How to deal with an angry and resistant AUDHD teen who also wants to go to college

[Anonymous]

Look into Mansfield Hall. It is a program at a few colleges that provides structure for neurodiverse students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids issues are somewhat different (but similar in some ways).
Do you think you can sort of set terms in advance. Like we will pay for college if you agree to —
HIPAA and ferpa waivers
Sharing grades with us
If grades drop below a C in any class, you ageee you will start meeting with the EF coach and a tutor for that class
You will check in via FT once per week…
Or whatever you think will be constructive. It might help to negotiate this with a therapist.

Have you ever read the Ross Greene books? They might help.

I find that it often helps to put the question to him first. We are paying a lot of money for college. What do you think would be some commitments you can make that will help us feel that this is a good investment in your future? If they come up with the terms, there is more buy in.

This seems like a good middle ground - he goes to college and there are guardrails.

You need to back off now, though, OP. And he might fail and have college offers rescinded, I am not naive. But (1) better that the college take that opportunity away than you, for your relationship; and (2) it’s cheaper to learn now if independence is an unrealistic goal for him right now.

My kid is only ADHD but would never have the emotional maturity at 17 to say sorry or recognize my hard work or his role in our “discussions.” To be fair, neither did I at that age. That is definitely unrealistic so let that hope go because he can’t possibly meet it right now.

[Anonymous]

There is an episode of the Ask Lisa podcast about gap years that I found very enlightening. Basically if a kid isn't ready, it's better to do a gap year than to try to overcome a bad first year with bad grades pulling dowN GPA, and that transferring credits to a different college is harder than you think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, our daughter is ASD, ADHD, anxiety disorder and, as a result, was a poor student. We hired endless tutors to get her through high school and college. We actually on occasion had to go sit with her to keep her on point for homework. Skme off the top of my head comments:

1) go to a local college so it’s easy for you to help. High Point would have been a good fit but was too far away.
2) I think your son needs a gap year.
3) engineering is one tough major. Does your son have a gift at math?. My other neurotypical child, but gifted, started in engineering at a top state school but quit after Calc 3.
4) if your DS is adamant about engineering, try to encourage him to attend a school with humanities, etc. so he can easily shift at a later date. So no Georgia Tech.
5) look at schools that have great support offices. We chose GMU for this reason.
6) can your son write papers? This turned out to be the biggest hurdle for DD. She had coasted on an IEP at Langley so we didn’t “get it” until her first papers came due at GMU. If so, avoid the SLACs or any program that on ones a lot of writing
7) hook up with the school’s disability services office early in the summer preceding attendance. GMU wanted fresh (it had been Four years) testing, which took time, but the office would t even talk to us until we had fresh testing.
8) consider a single. DD got thrown into a quad with three student athletes who got up very early. Disability services sorted that out.
9) Did you look at WPI?

Best of luck. I’m sure I’ll think of more. You do have a therapist in place? Meds? Tutors? You want to make sure all of that is in order before the start.

What did disability services do for her? Did she get a single? How is she doing now? My own dd has the same diagnoses and is applying to GMU. I’m dreading the roommate situation because other students will find her very difficult to live with.

[Anonymous]

I have learned with my own kid that i have to drop the expectation that he'll say "hey, I need help, I'm sinking here." It hasn't happened yet. FWIW asking for help seems very, very difficult for him. But I can read in his behavior when he does need help, and then provide it, and though college is messy he is managing and learning.

I also have tried very hard to learn to not take the anger personally. It's annoying and rude, but it's just a stress response or repetitive behavior from kids like this. It doesn't really have anything to do with anything.

There is also a huge benefit to some separation between you and him to reset your dynamic. It gives everyone some freedom from the same old power struggles.

I would try to find an affordable college and give it a try. It may not work, or it may sort of work. The money you are paying isn't just for college, it is for some time and space to let both of you have your own lives for a while. It's a lot cheaper than therapeutic boarding scohol, tbh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is an episode of the Ask Lisa podcast about gap years that I found very enlightening. Basically if a kid isn't ready, it's better to do a gap year than to try to overcome a bad first year with bad grades pulling dowN GPA, and that transferring credits to a different college is harder than you think.

I asked my kid's psychiatrist and therapist about gap years and both said that they could be a disaster for kids like mine. Without clear structure the kid's mental health can fall apart because of poor social connections or an irregular schedule, or they can end up in situations where they no longer want to go to college (problematic love interest, substance abuse) or out of practice with academic skills. Obviously if you have a motivated kid with a plan it's different, but they were both very clear that they've seen bad outcomes.

