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Hi. I’m not sure how relevant this is to adoption (it’s almost impossible to tease out what’s what!) but my son a. Is the most stubborn kid ever b. Has almost no interest in anything educational. C. Hates reading books much more than the average kid d.is completely unmotivated to try anything or go anywhere new. E. Eats horribly and can’t even get any new foods down when we push him
Ok so on the one hand, some of it is he has ADHD. He has started refusing his meds and the teachers haven’t seemed to notice.
On the other hand we have always made a lot of allowances for him and not forced him to do anything. He has taken tons of classes, we’ve tried private school (he’s in a Montessori program now), he has travelled, has a pool in our backyard, a basketball hoop in the driveway. When he takes new activities we make him commit to x number of classes but after that he never wants to continue! If we take away his computer privileges he just lays on his bed staring at the ceiling. Won’t even watch TV!
Is some of this normal or are we supposed to insist! We encourage but let him stop doing things he loses interest in because it’s usually expensive and it seems ridiculous at a certain point.
Is this our fault? He just doesn’t seem to want to do ANYTHING! He also hates school even though it’s basically the easiest most interactive school environment imaginable for a sixth grader.
I guess what I’m looking for is confirmation that he’s on his own journey and we should just let him be because honestly I doubt there is a solution. The harder you push him the more he digs in!
Looking for some guidance. Thanks.
Hi Gwenn. I just came across your story and it resonated a lot with me. The thing is I had the same problem with my son. My wife and I had a baby quite late. We took care of him and tried to give him everything he wanted. I even think we might have spoiled him. He had the best toys, bicycles, skate, skis, the most modern gadgets, but my Bob was completely uninterested in learning. At school, he had poor grades, teachers could not encourage him to study. It felt like there was no thing that interested him.
My wife and I tried to talk to him – we were really careful and gentle, but he seemed completely indifferent to everything. Of course, this problem upset us, and it began to annoy that he was absolutely not striving for anything. We tried a reward system: for each good mark we bought him a new toy. But it soon stopped working. Then, my wife and I decided to try a different strategy: we started taking him to different sports sections, and I began to spend more time with him as a father and son. Gradually, he began to show interest in tennis. This sport trained discipline, the coach became an example for him and this was the beginning of a new period. Sport has helped my son to become an energetic, enthusiastic and hardworking person.
I believe that we should build a connection with our children through common useful activities. Toys and gadgets are great, but they do not make the child feel the emotional connection with their parents, which can help him to start trusting the parents. I noticed that as soon as we began to spend time with my son together doing sports sections, we became closer, and from that moment improvements appeared. Now, 4 years have passed, and my son continues to play tennis regularly, he has good grades at school, and he began to get involved in programming.
I understand that sometimes it is not easy to solve the problem with your child. If I hadn’t been able to solve a problem by myself, I would have asked a family or a child psychologist for help.
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