My son's psychiatrist suggested that we get him a coach. He's 16 years old and have 40+ missing assignments, always forgetful, doesn't communicate, etc.
I got him "Coachbit" a while back. It's a 15 min check-in online via text five days a day. It doesn't really work because he sometimes forgets it. Folks there don't seem that knowledgeable in ADHD and back then I didn't know my son has severe ADHD.
Does anyone have suggestions for an affordable coach that could work for teenagers? And what frequency works well? We are paying ourselves as our insurance won't cover. Thank you and I'm so thankful for this community!!
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lovetotravel1108
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I’m a Certified ADHD Executive Function Coach and work mostly with elementary to college level students. All sessions are online, typically 1 hour a week with “check-ins” between sessions.
As others will attest to, I’m incredibly passionate about coaching and using creative & strategic approaches to help support the needs of each individual.
I’m happy to share information about my services & provide references.
Thanks for your post. Raising a child with ADHD is such a roller coaster. I suggest that you get a 504 educational plan. Asap.
If he has one, then it's time to call a meeting asap. When students like ours get behind, people assume they are lazy and don't want to do the work.
There are many reasons for assignment avoidance.
I suggest you ask the school for a study skills class instead of an elective class. This means everyday he goes to a class that works on things like organization, test taking, assignment completion.
In addition, I recommend you find the carrot that helps get him through school. Anything that he has a strong likein for. For example, our son loved Tae Kwan Do and moved onto sports.
Our husband and I made an agreement, no matter how bad life/school got we never took this joy away from our son. This activity gave him something to love, since he hated school.
It is my opinion that school is very hard for our kids and they need support. Sometimes overwhelming!
What was also vital for us is we paid online tutors to work with him weekly.
They review assignments, go over class concepts this is driven by our son since he is a senior now.
But when he was younger I send each tutor his syllabus so they knew week by week what he was doing.
Our sons carrot is sports and our son knows without grades that are above a C he would not play and certainly would not play beyond High school.
Please know we are all here for you and can support guide and answer any questions for you.
Thank you! You're such a God-send! My son loves robotics, and it's because of that his grades had been falling. I thought of getting rid of that, but I'd really hate to. Really need to find someone to work w/ him so he learns the executing functional skills better.
Best of luck on finding that. There are some skills our kids learn while growing up and there are some skills they learn when they are an adults. For us...surviving day-by-day has been our focus. When our son becomes an adult he can learn additional skills if he wants.
Rasing our son has been the hardest job I have ever had.
If when he has a house, partner, he can choose whatever life he wants. We hope that is an amazing one and we have lay that foundation.
I don’t know how old your child is, but I was hoping my daughter would learn valuable skills at college. It was an absolute disaster. She is now near 22, still living at home, and still working on her skills little by little. I don’t know if she will ever be able to live independently or have a family of her own, but I just keep going and keep trying to support her, in the hopes that one day it will get better. One of the hardest things I ever had to do was to give up my “normal” hopes and dreams for her future, and just live with her in the present, trying to nudge her along with the help of therapy, psychiatry, meds and my own prompting. But she does have such a kind heart and overall she’s a really good person - no more tantrums (though still childish behavior at times), no alcohol or drugs, no disreputable friends, no trouble with the law. Just a “failure to launch,” which sometimes feels like a life sentence for me, and also achingly sad. I just keep loving her and doing what I can.
Our son is 17 years old so you guys are one step ahead of us. He is way more together senior year both with grades and everything else. But of course not like other with peers and relationships. Not sure how college and life will go but since he is going to college to play sports he will have coaches and teammates to guide and support him.
He also has high aspirations for after college and knowd he has to keep it together to get there.
I can just say our journey is different than someone who does not have ADHD.
I just went to a retreat called "Breathe" for moms of kids with mental illnesses. One of the things I learned is to love my son "unconditionally" which is what you're doing. It'd be hard but that's the best thing these kids need. Keep it up!
Coaching can move the burden of being the manager and director, instead of mom or dad, from your relationship with your son. I don’t see why not asking for a person at school, who might serve as a springboard towards formal coaching privately. My son had terrible anxiety in school. I worked with his HS to request a teacher who would be able to give home 10 minutes a day, to go over what he was working on. The teacher or other staff member had to be someone he liked and who he could be comfortable with, knowing all those things that he couldn’t do well yet. This made a difference in his perception of asking for help. It should be his favorite not an assigned person. The ten minutes made it easier for him to get past his social anxiety, to help him learn to help himself. Kids who struggle with ADHD, also struggle with not exactly understanding exactly what it is that is giving them trouble. This can make a kid freeze up and dig heels in when it comes to work if any kind.
When I tried to help my daughter manage her executive function problems it only led to heated arguments. So I hired an executive function coach when she was in 11 th grade. The coach got her on the right track and she was accepted into the college of her choice.
My daughter’s executive function coach was wonderful. Her name is Dr. Anna Bean.
drannabean@gmail.com
I also wrote an article about our journey and attached a link if you would like to read it Good luck!!
hi there. I feel your pain so much. I also have a 16yo boy ( adhd-I). He was only diagnosed about a year ago and it has been a struggle. He also had piles of missing assignments and some of his course grades were in the 30s.
We did 2 things. Because the school system is slow here in NY we started the process to get him a 504 plan AND we started working with an executive coach.
I don’t know if she takes clients outside of NY or not
But she was able to teach him skills to manage AND took some of the burden off of me. I wasn’t arguing with him, nagging and begging every night trying to get assignments done. It brought the stress level in our home down. So really- whichever executive coach you use- please try to find one. It is worth it!
Our executive coach also assisted us with the 504 process. She helped us sort out which accommodations to ask for and was present at the 504 committee meeting I appreciate her so much.
The very biggest help that my child got from the 504 was called “structured study hall”, I’ve also heard it called “study lab” and other schools may have other names for it. This is a study hall where the teacher is reviewing missing/due assignments with the student and helping them stay on track. Also when he misses school for appointments, that teacher helps facilitate make-up of missing work, scheduling test retakes, contacting other teachers and so on. It’s usually a smaller group of kids. There are fewer than 10 in my sons. Huge improvement.
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