FWIW my kid has struggled academically in college and does not have a good GPA, but I also accept that we don't have great options here, we are doing the best we can in the situation we're in playing the cards he was dealt. He's a few years in now, and there's no reason to think it would be going great if he'd waited another year to start. He is happy and trying hard to be successful and that has to be enough for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have learned with my own kid that i have to drop the expectation that he'll say "hey, I need help, I'm sinking here." It hasn't happened yet. FWIW asking for help seems very, very difficult for him. But I can read in his behavior when he does need help, and then provide it, and though college is messy he is managing and learning.

Phew, this describes my kid (high school sophomore) to a tee. He just got back into therapy and one of my goals for the therapy is to try to unpack what is at the root of kid's unwillingness to ask for help and see if there might be a therapeutic path toward addressing it. Without solving that, it just feels like kid is going to be in one spiral after another.

[Anonymous]

Have him start working with and EF coach a lot —multiple times/week?—now. One that does college students is educational connections— they are based in Alexandria, but they exclusively do online. I’m sure there are others but start with that and do what you can while you still have them under your roof. You need to scaffold the skills he’ll need on his own and get you out of it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, our daughter is ASD, ADHD, anxiety disorder and, as a result, was a poor student. We hired endless tutors to get her through high school and college. We actually on occasion had to go sit with her to keep her on point for homework. Skme off the top of my head comments:

1) go to a local college so it’s easy for you to help. High Point would have been a good fit but was too far away.
2) I think your son needs a gap year.
3) engineering is one tough major. Does your son have a gift at math?. My other neurotypical child, but gifted, started in engineering at a top state school but quit after Calc 3.
4) if your DS is adamant about engineering, try to encourage him to attend a school with humanities, etc. so he can easily shift at a later date. So no Georgia Tech.
5) look at schools that have great support offices. We chose GMU for this reason.
6) can your son write papers? This turned out to be the biggest hurdle for DD. She had coasted on an IEP at Langley so we didn’t “get it” until her first papers came due at GMU. If so, avoid the SLACs or any program that on ones a lot of writing
7) hook up with the school’s disability services office early in the summer preceding attendance. GMU wanted fresh (it had been Four years) testing, which took time, but the office would t even talk to us until we had fresh testing.
8) consider a single. DD got thrown into a quad with three student athletes who got up very early. Disability services sorted that out.
9) Did you look at WPI?

Best of luck. I’m sure I’ll think of more. You do have a therapist in place? Meds? Tutors? You want to make sure all of that is in order before the start.

What did disability services do for her? Did she get a single? How is she doing now? My own dd has the same diagnoses and is applying to GMU. I’m dreading the roommate situation because other students will find her very difficult to live with.

Yes, our DD botched the form in which she was supposed to indicate her preference to be with a good friend from high school - so she went into the pool and wound up in the triple. We took the matter to GMU's disability services and they worked out the single for her - which was much needed because she needed quiet. But by that time, note that we had already done yet another neuropsych test during the summer and had already met with disability services about her needs. You need to lay that groundwork over the summer. best of luck

[Anonymous]

OP, he gets accepted to 2 colleges for engineering. A very difficult thing. Maybe he doesn't graduate in engineering. Maybe he can't hold-it-together enough to be successful in that major. But he can graduate college.

All he needed was on-level regular high school classes to go to college and I bet you put him in extremely rigorous classes. Of course you did or he never would have been accepted into engineering.

What are you so afraid of? If he fails -some- he graduates in something else. He's earned college. He's gotten into college. He's earned the right to go.

[Anonymous]

I recommend a parent coach. You do need to let him try to cope on his own, and parent coaching will help this. I have a 17 year old DD who is different, but my (now 22 year old) nephew was like this. He did go to college for engineering. He did better than expected but has now taken a year off because it got too hard. But he’s working, living independently, and even got married (that’s a long story). But , yes, he is less angry and does acknowledge his parents and all they did for him. It was a long road though, particularly for my sister and she should have gotten parent coaching earlier (by her admission) because her attempts to help were enabling his behavior. I did the same thing but my DD is very different (angry, but not at all insistent she can cope on her own, exactly the opposite). I too had to learn to let go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Too often parents don't want to spend the money. Too often the parents come up with some reason the student isn't ready for college. He earned it. He gets to go.

He earned admission, not the right to spend his parents’ money while being a brat to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is an episode of the Ask Lisa podcast about gap years that I found very enlightening. Basically if a kid isn't ready, it's better to do a gap year than to try to overcome a bad first year with bad grades pulling dowN GPA, and that transferring credits to a different college is harder than you think.

