The Dreaded Missing Assignment Emails
To be really honest, I'm writing this in total frustration with our daughter's school (and maybe schools in general). Warning: I'm in a mood.
If you have a middle or high schooler, you may be familiar with the dreaded "Your Student has Missing Assignments" emails.
"WHYYYYY?!"
Missing assignments? I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, if I missed the deadline, it was rare that the assignment was even accepted, and if it was, I might get half credit.
I realize how this sounds…I also walked to school in the snow. Uphill. Both ways.
But when I ask about missing assignments, I often hear, "Oh, it's turned in; they just haven't graded it yet."
If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that…
"Okay???"
What's happened? Why is this a thing all of the sudden? At first, I thought it was remnants of the pandemic. Like, they were easing kids back into the structure of in-person school and it would be temporary.
But it turns out it's due to a theory outlined in Joe Feldman's book Grading for Equity, published in 2018. The book critiques traditional grading practices, arguing that they often perpetuate inequities and fail to accurately reflect student learning. Feldman advocates for grading methods that focus on understanding and mastery rather than factors like timeliness, which can disproportionately disadvantage certain students due to varying life circumstances.
I'm all for equity. This focus sounds GREAT, right?... Unless your kid isn't neurotypical OR, as I'll talk about later, is just not in their mid-20s yet. As a former Human Growth and Development Professor, this whole thing has me facepalming.
Kids who have Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, Executive Function Challenges, and those who are twice exceptional, who are gifted and neurodivergent, all especially tend to benefit from clear structure, external motivation, and deadlines. Without deadlines, they find it harder or nearly impossible to manage their time and maintain focus.
For non-neurotypical kids, this lack of structure and deadlines is a disaster (speaking from ADHD-mom experience). These endlessly moving deadlines don't mimic what happens in the real world. Also, it seems to prevent kids from developing or even being interested in finding strategies that work to keep them on track towards BIG goals. Why would they? There are no "REAL"/external and immediate consequences associated with not staying on track and turning things in late.
Our oldest has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, which is a terrible name for the disorder (there's even a debate on if it's a disorder or brain variant…but I digress). People with ADHD do not, in fact, have a deficit of attention. They have a deficit of attention when it comes to things they are not interested in.
Because of the lack of access to neurochemicals in the brain like dopamine and norepinephrine, they can HYPERFOCUS on things that interest them for hours on end; in other words, they follow the dopamine. When it comes to something ADHDers are interested in, they can and will outperform their peers.
SO, INTEREST motivates ADHDers and gets things on their "radar", so to speak, but you know what else does? URGENCY. That's it. Those are the only two things that research suggests motivate ADHDers and get things on their proverbial radar.
So, if something has a due date that the ADHDer knows isn't really real, they'll choose an interesting or fun thing to do over the non-urgent thing that's "due" every. single. time.
This is not your ADHD kid being lazy, irresponsible, or not caring enough; this is just how your kid's brain works within a system that doesn't work for them. I think of it as a radar difference.
We don't have a smarts problem, a laziness problem, or a not-caring-enough problem (they will likely be super upset when the not-immediate consequences come crashing down…which will be confusing); we have a lack of interest and urgency problem.
These kids do well with high structure, high boundaries, and high stakes. Professions my ADHD clients are in and thriving? Pilot, ER doctor, creative and/or high-stakes entrepreneur, EMT, firefighter, project managers, software developer, and therapist, to name a few.
High-structure, fast-paced, creative, and innovative fields seem to attract these types of brains IF they can get through school with loosey-goosey deadlines and not think they're dumb because they're not performing as well as their peers.
"First, you need to be much more consistent with the rules and consequences in raising this child than normal parents need to be. And that's not because you're going to engineer the ADHD out of the child, it's because you are going to make the child less disabled from their ADHD."
-ADHD Expert, Dr. Russell Barkley
This quote is from Dr. Barkley's famous 3-hour lecture, "Essential Ideas for Parents," and is a large part of why I created The Family Rules Chores and Systems for Discipline Workshop based on a ridiculous amount of training on ADHD, years of teaching Human Growth and Development as a Professor, reading every parenting book under the sun, and years of experience with what didn't work with an ADHD and highly-sensitive kid (hint: gentle parenting and a lot of words).
