Young Adult Diagnosed With ADHD

[I_I_I]

Good evening, I am new here. I am asking for support from those who have been diagnosed with ADHD or know a young adult diagnosed with ADHD. My son was diagnosed with ADHD at 12, he recently graduated from online high school and is now struggling with community college curriculum. I would appreciate learning the best way to help him to cope with a new environment. The struggle is with focusing and comprehending the detailed information that is part of curriculum. Is it even possible for a young adult to get a college degree and succeed? What is the way to do so? What is a daily routine? What is the most beneficial way to support him at home? So many questions and so few answers… I will appreciate any comments, feedback, and support. Thank you in advance.

[BLC89]

Hello l_l_l,Yes it's possible to get a degree and succeed with ADHD.

The college should have student services where you can arrange accommodations. There are things like note takers, recording lectures to review later, and study support or recommended tutors.

Keep in mind that your kid's executive function is behind their age as much as 30%. So a 19 year old has the organization, planning, prioritization, and time management skills of a 13 year old.

Those skills are still developing but the expectations are ever increasing which often creates overwhelm as well as shut down.

Find an ADHD informed coach or therapist who can help create a plan for how to tackle the 19 year old workload with 13 year old skills.

It is possible with support.

Hang in there, learn as much as you can about ADHD and your child's ADHD in particular so you can be a valued team member helping them get where they want to go.

BLC89

[I_I_I in reply to BLC89]

Good afternoon, BLC89,

Thank you very much for your reply and comments. I can not express how much I value any feedback related to this issue. I knew about the gap existence, but I did not realize that there is such a huge gap. Does this gap come to close overtime, or it stays the same? You mentioned ADHD and my child’s ADHD. Are there different ones? How to learn about the differences and identify a particular ADHD that my son has? My son is going through a psychological evaluation right now. Is this the right path and way to determine a specific type of ADHD? If not, what would you recommend identifying this and how? What is ADHD informed coach and ADHD therapist? What are their roles and differences between their roles? What is the preference – coach or therapist? Where to start looking for those and how? Did someone find a coach or therapist and what was your experience of working with them? Was there any help coming from them what specific help was the most beneficial? If someone has any experience working with coaches and therapists, is it possible to share your personal experience? I would greatly appreciate any information. In my understanding, finding those is the process.

Can someone share any tips as to overall working memorization technics and those for different subjects? Can someone share any technics/tips for how to stay focused for an extended period of time? It would help my son tremendously.

The college provided accommodations, however, even with those, there is a huge struggle. My concern is that with an increase of expectations from society and school load, the process of getting education may be extended for uncertain period of time and there is still no guarantee that it can be accomplished.

Thank you in advance for your comments, I am very grateful for any support from this team/community.

[BLC89 in reply to I_I_I]

OK, let's see....Age exec function gap, yes I think it does narrow as we age but probably mostly due to experience. There isn't as big of a difference between a 35 yr old and 50 yr old compared to the difference between a 20 yr old and a 14 yr old.

When I mentioned your child's flavor of ADHD it is the idea that there are common characteristics for people with ADHD but the combination varies depending on the person. Learn the strengths you son has and lean into those. For the challenge areas get support.

An evaluation will be informative and help identify strengths and challenges.

An informed coach or therapist is someone who knows ADHD. If the person you are working with is not familiar with ADHD then most tools or techniques they recommend won't work very well.

The way I describe the difference between therapy and coaching is that therapy looks back to find root causes and untangle emotional baggage. Coaches, more often, take what you have now and go forward. Of course there is overlap between the two, often if you don't address the root cause it is difficult to move forward, this is broadly speaking.

I have worked with both and they do different things so it depends on the goal.

In this instance if you are looking for study techniques that work well for ADHD a coach may be a better fit, or an ADHD specific tutor.

CHADD.org and ADDitudemag.com both have directories of ADHD coaches, and therapists I think.

Psychologytoday.com has therapists and a few coaches and you can search for ADHD specific expertise.

For studying a topic that isn't super engaging, doing short sessions with breaks seem to work well. And moving or fidgeting while you read/study can help too.

If you want longer focus sessions a quick burst of exercise can help - brisk short walk, jumping Jack's, etc. Get your heart rate up for a bit - 5 min, even 2 min can help - and then study. Or you can try medications.

Lastly, your son doesn't have to take a full load every term. He doesn't have to graduate in 4 years. It's OK to take it slow, especially in the beginning when you are just ticking off the basics English 101, Math 101, etc. One you get into the 200, 300 & 400 level classes your son will be in classes he is excited about and the effort to study is hugely reduced because it's engaging.

Your kids is wired differently, they will "do" college differently and that's OK.

Let me know what I missed and I'll fill in the blanks.

BLC89

[Husbandlover]

I have a 16 year old recently diagnosed with ADHD. I pay close attention to her strengths and try to play off of them for school work. For example, studying in the evenings is very hard for her, so we make sure she has a good start to her morning to study.

I'm already looking towards her future after high school and coming to the conclusion that going to college will look different for her than others. Maybe she starts at community College with just a course or two that appeal to her then hopefully working her way up to more.

Her maturity lags behind and it will take her longer to mature as an adult. We're trying to keep pace with that and understand that the heavy demands of adulthood may need to be softened a bit for her in the first few years. She may stay home longer with us. She may only work part time or she may only do a couple college classes at a time. The goal for us is to ease her into adulthood a bit slower than what we as a society expect from young adults.

Your son is not alone out there!

Ps...I've had ADHD my entire life. I'm now in Grad school and loving it. I think recognition and acceptance of the fact that I will have to work harder at school than most was key to me succeeding. I stopped saying why me and said ok, this is how it is. This acceptance takes time, but it really is achievable.

Best wishes.

[Tigger4me]

I_I_I,

I am 73 with mostly inattentive adhd. I fairly breezed through high school, but when I got to college I was devastated by not being able to study like everyone else. Everyone I hung out with would spend 3-4 hours a night in the library studying, writing papers etc. I couldn't stay in the library more than 15 minutes even on good days. Also when I was in college there was no information at all available to help me understand about adhd and what was wrong with me. But I figured out ways to get by, for example studying in a room with several other people with a TV on in the background. I'm sure we all had adhd. But I got through, went on to get advanced degrees and ended up teaching college classes for several decades.

Academic success is definitely possible, but it will probably be an even bigger struggle with adhd than for those without adhd.

Do you and your son live in the US? If so, BLC89's post is very important and helpful. I feel that using and following good advice by knowledgeable professionals trained in helping young adults with adhd can be critically important. Using accommodations and other services provided by many colleges and higher education institutions can also be massively useful.

Good luck to you both.