My son does not want to register with the disabilities office. We tried to frame it with anyone can make a mistake and having your accommodations in place can help smooth it out.
I understand why he wants to do it on his own, but although much improved this year, he still struggles with getting work done and turned in ontime. Right now he has an official 2 day extension on assignments but in reality he took a month to turn in assignment and to me that is a red flag.
His meds are not as effective right now and he is having difficulty with self regulating and has gained 20 pounds in one year from binge eating and lack of exercise because he won’t schedule it in his day. He won’t do his laundry with obvious stains on his clothing.
These all concern us. We feel like we will have to put our foot down and make him have a 504 in college and come up with incentives if we do so. We do feel that since we are paying for college that we can make demands on him. What have you guys done?
I feel for you. But if your son is over 18, you can’t make him register with disability services or use accommodations, even if he does register. How old is your son, and how far away is he going to college?
He is 17 and not 18 until July. He had a 29 act and 3.4 gpa. He is an exceptional test taker and is good at music theory and struggles with aural skills. that’s not the problem. The problem is details. Getting work turned in on time cobsistently. I guess the good thing about his medication not be I got as effective is that he now he realizes that he needs it.
12 hours away but we get in state tuition so if he struggles we can still afford the tuition if he loses his scholarship. There were other good music schools but we were worried about losing the scholarships if he got below a 3.0.
pan me for more details.
I know exactly where you are coming from. Wish I had good advice for you. It sounds like your son has some executive function issues - I’ve been there as well with my son. He’s improved this year but still a procrastinator.
He does have executive function issues and does not have the benefit of being held back a year for his young age…darn. If only I had known he’d have this problem.
Do you guys at least think it is a good idea to at least register with the disabilities office and get accomodations? At least if he completely falls apart, he would have that to fall back on since it is already in place.
And wow. Sorry about the terrible typos in previous post.
I would make it a condition of paying the deposit. You are paying for some of his college, right? Maybe you can go to the office with him to register. Procrastination is something he probably suffers with.
From what I understand you are also going to need him to sign a FERPA waiver before you can talk to the school or have access to his grades so get that signed as a condition of your financial contribution.
Maybe you can text him twice a day to remind him to take his meds? I found it easier to get those Mon-Sun pill boxes that are usually for senior citizens. I load them on Sunday and can tell at a glance if a dose is forgotten. I am assuming he takes medication; ignore advice if he’s not.
My daughter has similar issues but is only a h. s. sophomore. I can’t see a day coming where she doesn’t need a reminder to take medicine or do school work.
Oh. We will require a ferpa form to be signed for our contribution and to register for accomodations. my own experience is documentation will get him a little more flexibility instead of oh you are irresponsible and lazy.
Are there any seminars for kids with adhd or executive function issues? We have tried to get him to be his own self advocate and to use technology to help him stay organized but he is very resistive to any organization help. This boggles my mind. I had similar issues but I was open to help and would have loved if someone would have taught me how to be organized.
If possible, you should make sure his medication dose is optimized before he leaves for school. My niece’s medication needs to be tweaked every 2-3 years, it seems.
You might want to look into coaching–I believe both the Edge Foundation in Seattle and SALT at U of A coach long distance–these kids are so used to Skype/iChat that it is more familiar to them than being in a room with a coach. Having a neutral party coach him may help him respond to all the same good ideas you have fed him over the years
The disabilities office will set-up accommodations, but they don’t usually coach, or check-up on a kid who isn’t using them.
400 is steep for those that have to pay for college. Are there any other affordable options? We would not qualify for any aid so a scholarship isn’t an Option.
I read once about someone who found a grad student at same school, I think it was a Colorado school, to take up the coaching and paid them.
Someone on the boards mentioned an aunt having the right skill set–and the trust of the kid, because I believe she may have started coaching him in high school.
I think kids tune out parents in this role, but might agree to having someone else in their lives follow-up on executive function items.
