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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.

[/quote]

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 :)[/quote]

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