Helpful accomodations for a stubborn, tense 10th grader with ADD?

<p>Looking for some advice ... D15 has long had a bit of ADD and anxiety. No hyperactivity component. ADHD medicine has been tried, but all it did was make her hyper. She does take Prozac, which helps a little. Basically, it smooths out some of the depressive funks she can get in. She's still depressed, but not quite as badly.</p>

<p>In many ways, she has improved over the years. Last year I finally saw evidence of effort and improved organizational skills. She was able to juggle her high school (9th grade) classes, and not forget/miss 98% of her homework/assignments. A big difference from 6th grade, and I'm sure some of it is just plain maturity and experience.</p>

<p>But this past weekend really highlighted where she has a long way to go. She had a three-day weekend and a lot of homework, in every subject. Mostly in biology and geometry, her worst subjects.</p>

<p>Her biology teacher hasn't given them a book. She got 5 handouts to fill out, and notes that covered just part of one of them. So she had to google the rest. She did some of it, but kept putting it off because she was so frustrated. Some of it I could see her having a hard time finding, but the rest was possible, although time-consuming and frustrating. She was off of school yesterday. She decided to wait until I got home so I could help her find the biology answers. That wouldn't have been so bad except she also didn't bother doing history, her best subject. She didn't calculate that biology was going to be a huge consumer of time. I was trying to help her find answers, and she just had a total breakdown. She was freaked out that she didn't have time for biology, wouldn't get to history, etc. She didn't even write down all the answers found for biology and went to bed crying, not getting to her History work at all. And of course, it shouldn't have gotten down to the last minute like that anyway.</p>

<p>She is very, very, very stubborn. She'll never admit she didn't use her time wisely over the weekend. She doesn't want me to nag her - and believe me, I really don't nag that much. This year, I've given up on any "nagging" or reminding at all. She says she'll do it herself and she's at an age where my help isn't really going to be help unless she wants it. So I kept my mouth shut this weekend even though I could see she was wasting time and procrastinating. </p>

<p>What I'm asking, in my long-winded way, are two things:</p>

<p>1) How I can tell the difference between someone who is obstinant and lazy vs. someone who is having trouble understanding the material, trouble concentrating long enough to find answers that aren't readily available, and also maybe trouble with reading comprehension/being able to skim material to find key points ... and therefore gets frustrated and gives up? </p>

<p>2)How can I or the school help her at this point? She has a 504, but it was something used more in earlier years. She resisted it because she didn't want to be "different" in any way. And some of the accomodations on it are no longer needed or are aimed toward a younger child or would be resented - preferential seating away from distractors, assistance with organization of materials (both not needed anymore) tapping the desk to get her attention (yeah, I can just imagine how that would go over). She went to a private school for middle school, but is now back at the public high school So now her school is asking whether the 504 should be used or altered or ended. Do you have any suggestions as to what accomodations might be helpful?</p>

<p>I will start by saying this: I am ADD. Because I am over 50, I learned to cope with this long ago, but had many hitches in my giddy-up. Anyway… the 7-11 grades are very hard for students and their parents, because the kids are not compliant (“easy”) learners (mine were not exactly compliant… I guess, chip off the old block). While a lot of work, I essentially “taught” them how to schedule/manage time… on week nights, we determined what needed to be done and literally made a schedule (on the quarter hour) of how it would be done. On weekends, same thing, except a little broader. For longer term projects, we would map out objectives (i.e. for a term paper: research done this weekend, outline done by such and such time, so many note cards done per night, etc.)… I know this must sound over the top to some, but I know how difficult it is to deal with it, from both a personal perspective and that of a parent.</p>