“The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.”
Proverbs 21:5 (ESV)
When looking through my AuDHD’s school work, I notice a consistency. She lacks diligence. Maybe I need to read her the story of the turtle and the rabbit, where children learn that slow and steady wins the race.
I don’t know if it’s because she’s eager to draw, or the assignment doesn’t hold her attention, or that she gets distracted, but she tends to rush through her work and ends up making silly mistakes she could have avoided. It’s rare she doesn’t actually understand the material. Since autistic people tend to be detail oriented, I think Kayla’s haste is more due to her ADHD. I do know she absolutely hates being the last one done and finds school to be extremely boring.
Diligent Defined:
—adjective
1. constant in effort to accomplish something; attentive and persistent in doing anything: a diligent student.
2. done or pursued with persevering attention; painstaking: a diligent search of the files.
Kayla lacks the skill of being slow and steady in any activity she doesn’t want to do. For example, one of her chores is poop scooping. Generally, this is a chore she has chosen. But…if she’s super interested in the show she’s watching, she’ll rush through the job, leaving litter scattered everywhere, and even forget to clean one of the boxes.
I don’t have a solution. Sorry. If your complex kid is struggling with the same thing, all I can offer is the advice we’ve given Kayla to help her be more diligent at school.
- Read EVERY word in the passage/problem/instructions
- Read EVERY word in EVERY answer choice
- Take a breath BEFORE answering
- When finished, check your work (especially with math)
Here’s some activities and games can help with slowing down.
- Strategy games that make them think before they make a move like chess or many card games.
- Visual aids. For example, during elementary school—when Kayla had only one desk—we wrote the above reminders on a picture of a turtle to attach to her desk.
- Instead of seeing how fast they can go, challenge them by seeing how slow they can go. Make it silly and fun.
As far as parenting is concerned, slow and steady wins the race there too. Scripture tells us to be slow to speak and anger. In fact, when I searched the word slow in my Bible app, almost all the verses were about God’s or man’s temper. I can say with 100% certainty that I fail at this command. Even stupid, innocent things can make my blood boil, like my husband scratching an itch. It’s ridiculous what can make me mad. I need to learn mood diligence. To really bite my tongue and think through my thoughts and feelings before I respond.
What do your kids struggle to be diligent at? Where do you become hasty? Let’s remember to slow down so we can win this race.
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