ASD/ADHD 18yo Stepdaughter - What can we do?

[Anonymous]

My 18 year old stepdaughter has Level 1 ASD and ADHD, and we’ve been struggling. She’s chose to live with us full time since turning 18 in September. Before, she split her time between ours (DH and I have been married for 11 years) and her mom’s. She’s mainly struggling in school. She’s failing multiple classes and is at risk of not graduating this year. She has an IEP, and her school caseworkers and teachers are very supportive and helpful, but when she attends school, she refuses help and doesn’t complete work. When she gets frustrated with attempts to help her, she’ll leave class without permission and sit outside in the hallway on her phone, which has led to consequences multiple times.

She frequently refuses to go to school, her sleep schedule is all over the place—staying up until 2 or 3.am— and she takes her medication inconsistently. After school (if she attends), she comes home, naps, and spends the entire evening on her phone. Even when we take the phone and turn off the internet, she doesn’t fight it and does other things like read, draw, but no school work. She has no friends or extracurricular activities, and is very isolated.

At home, she doesn’t help with anything, including her own room and space. I make her meals, help her clean her room, do her laundry, and try to help her with homework, but she’s consistently rude to me and refuses to engage. She struggles with her assignments so I try to help her and we also have tutors, but she’ll often refuse help and have outbursts. She needs daily prompting on showering, brushing teeth & hair. She’s also been in therapy, but since 18, she refuses to go and when she did attend she’d refuse to talk, and there’s nothing we can do to make her go.

I’m very worried about her and her future. We really want her to graduate, do something outside of school, have friends, and increased motivation. DH and I are both lost. How can we help her? We’re in VA.

[Anonymous]

It's so tough. We had a lot of rough years but at 21 I am starting to see some real growth and taking of responsibility. It's still not perfect but I am feeling more hopeful. I guess what I'm saying is time helps. A young-adult therapy group has also helped, to see kids with similar issues.

[Anonymous]

That’s hard, OP.

I’m not a mom yet so I can’t give you parenting advice. But, I’ve been a teen, and think maybe incentives would help motivate her.

[Anonymous]

I would drastically cut back her phone and device use. It will help her sleep and her overall circadian rhythm. Reading or drawing are far better for her than whatever she's doing on her phone.

Make your peace with her not graduating this year. Cut back her course load so that she has fewer classes to manage and you have fewer classes to stress about. Some kids need five years for high school and that's okay.

[Anonymous]

I'm so sorry, OP. My ASD/ADHD kiddo is in college now and had terrible sleep habits in high school: he would go to bed at 3am. The difference is that he was motivated to do well in school and always studied hard. He barely tolerated his meds and stopped taking them in college - I don't blame him. Miraculously, with slow tapering, his life hasn't imploded, although he does forget stuff and his grades aren't the best. But I'm happy to see him take ownership. He's completely addicted to screens, but so is everyone else in the family, so... it's hard to act on this. We're all various shades of ADHD, and my husband is on the spectrum as well. He has no friends AT ALL, which kills me.

All I want is for this kid to become financially independent, so I don't worry about what's going to happen to him when I'm gone. I wish the same for your daughter. Has she explained why she cannot seem to find motivation in school? Does she understand that she needs to be competitive in the workplace? With ASD1, she is capable of understanding such concepts.

It would be great if she could have a summer job (I found one for my son two summers in a row because he was incapable of looking himself). Maybe she'll better understand what it takes to earn a living.

[Anonymous]

She needs to be at her mom’s at least half time.
Make life at your house hard for her. No i am not talking about any kind of abuse, but no meals, no laundry, no phone bill, no new clothes.
She can eat at home (access to groceries) and have a bed and access to medical care.

[Anonymous]

What mental health care does she have? This sounds like depression and/or autistic burnout, which needs to be handled in conjunction with mental health providers.

[Anonymous]

A couple of things. First the obvious. You can’t get a job without a HS diploma. So you are on the right track. Two things I see missing:

Psychiatrist for a medication evaluation. This sounds like more than typical teen angst and issues.

A better IEP to address the issues she’s having including school refusal. Schools have seen all of this before and they have strategies.

BTDT parent. It’s hard and scary.

[Anonymous]

This poor child.

She needs a psychiatric evaluation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would drastically cut back her phone and device use. It will help her sleep and her overall circadian rhythm. Reading or drawing are far better for her than whatever she's doing on her phone.

Make your peace with her not graduating this year. Cut back her course load so that she has fewer classes to manage and you have fewer classes to stress about. Some kids need five years for high school and that's okay.

+1

[Anonymous]

Is she in a traditional public school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She needs to be at her mom’s at least half time.
Make life at your house hard for her. No i am not talking about any kind of abuse, but no meals, no laundry, no phone bill, no new clothes.
She can eat at home (access to groceries) and have a bed and access to medical care.

Why on earth would you do this to a high schooler?

[Anonymous]

You and your husband need to meet with a behavioral therapist who has experience with teenagers. If you are paying for the phone, you need to tie it to her completing schoolwork and attending school. You can give her a flip phone instead.

She may be 18, but emotionally and cognitively is not there yet, so I’d think of and parent her like a younger teen. I’d also insist on family therapy. Come at her with a sense of concern, not control.

[Anonymous]

I have a daughter with some similarities, she is 17. I wouldn’t be overly concerned about the graduating part simply bc I think the school will figure out a way for her to graduate.
Is she on TikTok all the time? I started forwarding my daughter TikTok’s related to adhd, autism etc so she can relate but also lots of them for healthy skills for those with adhd and how to get dopamine from other sources. For my daughter the sleeping is a mix of medication and masking exhaustion.
I set up an “ art studio” in the house and she will paint. Basically we are just trying very slowly to build outside interests and support her for who she is. I truly don’t believe I any of it is an intentional defiance or combative situation, it’s difficulty regulating.
We’ve had a difficult time with therapist as well, every few months she is open to try a new one and we have the discussion that hopefully soon we will find one that she is comfortable with.
It’s hard and there are small steps forward and definitely steps backward.
I would really try to support the consistency in medication, if my daughter misses a day or two, it’s awful. Of everything that you said, I would make that the top priority.

[Anonymous]

New med evaluation.