How do You Complete an Assignment with ADHD? - Colourful Teaching For You
How do You Complete an Assignment with ADHD?

For most students, trying to complete an assignment, especially homework, can be utterly boring and difficult, let alone if you have ADHD. You have to organize your thoughts, copy work from the board or a book, initiate a task, keep track of due dates and so much more. It’s even harder when you have to listen to a teacher talk for what seems like an eternity and then complete a task. It requires focus, memory retention and attention. These are attributes that many children with ADHD have a difficult time managing.

Imagine having a paper airplane in your hand. You need to move your arm backward and to push the airplane forward and into the air so that it can fly. Once you let go of it, the airplane will gain momentum and fly in the air for a while until it eventually lands and then you have to bend down to pick it up. Task initiation is the effort that’s required to get the airplane up in the air and then the last part, where you have to pick it up.

For a child with ADHD who is struggling with executive functioning skills, the airplane feels much bigger and heavier than a regular paper airplane. This means that the child needs to put in more effort to push the airplane into the air for it to start flying. Unfortunately, because of this feeling, many children with ADHD aren’t able to find the internal motivation they need to start the task on their own. Therefore, for many children with ADHD, it’s essential for us to provide them with the right tools and a consistent routine so that they feel a sense of accomplishment when the start, during and after they complete an assignment.

The following are four ways that you can help your child. Please remember to alter these strategies to meet the needs of your individual child.

Actionable Steps:

#1. Chunk it Up

Help your child break down the task into smaller tasks. For example, brainstorm the topic together so that it’s easier to get those thoughts flowing. Then have children work on an outline so that they know where to start, which points to target along the way and how they should end. Review this with them after. Follow this up by having students figure out what the first few steps are and then by working only on the beginning or the introduction of an assignment. After it’s completed, then move on to the second step and so forth.

This method can help many other students as well, especially those who have anxiety or who struggle with perfectionism. So even though this may seem tedious and laborious, it will ensure that every child has the best chance of starting and completing a task.

#2. Study Partners

Pair students up with a study partner or buddy so that they can check each other’s work or answer any questions that a child may not be comfortable asking in front of the class. If you pair children up for the day, the buddies can go beyond just helping with a specific task to ensuring that the other has packed up their books, planner, and cleaned up after themselves. In order for this to happen students will be in constant communication with each other, which may also open up doors for them to make new friends.

On a side note, you will need to monitor their conversations to make sure that they stay on task and don’t just spend the entire day fooling around.

#3. Hype it Up

Look at what your child with ADHD is interested in, see if you can integrate it into the assignment and hype it up to build energy and excitement about it. This will cause the child to want to get started instead of dreading yet another task.

If you aren’t able to integrate a child’s interest into the topic, then see if you can add a sense of novelty where something is new and exciting, or a game or a challenge to have some fun. For example, writing in your planner is not exciting, but perhaps, the first person to complete it or the person who stays on task the longest, gets a small reward.

You can also create energy within a student by first having them start on the easier and smaller task so that they gain a sense of accomplishment, praise them for it to raise their self-esteem and then gradually move on to more complex tasks.

It’s best to add as many of these into your curriculum as possible but if you can’t, aim for at least one of them to engage your students right away.

#4. Destress

Have your students listen to their body. Do they need to a break? If so, does it need to be a high or low energy one? There are times when a child needs to ramp up their energy before starting a task or they may need to calm down to focus.

You can teach them about how to self regulate using the following resources. Choose the ones that work best for your child’s learning needs. These are designed to help you track your child’s thoughts and progress.

Depending on the level of your students, I’ve also created a resource that will help you differentiate for them:

Recap:

Let’s recap really quickly. Today, we looked at the following:

  1. The reasons why it’s difficult for a child with ADHD to complete an assignment and why it’s important to support them.
  2. How do you complete an assignment with ADHD: chunk it up, study partners, hype it up, and destress.

Free Resources:

If your children are struggling to hand in assignments on time, check out the following video training: 3 Steps to Teach Children How to Overcome Procrastination to Increase Productivity.

Next Steps:

For calm down areas on a budget, for your students who have autism, CLICK HERE.

You’re welcome to join us inside ADHD and Autism Self Regulation by CLICKING HERE or on the fallowing image.

If you found this video beneficial, would you do me a favor? Share this with your family, your friends, your loved ones, your co-workers or someone who you think could benefit from this. Thank you!

I’ll see you next Friday at 5:30pm PST.

Until I see you next time, remember to create, experience & teach from the heart.

Take care,

Charlotte


Disclaimer: I’m a teacher and a parent. I’m not a medical professional, so please don’t take this as medical advice. The advice that I provide in my videos and online are strategies that I have used in my own class or at home that have worked beautifully. Since ADHD is a spectrum, make sure to adapt these strategies for your individual child. Thank you!

How do You Complete an Assignment with ADHD?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)