College Prep and ADHD:

How to Help Students Plan Ahead

 

 

Students with ADHD often have difficulties planning and seeing ahead to the future. For teens who want to go to college, this can cause an added layer of stress for both students and parents.

I recently met up with my friend, Ari Tuckman, Psy.D., who is an author and psychologist specializing in diagnosing and treating people with ADHD. In this interview, we talk about college and ADHD.

You can watch our brief interview (or read it below) to understand the reasons why it’s so challenging for students with ADHD to think ahead for college and prepare their applications, even if they really want to go.

 

Can you explain how students with ADHD often have a shorter time horizon, and why planning ahead for the future, especially for college, can be so difficult?

This is a really common thing. As someone who specializes in ADHD, this question comes up a lot in my practice. Many parents ask, “How do you prepare your kids to be ready for college? Not just to get in, but to actually do well there?”

A big part of this is this thing called the time horizon. Folks with ADHD, compared to other people of the same age, tend to have what’s called a shorter time horizon. This means they’re not thinking quite as far out into the future.

So, if it’s a Tuesday, they’re thinking about homework that is due on Wednesday or Thursday. But they’re not thinking about that big assignment that’s due in a week or in a month. And when it comes to getting into college, this is a process that spans many months or years.

Beginning to research schools, visiting schools, interviewing, asking teachers for recommendations, studying for the SATs, signing up for SATs, completing the application… this takes at least six months, if not 12–18 months. If you’re a high school junior or senior with ADHD, you’re not thinking 18 months out. You’re just trying to manage what’s coming up a whole lot closer.

We often see that with students, too. It’s so frustrating to parents because, on one hand, those kids say, “I really want to go to college.” But on the other hand, they don’t have that sense of urgency to do the work and to figure out, “What do I have to do to apply to the school? How many essays do they want? What are the deadlines?”
Sometimes parents perceive this as either: You’re not ready for college, or you really don’t want to go. That’s not always the truth. Oftentimes, students need somebody to help them along that journey.

 

How can somebody else help when, these kids really do want to go off to college, but it’s just hard for them?

I say that ADHD is a disorder of converting intentions into actions, right? So that high school senior, who wants to go— he is committed. It is the thing he wants, but to pull off all those moving parts, it’s just too hard for him to get it done. Or it feels too overwhelming. That is when a student does indeed need someone who can break it down, set some deadlines, hold him accountable, and kind of walk him through the process.

But there are some kids with ADHD (and many without) who are actually not so sure that they even want to go to college. So, it’s important for parents to make sure that actually want to go. Make sure that it’s your child’s goal and not just yours. Assuming that it is your child’s goal to attend college, then it could indeed be helpful to have someone who can walk them through the lengthy process.

 

Do you think that kids in high school should live by natural consequences, or do you think parents should be involved on a daily basis in managing it with shorter-term consequences?

In general, kids with ADHD need more oversight given their age. The classic mistake that parents of kids with ADHD make is they’ll say, “Well, you know, he’s 15, I shouldn’t have to _____.” And maybe for some 15-year-olds, that is true. But the question I ask parents to ask themselves is, “Is that true for this kid in front of me at this moment in time?” If the answer is, “Yeah, not really,” then I don’t care what their age is. Ideally, we should parent based on our kids’ abilities, not on their age.

 

I hear a lot of parents say, “They should be able to do this by now.” Anything else that parents of students with ADHD should think about if their child wants to attend college?

I think it’s about the long game. Parenting is about gradually shifting to your kids the kind of responsibility and the freedom to be able to make their own choices. And to know that they’re ready to go forth into the world. One of my big ideas when it comes to high schoolers with ADHD, but frankly any high schooler, is there is this point somewhere along the way between freshman year and graduation, where it becomes less and less of the parent’s job to ensure that their kid is ready for college. And it becomes more and more the kid’s job to show the parents that they are ready. And if they’re not showing you, by their actions (not their words, their actions), that they’re able to manage the demands, manage the college application process (obviously with some help), then maybe they’re not ready to go to college… at least not next Fall.

And that’s not a punishment, it’s more that, “You don’t seem quite ready yet. I don’t want this to be a bad experience and a wasted investment of time and money.”

And the thing of it is, just to be really kind of blunt, your student is better off watching Netflix in your basement 15 hours a day for four months than going off to college and failing out because you can get into another college way easier if you watch Netflix for four months, then if you failed out at your first college, right? Let’s not be overly optimistic, and also let’s not wait until the second half of senior year before we start having these conversations. Beginning to prepare them and help them see, ‘Look man, you’ve got to show me. Show me you can do it. I want you to go and have an awesome experience. Show me that you’re ready to do that too.’ #

Ann K. Dolin, M.Ed., is the founder and president of Educational Connections, Inc. and author of Homework Made Simple. For more info, visit ectutoring.com