My DS is a senior who has executive function issues and ADHD. His executive function issues have not really been addressed. We do not think that he is ready to go off to college. He can’t seem to stay on top of long term independent work. I am looking for suggestions from others who have been there.
Currently, we are looking at all options. His grades have improved in the last two years but not where they should be. He puts off his work until he is so overwhelmed that he shuts down. I think a PG year would be good for him if the school has support for ADHD and executive function disorder. Perhaps boarding school would help him mature some. However, I don’t know if there are still places that he could apply to this late in the game. Also, I’m not sure about paying 60K a year. None of his college options are even that much and I’m sure that we would not be eligible for financial aid for a PG year.
My husband would like him to start college locally. I think I have him on board to find a coach for DS but we have just started looking. If anyone has any recommendations in Metrowest Massachusetts, please let me know.
What does your son want to do? How does he feel about college? Does he recognize he has issues and must deal with them? Is he good about taking his meds and working with coach/therapist? Also, can he start out as a part-time student at the local college, and slowly build up credit hours as he acclimates to college?
My DS was diagnosed with ADHD in college, and from that experience I can only offer the following advice (which may, or may not, apply to your son. Everyone is different) about attending college. A gap year is not going to produce a different son, with different abilities. Yes, he’ll be a little more self-aware, and mature, but he’ll still have function challenges. So I vote for CC on the side, or a nearby college.
Go local. In fact, commuting the first year is a good idea. This is not about his maturity, or personal growth. This is about a cognitive inability to break tasks into manageable bits. You can't badger, threaten, or incentivize "better" behavior, you can only develop robust workarounds.
Find success. A job, a volunteer position, a great group of friends. College for students who are not academically able is one long day of being reminded you fall short a lot, over and over again.
Go slow. A limited (at the most 3 at a time) class load will work wonders. Expect this to be a journey that takes however long it takes, so don't focus on everyone else's progress. Their progress is irrelevant.
Celebrate the little victories. Set realistic goals. Hold him accountable for his work, but be a backstop too, and that means the three of you agree that he will let you see his grades, his work, etc… (that’s why commuting, at first, is easier)
If he’s living at home, treat him like a roommate. Don’t cook for him, don’t launder for him, don’t ask him to call or report, or anything!
My son with ADHD (and with similar problems) often recited the Einstein quote of “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. But that sumarized his high school academic career, where he would repeatedly procrastinate, especially on long term assignments, and then get to the tipping point where it was impossible to get things done on time. We spent the first three years of high school keeping him on task, with schedules, daily homework checks, etc. Finally during his senior year we backed off. His grades dropped so much in the second semester of that year that the school warned him that his college admissions might get rescinded. That got his attention, and somehow he found that he was able to get his work done the last two months of the year. So, at least for him, part of the solution was the seriousness of the clear (not far off in the distance ‘your won’t get into college’) consequences of not getting stuff done.
Almost all colleges offer support for kids with ADHD and poor executive skills. When my son started college this past year one of the quid pro quo deals between him and us was that he meet weekly with someone from the learning center. She worked with him, setting up a system by which he would map out the week, set himself a daily schedule, etc. They can also work with him on scheduling his classes into blocks, so that they all fit within a dosing interval of his meds. And again, we made sure that he knew that if he underperformed we would pull him from school (saving %60+K a year) and he could go to community college. Has his performance there been perfect? Far from it. But we think that he’s learning from his missteps and getting his work done. It’s still a source of daily concern for us, but it’s now up to him.
I don’t know anything about PG programs, so I can’t comment on them. I would look at what sort of resources the local college(s) have for him. If they’re good, and he knows that there’s a reward if he does well, i.e., that he can transfer his sophomore or junior year to somewhere more desirable, that might be a good plan.
All of this assumes that he has a good medication program for his ADHD. If he truly does have ADHD it’s unfair to expect him to perform well unless he’s on the right medication (for him).
^^ this is all great advice…but for our son, this just didn’t work. His large U did not, in fact, have any sort of ability to meet with him or work with him on a personal basis, and even if it had, he wouldn’t have gone. Oh, he’d make the appointment, but forget to go. He knew, throughout the end of hs and the beginning of college, that he had to do better or withdraw, but as his grades plummeted, he became depressed, withdrawn; started to pretend to attend class, failed to seek help…all while clearly understanding that things were bad and getting worse. Avoidance is a common behavior with ADHD adults.
Anyway, my point is not to contradict Asleep’s excellent points – just to say that my biggest problem dealing with this had been (and continues to be) the trial-and-error nature of solving this “problem” and that all our anecdotes may not, in the end, create a clear path for you to choose from.
This statement seems, um, optimistic. A lot of colleges SAY they offer support for kids with poor executive function, but as far as I can tell, not many of them actually do offer support for kids with poor executive function.
@greenbutton – I had written my note earlier in the morning, and forgotten to hit ‘post comment’. It was only after I posted it that I saw your first note. There’s a lot of great stuff in there.
