This episode responds to a mom who was hoping for a better school year with her now 15-year-old ADHD son. But it’s the same old story of getting him to do his work, deciphering excuses, and withdrawing privileges.

Regina of Des Moines, Iowa writes: 

Dear Neil,

I was hoping this school year would be different with our ADHD now 15 year old.  He’s in his sophomore year and we were hoping he’d have grown up a bit, but we’re in the same rut as last year.  He avoids homework and will watch videos, chat with friends and play games instead. When he applies himself, he can do pretty well. But too much of what we get are missing assignments with the usual excuses such as, “the teacher said I could turn it in  late and that she hasn’t graded it yet so I still have a zero”. Or, “the teacher isn’t teaching us anything and said we could just do anything on the subject we want, and then he didn’t accept my paper.  He’s just a jerk.”  

Then of course, if we don’t let him go out with friends, we are the bad guys. I was hoping this year would be different. He loves baseball but, if he has D’s and F’s he won’t be eligible to play. He played on the freshman team last year, but it was always touch and go with his grades. Since he has an IEP we went to the school to make sure they didn’t fail him without taking his issues into account.

Do you have any ideas for how we can get out of this rut?  

Groundhog Day in Des Moines

In this episode, Neil and Co-Host Robin explore the difference between trying to understand what’s wrong with a youth or the situation, to trying to understand what might be missing and what to do about it. It’s moving from a pathology based model to a wellness model with lots of optimism and ideas for this mom.