As schools open their doors for students, it’s time once more to begin thinking about the year ahead. For many kids, and especially those with ADHD, summer is a huge relief from academic and social pressures. Most of them don’t relish the return to classes and would rather think about anything else. How can you set your child up for success? 
Most parents of kids with and without ADHD harbor a number of goals for their children related to school: learn and retain information, obtain good grades, behave appropriately, etc. These are all important facets of a thorough education. But children and teens with ADHD need something more. Struggling academically and/or socially, they benefit from goals that address their strengths while shoring up their challenges. If your son doesn’t like math but loves creative writing, how can his interest be incorporated into learning algebra? If your daughter adores art and doing things with her hands, how can she do science or history projects that capitalize on her skills? Approaching this year with an eye towards including such possibilities will improve your child’s engagement and performance. Setting a positive course for this year depends on collaborating with your son or daughter to establish clear goals and useful strategies. Kids with ADHD spend a lot of time listening to what they could do differently from caring adults, friends, coaches, etc. They often believe that feedback is a euphemism for criticism. Well-intentioned suggestions may not fit with how their ADHD brains think and make it tough to follow through. If kids with ADHD aren’t able to express what makes sense to them and have it become part of a problem-solving process, any sound advice will likely fall flat. I’m not saying that a young person should dictate what’s going to happen. Rather, I’m advocating that you include some of their opinions in whatever program you create to ensure their buy-in. When they feel like their ideas matter, these kids are far more likely to cooperate. 
Start this school year with a calm, honest family conversation. This chat sets the tone for how you will work together to make it a success. Ask yourself and your son or daughter these questions:
- What do you hope for your son or daughter this year?
- What went well last year and why?
- Can you identify any behaviors or decisions that made a positive difference?
- What were some of the challenges? What improved them?
- What type of teacher feedback did you receive that would be useful this year?
- What, if any, concerns do you have about this year?
Write down everyone’s answers and look for overlaps. Together, decide on a goal that would address your mutual concerns. Pick one that would be the easiest to start with (an early success builds confidence) and begin to brainstorm a plan for working on it. Write down these ideas too and post your new plan in the kitchen. This way everybody can refer back to it. Establish a weekly time to check in on the progress toward your goal. When it’s going well, consider adding a new goal but keep up your encouragement and support for the first one. Good luck and here’s to great beginnings! 
It’s 5:30 p.m. You have arrived home from work with a pizza for dinner to find a pile of dishes in the sink, the television blaring and your kids’ stuff strewn on the kitchen counter. To make matters worse, you received a phone call earlier in the day from your son’s fifth grade teacher letting you know that he hasn’t been doing or turning in his homework and will miss recess for the rest of the week to catch up. You are both tired of the homework battles. Yet you, as the adult, have to muster up the energy to talk about the dreaded topic of homework and, even worse, to supervise it. How can you manage this situation effectively and successfully? First, it is important for you to take a deep breath and ask yourself what matters most right now. That answer should involve connecting positively with your child. Your child or teen spends most of her day struggling to do the work she is assigned in class and to focus while she is in school. She is trying to keep it all together. When school is over, she needs a break from studying–whether it is time playing outside or doing sports, time in an after-school program with activities she likes, time doing she loves like playing music or time just being with friends. Her brain needs to do something different. Your job is to support this break in whatever way your can. The key to successfully beating back the homework monster is to make sure that she knows this break is time-limited AND that homework lies on the other side of it. 
Secondly, it is critical that you create an incentive-based structure for doing homework with your child or teen. Ask him how long he thinks he can work without getting distracted. For kids with ADHD under 10, this period can vary from 10-20 minutes. For kids between 10-14, it’s usually 15-30 minutes and for teens between 14-18, it’s likely 30-50 minutes. Then, set up a plan that you BOTH agree on. This plan includes establishing work periods for these agreed upon amounts of time which are then broken up by TIMED breaks of no longer than 10 minutes. Breaks can include snacks, texting, Facebook, a phone call, walking around the house or going to the bathroom. The plan should also address the length of total studying time. At the end of the desired study period, your child has earned a reward which you must agree on. For one family, that reward could be one show on television; for another, it could be a specific amount of computer time; for a third, it could be reading a story together on the sofa. Whatever works for your family and is interesting for your child or teen is a good choice. REMEMBER, kids with ADHD get bored with routines so you will likely have to update or change this reward regularly. 
Initially, you may have to work alongside your child or teen to make sure that work is actually occurring during this period and to answer any academic questions that could arise. You can call this ‘family work time’ and use the opportunity to catch up on your own stuff (balancing the checkbook, answering emails, reading an article of interest). Often, it helps to go over the various homework assignments before starting and then make sure they are completed at the end. If your child is stuck and wants your assistance, then please give it. Otherwise, try, try and try some more to keep your comments about how he could do things different (re: better) to yourself. Reviewing the work itself is tricky: sometimes it makes your child feel bad about what’s been done instead of good about completing it because the focus becomes the errors in the work. I advise you to let the teacher correct the work for mistakes and for you to provide a supportive, consistent environment to do the homework. Lastly, celebrate when you have a successful homework period by pointing out what you noticed that went well. For instance, “I liked how you stopped doing your math at break time but then went right back to it” or “I see how hard you are working on that English paper and I am proud of you.” These comments go a long way towards building self-confidence and emphasizing the positive efforts your son or daughter is making!
