<p>OP here. Thank you so much for all your thoughtful and kind responses. It’s very helpful to know that others have similar challenges. Sometimes I feel I must be crazy because I can not understand how this child’s brain works.</p>
<p>DD spoke to the professor yesterday and he was understanding and helpful and will let her withdraw is she does poorly on the second test. (Which is actually this afternoon, not yesterday.) She also went to the tutor and feels that she understands the test material pretty well. I sent her a reassuring text this morning and we will just wait and see what happens.</p>
<p>She has a generous academic scholarship so if she withdraws we will have to pay back the scholarship which will be expensive but not a hardship. DD has a hefty bank account from graduation gifts and a well paying summer job so we will probably make her pay for all or some of the class. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your kind understanding and advice.</p>
<p>in addition to the help he gets from his college, our son skypes with his “coach” from home twice a week – we pay for it, but any appointments with her he doesn’t keep, he has to pay for. He hasn’t missed one yet. Can’t say he’s kept up with everything else, but it is a work in progress, and we and he are trying to use the backsliding as an opportunity to learn what went wrong, and to focus on the positives as a way to keep moving forward productively. </p>
<p>For anyone with ADD/ ADHD and / or executive function deficiencies, it takes a great amount of self-awareness and discipline to maintain the techniques necessary for achievement. This is a lifelong task. While the frontal lobe is still maturing for these kids, these are issues that are likely to remain for life. Looking at it as developing good habits, and not just getting good grades, is likely to be more productive for the student in the short and long term.</p>
<p>While these deficiencies don’t “cause” lying, being dishonest about what they’re doing is pretty common, and not because they’re dishonest by nature, but because it is so psychologically uncomfortable.</p>
<p>I agree 100% with poster who said that schools don’t get it. What particularly irks me is that learning issues are often present with “gifted” intellectual ability – it’s called “twice exceptional.” In our school system, they identified the gifted kids and put them in programs to give them added intellectual stimulation, but never ever addressed the learning issues aspect and really set up these kids for even more failure, because they felt they were “supposed to be smart” yet weren’t getting the work done, and no one was helping them understand why. So, of course, they would lie, feel bad about themselves and avoid things.</p>
<p>SDonCC - You hate the nail on the head about the lying. Yes, telling us your grades are fine when you are failing IS lying but her lying was usually so transparent that it would have been amusing if it wasn’t so frustrating. Kind of like the toddler with chocolate all over her face who insists that she hasn’t snitched candy.</p>
<p>My daughter is completely mortified when she does poorly because she is supposed to be one of the smart kids. And I’ll admit before we found out about the ADHD we probably created a situation where she would avoid telling us about her grades so she wouldn’t be harangued. She wondered why the “smart kid” struggled and so did we.</p>