"Act, don't yack," Dr. Barkley suggests.
We have worked with her school learning consultant to add a need for hard deadlines to her learning profile that every teacher sees. Despite this, we get email after email about our child's missing assignments.
Every semester—words and more words, with no real consequence. Yack, yack, yack. These emails mean nothing to her. WE, as her parents, are then faced with imposing the deadlines and urgency her brain needs regarding school…along with all of our other boundaries at home.
"Get your stuff done, OR ELSE."
We get told it's turned in, but is it? What is her definition of "I got all my stuff done" vs. ours? Then, teachers might have a whole different perspective. Using parents as middlemen and boundary enforcers regarding assignments just seems inefficient and ineffective. It encourages her to remain dependent on us at a time when it's not developmentally appropriate, therefore putting unnecessary strain and negativity on an already tough relationship to navigate (teens and parents).
So, that's my two cents. Do I have an answer? Not really. It sounds like different kids need different things—shocker. And a one-size-fits-all approach either way isn't working. I understand teachers are underpaid and have entirely too much on their plate; no hate towards teachers AT ALLL.
I just hope this email helps even a few of you understand what's actually going on here and maybe gives you some clarity about what's needed and what to do next.
WHAT DO I WISH I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?
It's too late for us, but I wish someone had told me that clearly stating the need for hard deadlines in a learning profile or IEP wouldn't be enough. If I had it to do all over again, I would communicate with her teachers at the beginning of each semester to reiterate and clarify needs.
"I'm talking 1980s-type deadlines."
"You mean, if she doesn't turn it in, you just want me to give her a zero??
"Yes. She doesn't need more time, she needs urgency. If she's given more time, here's what will happen: The work will pile up, and then so do her gaps in understanding, making current work more and more difficult to complete. It snowballs. In the past, this has led to full-fledged panic attacks and meltdowns. It impacts her mental health drastically and our entire household. PLEASE, for the love, SET BOUNDARIES AND FOLLOW-THROUGH ON THEM. She needs you to be consistent."
Eventually, I want her to be able to advocate for herself in this regard, and at times she has. I pray that college isn't as lenient and will force her into strategies and self-advocacy, but the structure and high stakes aren't present with the way high school is done these days.
If I could get in a time machine, I also would have said fewer words because, as stated above, "Act, don't yack.
What if MY KID DOESN'T HAVE ADHD, and this still happens? YEAH, it might be because the brain's pre-frontal cortex, where executive functioning is housed, isn't fully developed until people are in their mid-20s!! Humans in this age range are still learning how to prioritize and control their impulses. They will inherently suck at tasks associated with "adulting" (doing the should-dos over the want-tos) because they don't have fully-mature brains yet.
Deadlines and accountability are like having your prioritization and executive functioning on the outside. External motivation will be important for teenagers and young adults. People with the types of neurodivergence mentioned above, and those with certain personality types, like ENFPs (and others) on the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Inventory, may need more external motivation throughout their entire lives.
Some people (especially sensitive ones) thrive more with deadlines and accountability, and that's okay. The more you know about what works for you, the more you can plan for it and work around it, and the more successful you will be. I work with adult clients on creating accountability and deadlines they'll actually stick to quite often.
We don't have to engineer this out of you (or your kid); we just have to find what works for you (or your kid).
If you believe that these loosey-goosey deadlines aren't working for your neurotypical kiddo, you can still advocate for them in the ways listed above. It's exhausting, but I'd say it's worth it.
Let me know what you think,
P.S. - My daughter has no idea I'm writing this OR that I've sent her school an email…again. She can get her stuff done “OR ELSE!”…again. I should have signed this newsletter -The Bad Guy.
P.P.S. - If you're realizing that as a parent you may YACK more than you ACT, we have something for you. Check out the Family Rules, Chores, and Systems for Discipline Workshop for less repeating yourself and yelling, and more peace.
