First.
Breathe.
Second.
Be proud of yourself for being willing to look at what is going on and realize that it may be beyond you and your D is not going to just grow out of it on her own.
While hindsight may be 20/20, it’s not remotely productive in this case. And frankly, kids grow and change and what might have seemed normal or manageable, or a maturity issue at 12 or 14 can all of a sudden become a bit scary at 17.
There really are a number of ways you can tackle this. They may or may not get her ready for college for a fall 2019 start. But knowledge is power and the more you know, they more you dig in, the more steps forward you both will take.
I, personally, would not suggest you start with your pediatrician or your schools GC. If they saw an issue on their own, they’d have called it to your attention. Granted, much of it may have been hidden from them but based on personal experience you will have better, deeper and more holistic results if you leapfrog that step. You’ll come back to them, but with information.
I would suggest a full work up and testing by a psychiatrist. Asap. While you see executive functioning issues, it’s a layman’s diagnosis. That may be all there is to it, but there may be other things and the treatments vary quite a bit. I would start looking into this tomorrow, it can take a long time to get in, a long time on the phone figuring out who your insurance may cover, a long time till results and reports come back. By way of example, my S17 who had a diagnosis of ADHD has experienced a severe increase in his Executive Functioning issues this year. His workload, always heavy, also increased. I elevated the situation last October. The pediatrician just kept changing meds, therapists tried different ways to help him get organized and the HS couldn’t meet with us to discuss a possible 504 until Feb. I couldn’t get him in for testing until March, we got verbal results in April and are STILL waiting for the actual report. But he doesn’t have ADHD and now we can work on a better treatment plan now that we have a more accurate diagnosis.
And that’s with relatively awesome providers, great pediatrician, a therapist we adore and a supportive school and GC. It is just SLOW. HS’s are not set up to help the bright kid with executive functioning issues, they just see smart but lazy (if they even see it). My kid flew under the radar and I was a terrible executive secretary!
Depending on the diagnosis I would really suggest getting a 504 in place if you can. You may not be able to regardless of the diagnosis depending on your schools policy as her disability isn’t effecting her academics from the schools side of things. While you don’t want to let your child fail…to some degree it is needed. It lets your child realize what they aren’t managing on their own in a much more impactful way (which lets them admit they need help) and it lets the school see the real issues. Having a plan in HS seems to make getting one in college easier but I’ve not done it yet so that’s just a hypothesis. A 504 can be fairly minimal, in our case it’s just preferential seating so he interacts with others and allowing him to to the calc homework n reverse order to make it more interesting. More importantly though it documents that he has some issues that teachers need to be aware of even if the accommodations themselves seem silly.
You do need to step back and away, but it can’t be cold turkey. You can start educational coaching for executive function issues now. You can find centers that specialize in it, it will often be at places that also offer coaching linked autistm/apsergers/adhd. Some centers that specialize only in ADHD. This will generally not be covered by insurance. Once you have test results and can show a medical need (if test results show it), it is a qualified HSA/FSA expense. However. Educational coaching really only works if there is something the student is working on, it’s not a summer camp. It’s a 1-3 times a week session where they take over the coaching and you give up your secretary role. As others have suggested, just start googling. It is not always easily found. So, now (based on timing with school) may or may not work. What are her summer plans? Some of these centers have parent support groups which can help too (haven’t been but have heard).
We plan to start this with S17 in August. He will have plenty of summer homework with his AP classes for senior year and he will have college apps. He will also be juggling an internship though I don’t expect that to be a ton of hours.
We feel it’s a soft rollout before classes start. We will be going to a place recommended by the psychiatrist that did the testing. You could also consider therapy, we have found it very beneficial and have seen progress in his Executive Functioning with just that (and finding the right one). We will continue with therapy as well.
As for college, it’s impossible to say as you don’t really know her issues, you just suspect. Different issues will have different treatments and time frames. Distractibility can be ADHD. Medication can make an amazing difference if that is what it is, as can maturity and the right kind of training support. But if the staring at a shiny object is because they are so overwhelmed they can’t parse the data to know where to start and the shiny object is really avoidance, well that’s a different issue entirely. It took my S a year, and therapy to tell me he couldn’t do homework at home because being home was distracting (home should be home and not work in his mind). It could be more than one thing.
There are colleges that offer certain kinds of accommodation support services that require a diagnosis, and paperwork. There are colleges that have paid support programs that do not require an official diagnosis (likely because you are paying extra). The paid programs we are looking at provide the kind of coaching/check in’s that traditional accommodations will not provide. As with your D my S does not need extra time or assistive devices but he does need someone to help him keep on track and help facilitate him taking that over on his own. These programs specialize in just that. I am hoping the internship, the summer coaching, and then coaching and therapy through all of senior year, will have him in an improved pace as we look at whether we allow him to go away…or not.
For our college search we are doing a mix of schools that offer paid support and are strong in my S’s area of interest, schools where he could either live at home and commute or on campus but continue with his current therapist and the educational coach (assuming it’s helpful) and ones that have small classes and appear more nurturing with support services…albeit at a lower level. CC and a gap year are also real options. Right now it’s an open book without a page written. So much can change, even in the span of a month. I have days I am sure he will not be ready and days I think…you know, he might pull this off.