My niece applied to the Shire scholarship for one free year of coaching, but they only pick one winner per state and it is a real long shot to be that one. However, someone in your son’s life with patience and intuition might do the trick.
I’ve got a different take on this. I’m just starting college at 34 with ADHD, I have learned coping skills and what meds to take through life experiences…
I tried college when I was 18, and I needed more structure then the college could provide. Have you considered renting/selling your home, and moving to wherever his college is, so that you can better moniter the situation?
Or perhaps have him take less classes or more meds to help cope? But it might just be that he needs to wait as I did, though hopefully not as long before he can complete college.
He is maturing. Our solution was a state school where he can safely “fail” or get below the GPA requirement without making it unaffordable and forcing him to quit. He is doing his passion so it will rely on him knowing when to say no to every cool project that comes up.
Also. My son would die if I moved closer and we are moving to Florida somewhere warmer.
It is perfectly fine for you to inquire now with the Office of Disabilities to ask about the range of services offered & their requirements for documentation. I think in a calm, adult-type discussion about the next chapter in his life, you can ask him to please register with the office of disabilities. Tell him, he never has to use it, but it would make you feel better to know that he is in the system if he should ever choose to use their services, which may include coaching. My daughter was happy to sign up & it has been very helpful to her. I will say that having your son’s college more than 2 hours away is not ideal for a student with adhd or ld.
Both of my kids have LDs (ShawD chiefly ADHD, ShawSon primarily dyslexia but also ADHD and other stuff). Both finished college with GPAs over 3.9. Both found the accommodations invaluable and the flexibility that one of the other posters mentioned to be quite helpful. ShawSon was interviewed after starting a tech company during his senior year and becoming CEO. They asked about his advice to kids to learning disabilities. One thing he said was never being embarrassed about who you are including LDs and telling people that people about it. He said he asked people for notes and they were much more understanding about that if they knew he was dyslexic. Both are now in grad school in completely different fields. He was asked when he was in college about being interviewed for a film on high-performing dyslexics and he said he didn’t want to be defined by his LDs.
One thing tha seemed to help was getting a coach. ShawD was given a peer mentor at her request by the Disabilities Services Office of her first UG university (she transferred). It was a senior in her program and he helped her anticipate the challenges she would face and how to manage the workload. For our son, he had a coach (who had worked with him for years) who monitored his emails and reminded him of deadlines. She also recorded some of his longer readings. We paid her all through college. He is now at the top grad school in the world for his fields and the coach is no longer involved.
The other thing I’d suggest is organizing university to play to your son’s strengths (and if possible, choosing a school that allows sufficient curricular flexibility). In HS, it was necessary to show no weaknesses and be good at everything. Don’t take courses (or many of the courses) that require things that are hard for him from an LD standpoint. For ShawSon, the advice was don’t take courses with 400 pages of reading a week. For ShawD, who was a concrete thinker, don’t take courses that you can’t connect to your interests. She actually transferred to a school that enabled her to take a more concrete, practical course of study and has been happy and extremely academically successful ever since. [I think both kids are doing better in grad school than they did as undergrads as they are even more focused on things that play to their strengths].
I have ADHD, and I’m enrolled at a community college where I currently have a 3.9 GPA. I don’t take meds - I stopped taking them after I realized they were making me sick - and I don’t use accommodations. I did apply for them, just in case I needed them, but if your son doesn’t think he needs them, don’t try to force him to apply. The one thing that people with ADHD hate the most is feeling like they are being forced to do anything.
What your son needs really depends on his interests. If there’s a field of study that he’s truly passionate about, you will find yourself amazed by his ability to focus and get things turned in on time. I have a tendency to leave things to the last minute, but I do manage to get all my work in when I should. Maybe my experience is different than that of others who have been diagnosed with ADHD, but I have found that when my interest is piqued, nothing and no one can stop me for going after what I want. That being said, I did wait until I was 26 to go to college. I needed to see what else was out there first.