I asked my kid's psychiatrist and therapist about gap years and both said that they could be a disaster for kids like mine. Without clear structure the kid's mental health can fall apart because of poor social connections or an irregular schedule, or they can end up in situations where they no longer want to go to college (problematic love interest, substance abuse) or out of practice with academic skills. Obviously if you have a motivated kid with a plan it's different, but they were both very clear that they've seen bad outcomes.

FWIW my kid has struggled academically in college and does not have a good GPA, but I also accept that we don't have great options here, we are doing the best we can in the situation we're in playing the cards he was dealt. He's a few years in now, and there's no reason to think it would be going great if he'd waited another year to start. He is happy and trying hard to be successful and that has to be enough for me.

What gap year are you talking about? There are year long programs that have structure.

[Anonymous]

This is OP. I really appreciate all the responses and your lived experiences. I managed to have a calm conversation with him yesterday. Basically, he wants to be neurotypical. He doesn’t want to have ASD or ADHD. In fact, when we went to tour some smaller engineering schools like RIT, he unironically made comments about the students being different or quirky. I resisted the urge to say that is what people may think about him but it’s true. I don’t know where to go with that for the long-term but we did talk about compromise on the scaffolding I put in place for him with professionals. Those were in place when we came up (with a parent coach) with our plan for the parents to scale back and not be involved at all with schoolwork such as checking Schoology or reminding him to turn in work or email teachers. I would like to condition college on getting services and registering in the disability office but until he accepts he has challenges, I don’t know what good that would do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, our daughter is ASD, ADHD, anxiety disorder and, as a result, was a poor student. We hired endless tutors to get her through high school and college. We actually on occasion had to go sit with her to keep her on point for homework. Skme off the top of my head comments:

1) go to a local college so it’s easy for you to help. High Point would have been a good fit but was too far away.
2) I think your son needs a gap year.
3) engineering is one tough major. Does your son have a gift at math?. My other neurotypical child, but gifted, started in engineering at a top state school but quit after Calc 3.
4) if your DS is adamant about engineering, try to encourage him to attend a school with humanities, etc. so he can easily shift at a later date. So no Georgia Tech.
5) look at schools that have great support offices. We chose GMU for this reason.
6) can your son write papers? This turned out to be the biggest hurdle for DD. She had coasted on an IEP at Langley so we didn’t “get it” until her first papers came due at GMU. If so, avoid the SLACs or any program that on ones a lot of writing
7) hook up with the school’s disability services office early in the summer preceding attendance. GMU wanted fresh (it had been Four years) testing, which took time, but the office would t even talk to us until we had fresh testing.
8) consider a single. DD got thrown into a quad with three student athletes who got up very early. Disability services sorted that out.
9) Did you look at WPI?

Best of luck. I’m sure I’ll think of more. You do have a therapist in place? Meds? Tutors? You want to make sure all of that is in order before the start.

This is all great advice. I am a school social worker at a high school. I am also the mother of an autistic son with ADHD, who is mildly gifted and often is very defiant and rigid, and you are not alone in struggling with knowing how to support your child and the sadness that comes with knowing they are struggling emotionally.

I would connect with his high school team. Does he have a 504 accommodation plan and/or an IEP? If he is not already attending all of his 504 plan or IEP meetings, he needs to start right now. If you've already had his annual review meeting, request another meeting for him to participate. He needs to learn self-advocacy skills and practice those while he is still in a sheltered environment. He should have a copy (preferably laminated) with his accommodations and/or goals that he can keep with him, review, and be able to access and recognize if they are working for him or if changes need to be made. If he has an IEP, they should be working with him on transition planning; reach out about it, and if building self-advocacy skills and awareness around his disability with his needs and strengths is not included, I would work on getting that changed. He can work on some of this even with a 504 plan and other school/community supports.

School counselor, career coach at school, and if your school has a school-based mental health counselor, you could explore to see if they could work with him individually on some of this, or if he has a counselor in the community, connect with them about this. Sometimes mental health counselors will also be able to provide services in school to focus on school-based needs, even if they have an outside therapist, but not always. In my district, it is free. Your school district may be able to offer additional supports or resources, but you'll have to check in with his school team.

Beyond that, make sure you are caring for yourself and have someone you can process with as you support him transitioning into adulthood (it's hard!). He will soon be an adult and will have to make a lot of decisions for himself. There is no obligation to pay thousands of dollars for him to attend a specific school if you are not comfortable with that. It's okay to hold firm boundaries of what you will and will not do, and then he has to decide what his next steps will be. It's much easier said than done, and that's why it is so important to make sure you have good support during this transition.

I hope this is helpful