I think that the most important point of yours is #2, to ‘find success’. Even for kids without ADHD it’s unfortunate that for most of them they’ve only been evaluated on the basis of academic work product, not real work product. My son was originally diagnosed as having ‘bipolar disease’, where the depressive component was actually him being totally discouraged at failing to measure up in school, both in terms of getting his work done and poor impulse control/excessive talking that made things tough for him socially. These kids get so discouraged and start expecting failure. Getting them into a setting where they can display some competence and get positive reinforcement is immensely helpful.
Your point is extremely well-taken that avoidance is part of the constellation of symptoms, which frequently manifests itself as procrastination to the point of total inaction and denial.
Although our various anecdotes may not apply to any specific kid with ADHD, they certainly might offer paths that help. That’s why it’s good to get a variety of responses. And as also been noted, we parents need to know that we’re not in this alone. My wife and I initially resisted starting our son on medication. We later realized it was part of a mourning process – mourning the totally healthy ‘normal’ son that we no longer had. . . When our son gets down on himself for falling short, we remind him that “it’s progress, not perfection” we’re going for.
While our son with ADHD hasn’t reached college yet, he is in the middle of a very successful gap year that has by far been the happiest of his (and my) life. He was the one who asked for a gap year because he was feeling stressed out by the pace and demands of high school and unready for college. We all (parents, therapist, GC) agreed that a gap year would give him some time to mature, to experience a world outside of school, and to made decisions about whether and when he was ready for college. But he also wasn’t ready to live away from home–i.e. to participate in some ambitious gap year program that involved travel and independence. So he applied for part time jobs (and in the process learned how to put together a resume, handle himself in interviews, make follow up calls, etc.) and eventually got one near home that he enjoys tremendously. He has also spent the year volunteering at a local Food Bank, doing some creative writing, preparing dinner for the family at least once a week, and gaining much more self-confidence than he ever felt in high school. He decided he was ready to apply to colleges, and applied to some relatively nearby (all in state; all small; all schools that were strong in his areas of interest and that he had a reasonable shot at getting in to). So now he is deciding between them and making return visits for accepted students and wrapping his mind around the reality of beginning college in the fall. Is he actually ready? I have no idea and am very worried about all of the executive functioning/organizational/resistant to seeking help issues others have already discussed. But I can say that he is in a much, much better state of mind than he ever was in high school, shows much greater self-confidence and maturity, and (much to our relief) has proved that he can get himself up in the morning and off to work and do what his supervisors ask of him very successfully. So for some kids with ADHD, a gap year can be a great choice. The next step, of course, is to see if any of the maturity gained this year translates into the academic and organizational demands of college….
Avoidance includes not taking medications, but being “sure” that just trying/working HARDER will solve everything. I find that the office for students with disabilities is caring and will meet one-on-one and provide supports to any student who is registered with them and comes into their office. They really go out of their way. It is the “coming into the office” part where he needs the help and they cannot provide the help. That is, after the ‘make a phone call and talk to someone.’ I think of it as asking a paraplegic to simply come up three stairs to the office and s/he will get help with a wheelchair: possible, but a real struggle to consistently make it happen. Office appointments play directly into a disability or weakness.
A ‘coach’ that he bonds with to teach and reinforce proper habits may be worth investigating. One who has institutional permission/access to the student’s room is best, since it is so easy to hide out behind the security provided by a Dormitory, with phones and computers all turned off.
Investigating medications and setting up supports with the office of students with disabilities MAY be enough for your child to thrive. If not, look (early on) for additional support from and assertive and proactive ‘coach’.
Bridgton Academy in Maine is an all male PG school that may still be accepting apps. PG years can be a wonderful transition from high school to college for those students who are not quite ready.
Doesn’t every college have an office for students with disabilities? My son attended UT-Austin and now goes to our small local university, and each school had excellent offices, with lots of resources and accommodations. I can’t say enough about the people that have helped him.
This is a really helpful discussion. My D has had a lot of success in college acceptances but this is helping me to think ahead about next steps, whether a gap year, which college will be most supportive, etc.
I only have our experience with Office of Disability to go on. At Big University, the ODS office requires documentation, including tests in a particular format, type, and from approved providers, submitted in person, before you can see a caseworker. That person is assigned to shephard paperwork; we met as the paperwork was in process but the accomodations offered were longer test time, in a private room. You got those accomodations only after approved paperwork, and a meeting, AND having each professor sign a form attesting to the accomodations. For each exam, another form was required to set up the testing room-- that form was to go to another office. I do know some ODS students have caseworkers that see them twice a month, as a coach would, but not for ADHD help.
I don’t fault Big U for making sure nobody is trying to get accomodations they don’t deserve. But ultimately, my student didn’t have the required documentation from ELEMENTARY school (when he was not diagnosed) to receive accomodations, and the process was so distressing that we abandoned it. So no, not all ODS offices are created equal. I will say they had abundant academic support in general, but of course, you have to seek the help.
An accredited online class from a real U is another nice place to test the water. They tend to be very structured, which is helpful, and parents/coaches can see what is going on and help keep things under control. Success breeds success. And yes, my wonderful, bright, gregarious, compassionate but totally unorganized student did, in fact, graduate from college, and works in his field.