommodations can help your son. Giving him breaks, Decreasing the stimuli around him. A 5 minute break every hour with no stimuli basically watching the paint dry can regroup his brain or if he is active he might benefit from the more occupational therapy type of break which regroups by movement such as spinning or swinging or jumping. You can try these things at home. The biggest part is to become aware of what precedes the behavior and then you can come up with a plan. A simple behavior eval can help to determine what is stimulating it. Educating your son to become aware, though he may not know why he does it, he can start to recognize what he feels like and can express the emotion or interest to you. This is more of a physical problem than a conscious disregard. He needs help to understand his body and what it is doing. If it is that frustrating to you and others....imagine what it feels like to live with it ALL THE TIME.

Consider:
1)Occupational Eval and therapy
2)Neuropysch testing Janiece Jensen at Primary Childrens is Really good
3)School Testing
4)Behaivor Eval
5) Autism Journeys-Kate (owner can come for $125 3 hr consult)
*her main specialty is with Autism but can help this situation. Our daughter does not have autism but she can be a parent educator and advocate at the school level and help develop a plan

I highly recommend meeting with her. It is the best $125 spent for consult.

You can help be an advocate for your son and help to understand this. Find the root, it might seem like he has control, but I don't think he does. You both need to understand what causes it then he can help be in control and not feel like something is wrong with him or worse get a reputation or name of some sort.

It will definitely help his self esteem.

C.

Dear A.,

I have an 8 yr old girl who does something very similar. I guess my concern would be that you can't seem to get through to him on any level. I can talk to my daughter and she will slow down, but the talks have to happen daily. Have you consulted his Doctor about this? Is this something new since school has started? Ask the teacher if she notices any of the things that you do. I don't like to default to it being a medical problem, so dig a little. Ask people who spend alot of time with him if they see a change in him. If everyone is on the same page as you, perhaps a call to his Doc would be beneficial to check him for ADD. Best of luck to you and don't give up, this will get fixed.

Sincerely,
L.

This is really just a boy thing and age thing. (my mother-in-law once said my son thinks "don't run" means walk fast. He was always going at full speed). But to start you can take away as many distraction as possible (TV) for instants when doing home work. Have a set time and place to do the homework, check it before he leave to make sure its done (finished, not perfect). This is probably best in the evening after dinner. Back up the threats with action, say what you mean and mean what you say. Don't have too many after school activities (over scheduling) either, the more the thing to do the harder it is to focus, give him some down time of just playing or doing nothing.

Is it possible he has ADHD? My friend has three daughters with ADHD. She found that giving them the daily dose of calcium with double the daily dose of magnesium helped very much. At first if they missed their dose they were wild, but after a few months or a year (I forget which) it was not a big deal if they missed once in a while. This is a lifelong therapy which can be maintained for a lifetime.

This sounds so much like my son since he was little, he's 12 now and I've worked very hard to achieve the same goal your looking for, its a never ending process.
What has helped me is Love and Logic, My son has been diagnosed with ADHD but I had nothing but misery trying to get him on meds. So I refuse to have him on meds, that is a personal choice, maybe if they really helped him rather than Drug him up, I would have kept him on them.
Anyway, there is just so much info I have learned over the years, one that I learned recently is how bad TV can be for kids. There is so much stimulation in TV that they continue to crave it when they are away from it, So I've limited our TV. (along with Video games and computer)
Then I just love the love and logic parenting concepts. I am always on here recommending it to moms, but its helped us (our whole family) so much, check out the whole web site, there are articles to read, audio you can listen to from your computer (free) just to get started and see if its something you may like, I am now a certified love and logic trainer and teach it in elementary schools to parents at night.
I believe there is a way to get through this, to raise the odds of success for your children, even with (what society calls in our case) a disability.
I would suggest getting your son tested for ADHD, if he falls to far behind in school, it can really damage his self-concept, and Kids are smart, you don’t want him to start to believe he isn’t just because the schools think its a behavior problem when it could be a self concept problem. My son requires a different way of learning, so with being Diagnosed with ADHD, he qualified for a 504 or IEP that he will carry with him for the rest of his life, which enables the school system to teach him the way HE needs to be taught, and not throwing him in a generic class room setting and expected to be like all other kids.
http://www.loveandlogic.com/

Good luck, if you'd ever like to chat more about L&L and/or ADHD, send me a PM.