K.H.
I am in the same position now with my nearly 16 year old. He has anxiety and depression rather than ADHD but the effect is the same. This is a long note but feel free to share it with your son.
With his older brother who has ADHD and wanted an active social life, I emailed the teachers on Thursday nights to check if all assignments had been turned in. He didn't have a 504 or IEP but they were fine with letting me know. One or two were annoyed because they sent out regular progress reports to all parents and so I dropped them from the email group. This weekly check let my son be in charge of whether he got the work done and had a social life. I also paid for tutoring in the classes where it seemed like more than just not doing the work was a problem. He needed help with math and physics. I asked the tutoring center to go over his planner with him and check the backpack too. I've found the C2 tutoring center to be an amazing place with really great staff. I wish school was just like C2.
My son didn't get into the colleges that his friends went to and it was a huge wake up call. Feel free to let your son know that. I was proud of him and shocked actually because he called up the school he really wanted to go to and asked them to reconsider. They pulled his file and told him that he had a note on his file saying that they should watch the fall grades, that his course selection was great although he had a lower grade point average than other students in the pool,. He got a D in physics after failing the first quarter and then going to tutoring to pull up the grade. So they rejected him. They told him to work hard in college and apply as a transfer student. He just got accepted at his dream college after taking full responsibility for getting up, going to class, and studying. He hasn't been perfect. He didn't buy all the books at first and he didn't go to all of the classes, even though they took attendance. So even with 100% on his finals, he has some B's. And he changed two classes because he realized he could not keep track of the paperwork or get up for the 8 AM classes. In high school, there were some C's and D's although he could usually concentrate in a panic for finals (panic causes the same chemical changes in the brain as some of the ADHD medication although I don't recommend relying on that as it is very stressful) and pull his grade up to a B.
Ultimately, the point of this is that we may need to lay off. Of course, we need boundaries and consequences and those should be clear and fair. And as parents, watching kids fail is awful but maybe it is the only way that they figure things out and take responsibility for themselves. So my nearly 16 year old will likely repeat math and maybe history next year. I offered tutoring even though I have financial problems now. He said that he doesn't need help but just to do the work.
Today he threw a fit this morning and didn't go to school. With his brother, I would have cried and been kind of hysterical but I'm sitting here working (and reading email) and waiting while he calms down. I don't feel panicked about him repeating those classes. I feel sorry for him that he will not get in as good a college as he had hoped (and as I expected when I gave birth so many years ago) but I am hopeful that he will learn to take responsibility for his actions and that lesson will be more valuable than the math or history that he hasn't mastered. Also, a bunch of kids from our school who were taking advanced classes have gone to the local community college this year. Many of them have ADHD. Research shows that our kids are about four years behind in the part of brain development that governs decisionmaking and predicting outcomes of behavior. So school, particularly the way schools run now with so much paperwork, are not a great fit for our kids. That doesn't make the kids bad people and it doesn't make them stupid. It means that they will eventually do good work. And the community college is a great option. Meanwhile we need enough boundaries for them so that they stay safe and can grow up to be good, educated, intelligent people without having done anything to really compromise their futures.
Counseling for the oldest never really worked out. He just charmed and entertained the doctors who worried more about me being upset than about this kid who wasn't doing homework but was so active outside of the classroom. His brother is in counseling because he doesn't have a social life and has these awful temper tantrums. The counseling takes the edge off for both of us. But the doctor is part of Kaiser and in Merrifield. We are on the fifth counselor because the others could not get through to him. Finally, with medication and a no nonsense practical approach we are working to help him take responsibility for his actions, his education, and even his physical and mental health. Some days staying calm means packing up his little brother and getting out of the house. It isn't easy. And not knowing the future is tough.
Lately I've been listening to Kirk Martin's cds on staying calm. If you google his name, you can sign up for free newsletters (thinly veiled ads for his CDs which are too expensive but are really helping me). The ideas in the free emails really help and he has free workshops. I went to one and he was really funny and it helped me a lot. He has a 16 year old son who comes to the workshops. Your son might like going too - well, okay, he won't want to go but he might get something out of it and the guy is funny.
Ned Hallowell has a free newsletter and weekly hint on ADHD that is really helpful. And Dr. Kenny Handelman has a free newsletter too and sometimes is really funny. Our kids will have these issues forever. One or more of his parents (in my case, me) probably have them too. I forward the newsletters to my kids when appropriate or they can sign up with their own emails. Dr. Handelman had a really funny video with a comedian who has ADHD describing what it is like on his website for awhile.
Good luck.
K.
