Reply to Any success stories of high school students with ADHD stopping stimulant medication to qualify for a service academy?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Join the FB group Raising Aviation Teens.

The new guidance from the FAA is 4 years off of stimulants.  The thing is you need your kid to be successful now, not when they're 18.  ADHD is really an issue of a delay in the frontal cortex.  It's entirely possible that he'll be caught up to his peers by the time he graduates but do you want him to struggle while his brain develops?

The other issue is that he may need the medication in order to focus in order to get the grades and EC activities necessary for the service academies.  So it's a bit of a catch 22.  As the parent of child who was set on going to the Naval Academy to become a pilot, I understand where you're coming from.  For her, she eventually realized that she couldn't manage AP courses, SAT prep, learning to drive, and playing sports without her medication.

Does your child want to be a pilot or go into the service academy?  I ask because not all candidates even at the AF get to fly.  Would your child be happy going to the AF if he didn't get to fly?  Has the AF been identified because he wants to serve or because he wants to fly?

And lastly, there's no reason why he can't become a pilot when he's 22 or 25--after his brain is done developing and he's been off the meds for a few years.  The Raising Aviation group will tell you your child needs to start in college but that's because they want to get seniority clock started.  But even the military pilots who eventually become commercial pilots start at the bottom of the seniority list at the commercial airlines.

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Thank you for the helpful information and FB group suggestions.  My kid is more interested in flying than attending a service academy, though he was turned on by a recent tour of the AF when we were there for a sports tournament.  It looks like he could still get his private license while on stimulants, and he could potentially even join a flying team somewhere like Embry Riddle while on stimulants.  And given the risk of life not going well without stimulants, an engineering or similar degree would be a good fallback even if he pursues a commercial license later.  [/quote]

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