Dealing with stubborn AHDH student
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Anonymous
| Our teen has ADHD and is struggling to maintain even Cs in freshman year of high school. DC is medicated and does Ok in class during the school day. The issue at the moment is a complete lack of willingness on DC's part to slow down, buckle down, and push through when it comes to preparing for quizzes and tests. DC has a hard time retaining the material, but just races through and says "I'm done studying" instead of preparing properly. Numerous study skill supports have been provided by school and at home. School feels that a neuropsych evaluation is needed (with an aim towards having a basis to grant additional time on tests). We aren't against getting one (although scheduling is so hard and obviously very expensive). But having been through the neuropsuch process before with another child, we wonder about it's value in this situation. Not sure more time on tests wil help. It just feels like we have an unmotivated kid who isn't studying properly. Switching schools, repeating 9th grade have all been discussed. But would any of those options help if the underlying willingness to do the hard work doesn't change? Maybe DC needs talk therapy to discuss motivation/ work ethic? Need advice. |
Anonymous
| He likely has anxiety and is avoiding the tasks that make him anxious. Studying stresses him (it sounds like for good reason), so he is avoiding it. ADHD meds can make anxiety worse, so it may be worth speaking to his doctor about anxiety meds. Given what you have written, I would not assume that the issue is lack of motivation. |
Anonymous
| You are assuming it is a motivation issue because that is how your brain works. It's not how his works. |
Anonymous
| Anxiety causing avoidance, and poor executive function. All very commonly occur with ADHD. Try the book This Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week. |
Anonymous
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Calling a kid with ADHD stubborn is ableist and overall crappy.
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Anonymous
NP. I ordered that book and, while DS hasn't really put 2 and 2 together, his grades have gone from As, Bs, and Cs to As. |
Anonymous
Your post is giving the word ableist the wrong connotation. |
Anonymous
| I’d get him a tutor for all tests to help create study guides and quiz him. |
Anonymous
| You may want to tweak his dose (go down a little) to see if that helps with anxiety. I also wouldn't rule out switching to a different environment/school and having him repeat. |
Anonymous
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I think you will be best able to help him when you stop assuming that this is willful and due to a lack of motivation. He is already working so much harder than other students to stay on task in class. That requires a lot of motivation. His brain literally works differently than what is typical. There are some great books about the ADHD brains and its strengths and challenges. I would read a few to understand how to help him.
Who diagnosed him with ADHD? That person can probably write a letter to the school with the diagnosis and suggested accommodations. You may want to enlist the help of a therapist, executive function coach, school advocate or someone familiar with what kind of accommodations can help your DS. I found a neuropsych report to be really informative and it helped me understand my DS and how he learns much better, but it is not the only path to accommodations. |
Anonymous
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OP - all of the above. Read Stixrud and Johnson’s The Self-Driven Child. A root cause of the problem is your assumption that your child is just unmotivated/stubborn. You have to let go of that. Make sure you are not sending that message to your child — that negative feedback will just make everything worse.
Definitely the neuropsych will be helpful. You will want to know if there are other issues causing difficulty, such as autism, anxiety, etc. If your kid is in 9th grade, there’s no time to waste. Get the neuropsych and start implementing strategies to help your kid get through the later high school years. |
Anonymous
| OP here. Thank you for all of these constructive responses (and I welcome any additional ideas/ thoughts). |
Anonymous
|
I've written about my oldest DS with ADHD/LD/Anxiety (now 20) before. He sounds a lot like your DS. It was tough because there is/was a behavioral element to his poor academic performance. I still don't know how much of it was behavioral and how much was because of his ADHD. I couldn't even get DS to use a calendar to track when something was due or needed to be done. He also refused to check the apps/sites the school and teachers maintained for their classes. It's not that he couldn't - he did really well in the classes that he liked and was on top of things. He also had a part time job that he did really well at. The bottom line was I had to recognize that you just can't make someone 'care' so, I focused on the advice his psychiatrist gave me: Get him through high school without depression and without a substance abuse issue. Everything else can be fixed later.
That was really freeing for me. This problem started to arise in MS. It was at that time I started having my first conversations with DS about this being practice for college and life. I understood he didn't care about the grade in the particular class, that he'd never use what was being taught and that it was boring. I actually didn't disagree with what he was saying but brought up examples in my professional life of having to do work I didn't want to do, didn't think was interesting, didn't think there was value doing and that challenged my ability to attend to it - everyone has experienced this and practicing in school would better ensure you were prepared in college and in the work place. I talked about this until a few months before he graduated from high school. It was also in MS that I started talking to DS about behaviors I needed to see in order to pay for him to go away to college - behaviors that would indicate he could/would be successful in college. I wasn't pushing college, there are many ways to be successful, but DS always insisted he wanted to go. It wasn't until February his senior year that he realized the consequences of his actions. Even if I'd been willing to pay for him to go away for college, his GPA was low, he'd not taken the SATs and he hadn't applied anywhere. DS still wanted to go to college so I guided him to community college. He started out taking the 'jump start' classes for free that were offered to FCPS students through NOVA. It was then that he started learning the lessons he should have been learning in high school. He's now finishing his 2nd year at NOVA and I can't say enough good things about community college. He's getting where he needs to be. He'll be going to George Mason in the fall. I have no doubt that if he'd gone away for college that he would not have had the same success. He still needs more support than his younger sister but he's really maturing and I'm amazed at the growth I've seen in him. He's now the reliable one, a leader, in group projects! TLDR: Focus on getting your DS through high school without depression and without a substance abuse issue, everything else can be 'fixed' later. Focus on those classes required to graduate with a regular diploma. Have conversations with your DS regarding plans after HS and be clear on what you need to see in order to accommodate those plans. Be prepared to provide support longer than what 'typical' kids may have. |
Anonymous
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https://www.socialthinking.com/Articles?name=i-dont-care-protective-walls#:~:text=Know%20that%20when%20a%20kid,to%20make%20others%20feel%20good.
This article is about social skills, but the key point still applies. They don't know what to do or how to do it (they may seem to, but really they don't), and so they defend themselves by saying they won't and they don't care etc, because it's too hard to cope with the reality that they aren't capable. |
Anonymous
| Op, is your kid in public school or private school? |