Push

When Jack is motivated to do something he is an unstoppable force.  The thing is, his motivations often are outside of traditional drives.  He could care less about athletics and passion for school projects come on a case by case basis.  Making comics about his life? He's on it.  Doing math? He's writing his answers messily and quickly to ensure he gets some time to sit on the carpet and read during his school day.  When he's bored he daydreams.  A lot.  Boredom doesn't always mean 'not challenged', sometimes it just means disinterested.

One of the most frustrating things about parenting is when your kids behave exactly like you did as a child. Every once in a while, when Jack has me at the end of my nerves, the husband is quick to point out that the acorn didn't fall far from the tree.

Image Courtesy of Tenor

Since he was born, Jack has done things on his own schedule.  Walking, talking, potty training, and now school.  Over the years he has worked very hard on everything from speech therapy to occupational therapy.  It feels there is often an uphill battle or one on the horizon.

When it comes to school skills there are a lot of things he is perfectly capable of completing for his tutor.  Neat(ish) writing, check, concentration, check.  At school the myriad of distractions have this out the window.

Ideally Jack would perform consistently everywhere, but he doesn't.  So we've talked to him, constantly about being a bigger kid and that he needs to step up his effort.  How answers to written assignments are to be longer than one short illegible sentence, how emojis do not replace words in academic writing, and how a smidgen of effort towards team sports will go a long way in gym class.

So far all we've come up with is a 'When you' rule.  Where when he performs at the level we know he's capable of, consistently for a full month we order him whatever new book he wants from Scholastic.  If his performance drags, the book sits up on a shelf he can't reach until it improves. I hate the idea of withholding books for performance, and that it's counter intuitive to withhold an opportunity to read, but this seems to be the only thing working to motivate him.  Otherwise he'd spend all day at school reading and handing in half-assed assignments.

Anyone have any other ideas?  How do we reward Molly who is super motivated at school all the time? I should probably talk to his teacher.  Sigh.  So it begins....Welcome Back to School everyone!