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

[Anonymous]

New poster here. DS is NT or rather undiagnosed because the other parent won’t consent, but displays a lot of the same traits. Unwillingness to ask for help. EF problems. Being angry when told he needs to do this or that to be successful.
I find it very helpful reading about these things. I was ready to back off because our relationship was suffering so much but he suddenly matured over the summer a bit. I’ve been consistently letting him sink in 1 less significant subject at a time. It doesn’t seem to teach him anything tbh.
I still prop him but only so much as not to cause a rift in our relationship. I let go of the idea of him taking hard classes (though he insisted on one and has a B), it’s too stressful for me to make him to all the extensive work, and the teachers are expecting a lot of independence.

In your situation I would keep the coach but back off, let him fail an elective or something less significant and see how he reacts, and I would pay for a semester of college on condition of what one of the PPs suggested.

Also maybe he needs to swallow the bitter pill of him not being NT. Maybe it does make sense to give it to him straight that he won’t be able to function like a typical NT peer anytime soon.

I apologize if I overstepped as a mom of kid who is not diagnosed but feel free to disregard anything that you deem irrelevant or ignorant in my post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is what I said to my kid - register for disability and get the accommodations. It’s your right to decline them at any time. So, if you don’t feel you need them in a class, you don’t have to use them. But, it’s a safety net. You don’t know what college is like yet. Get the safety net in place, and then experiment with the new environment and what works.

Also, please normalize getting help otherwise your DC won’t ask for it when he needs it. Lots of kids needs tutors in college! That’s why freshman classes like physics, chem, bio and macro often have TAs and free peer tutors and there’s a writing center for people who struggle.

Don’t turn this into a situation where you are demanding he comply with certain rules of yours and if he doesn’t, if he fails, he is going to be punished or fail.

My kiddo had one bad semester where he was taking classes he didn’t love, fell behind, probs had a roommate who wasn’t a great influence, and then got depressed about it all, which made it worse. Instead of being mad, I normalized it and helped him focus on what he could do to dig out - tutoring, talking to professors about extensions, taking a bad grade or dropping classes, etc. Neurotypical students have these struggles too. I didn’t get mad and say we were going to punish him by stopping paying for school.

BTW, I have a LD sibling who went for 4 years but never actually graduated. Even without a degree those credits have enabled him to qualify for jobs that he wouldn’t have otherwise qualified for. And, guess what? No one ever cared what his grades were.

Parents of neurodiverse kids really have to think more broadly about college - you are holding them to a perfectionist academic ideal that very few neurotypical kids even achieve.

[Anonymous]

I also have an undiagnosed DS with very similar traits to what you describe. He is in college but I have a strong feeling he won't go back in the Spring because he isn't doing well. I tried to encourage a gap year or a year of community college but he refused to consider so I let him sink or swim. He won't seek out help and doesn't listen to any advice. He can come home, get a job and regroup. Hopefully, he will agree to go to back to counseling (went but he never talked) and maybe consider other options like a skilled trade if it becomes clear that the outcome won't be any different if he goes back to college.

Sorry that I don't have much advice because I am also struggling but you aren't alone.