RIDING ROB: We struggled with a similar situation that you have with our oldest son this year. I threw the old "bad grades=no racing" thing on him and it didn't make a difference. He loves to ride and race, but it was as though he didn't care during the week. We were plenty frustrated, then went to talk to the school counselor. She made an excellent suggestion, one that has worked like a charm.
She said that, in some cases, kids don't relate a punishment or reward to a behavior unless it's immediate. Her point was that racing is something that we do every week or two - the feedback connection of working hard during the week and getting to ride/race on the weekends wasn't being made because the cause and effect were too far apart.
She had us do two things. 1) Everyday, he has to get two initials from each teacher that indicates he's turned in the previous evenings homework and he's received that days homework. 2) Everday after school he shows us his agenda (a notebook with his assignments and the initials in it). If he has two initials for that day, he's rewarded with a letter (D-Monday, I-Tuesday, R-Wednesday, T-Thursday, Y-Friday) By Friday, if he has all the letters to spell DIRTY, he gets to ride and race.
When the counselor gave us this suggestion I thought it sounded ridiculous, but we gave it a try and it has really helped get him on track. Our issue was homework, but I'm sure you could adapt the system easily to other issues.
As for ADD, and I'll probably get flamed here but it's just my opinion, I think it's largely a bunch of hooey. My youngest boy would probably be diagnosed with it if he were tested, but I have no interest in medicating the fire out of a young man. Boys will be boys. If they're not acting up a bit, acting out, being rowdy, loud, disgusting and all the wonderfull things they are at these young ages, they're not being kids. I'm sure there are extreme cases where some kind of intervention is needed, but the whole ADD thing has become so widespread, I'm just not buying it.
I have a freind who'd boys teacher swears he has ADD, should be tested for it and probably on Ritalin. The problem is, is that she's said this about 1/3rd of the kids in her class. Clearly, this teacher is uncomfortable in a room full of 7 year olds.