Once the excitement of returning to school wears off, it’s time to assess how well the transition to school has actually been going. By now, the patterns of waking up early, doing homework and managing activities has settled in–for better or for worse–and the carefree days of summer may seem long past. Your daughter may be happily embracing the new experiences of school or she may be slugging through them. Your son may be doing his homework diligently or spending more time texting than actually studying. Whatever the situation, taking some time to evaluate this first month is a worthwhile effort towards creating a year of effective and engaged learning. It can also help you lower any stress that may be starting to creep into your family life. First, it is critical to reflect privately on how this month has unfolded: what has worked and what has not. I think it is always helpful to jot down some notes about your thoughts not only to remember them but also because writing often clarifies our thinking. Then, get input from your child’s teachers or guidance counselor via email or phone calls, also taking some notes. If you have not made contact with these people before, introduce yourself and the conversation as a chance to check in. If you have spoken with them already, getting an update is still useful. Make sure to inquire if any 766 (IEP) or 504 accommodations are being followed and how they are implemented. (If they aren’t, then arrange a meeting ASAP!) Next, arrange a time to chat with you child to get his/her perspective. Discuss successes and challenges–academic, social, athletic. Look for specifics. This chat is not about criticism, blame or evaluation: it’s based on your curiosity about how things are going for them. Review your mutual goals for this year and whether this month has been on track towards obtaining them. Share some of the positive information you have received from the school. Help your child understand the ways that she has already adjusted to the new year. 
Talk about the family practices related to school. How are the mornings and evenings going? Do you need to post a schedule or a list of reminders? Is there an appropriate study space for your son? Is your daughter’s notebook organized in a way that makes sense for her? Can you monitor technology and social media use (overuse)? Together, pick one area of improvement based on your thoughts, teacher/guidance counselor feedback and your child’s own impressions. Make a simple, straightforward plan for addressing this issue, positively and concretely. Try it for one month and check in weekly about how it’s going. Establish a regular, weekly meeting of 5-10 minutes (maximum) so there is no chance of your child feeling nagged. Follow up with the school too as the month unfolds. At the end of the month, decide together if there has been sufficient progress on this issue or if it would still benefit from more attention. If you both agree that things are moving along well, you can mutually pick another one or just continue what is already working. Remember to stay as positive as you can, noticing your child’s efforts as well as the outcomes!
2) Then look at what successes your child or teen had last year that you would like to see repeated and she would like to see repeated. If you can’t come up with any at first, take some time to think of a few examples. No success is too small to mention. 3) Together, make a list of 3 goals for this year that are achievable and realistic. Keep them simple and concrete. For instance, if your son struggles with math and got a ‘C’ last year, getting an ‘A’ in math may not be a realistic goal for this year but getting a ‘B’ might be. Prioritize these ideals and agree to focus only on Number One for a month. Set a date for a follow-up conversation to check on his progress before moving on to Numbers Two and Three. 
4) Identify worries about the school year with your son or daughter. Your goal is to empower him or her towards feeling a sense of control over any concerns instead of being controlled by them. Strategize some manageable solutions and write them down on an electronic device or on a piece of paper (that you post so it doesn’t get lost) for future reference. 5) Give your child or teen time to adjust to the school routine. It takes ADHD kids longer to re-adjust their internal body clocks and their minds to a new schedule. Good luck and welcome back to school!
One of the most common problems for many kids with ADHD is feeling overwhelmed by a task. Whether it is 
Whether it’s writing a paper or cleaning up your desk, some projects are just hard to get to and even harder to finish. You simply consider organizing the mound of papers and junk on your kitchen table and a wave of fatigue sweeps over you, causing you to run suddenly for the couch in front of the television or your comfortable bed. Or, you mention the dreaded task like writing that college essay and your daughter suddenly has field hockey practice and hastily leaves the house. Starting a task that seems unpleasant or problematic, creating steps to move it along, and then completing it can be challenging for EVERYONE, especially people with ADHD. The project, the chore, and the paper all seem insurmountable because they appear overwhelming. The key to to success is breaking them into manageable parts. When you, your child or student create a customized plan that creates these , then you are already on the road to completion. Although there are many how-to forms for homework, chores and long-term projects, many of them are complicated and labor intensive. The goal of using any form is to provide structure for the planning, prioritizing and sequencing aspects of executive functioning skills that get you from the beginning to the end of a task. Here’s how you can create your own forms that suit you (and your child’s) specific management skills which will take some effort in the beginning but will definitely yield results. You will need a pen and a piece of paper. 
Although many kids and adults with ADHD often reject the structure and practice of this process, I have found that my clients ultimately embrace such programs and find them extremely helpful. These “roadmaps” reduce anxiety, clarify goals and build confidence as activities are completed. So, swallow any resistance and try one today!