Helping your teen succeed with ADHD

Hi, everybody. And thanks for tuning into today's episode of the Parenting Your Teens podcast. I'm your host Chris Taylor, and like every episode we take a question from a viewer at home and we answer it to give parents practical tools to address the challenges that they are facing with their teens. 

Now today's question comes from Cynthia in Maryland. Now I'm just amazed because we're getting some really good reach and it's only our second season of putting on this podcast, so that's really exciting. So Cynthia, all the way out in Maryland, on the East Coast, thank you so much for sending this question in. 

 
How to help teens with ADHD

Now her question is one that applies to more and more kids, because the rate of diagnosis of ADHD in American youth is skyrocketing. And for those who struggle with a kid with ADHD you know the challenges that present, the exhaustion, the frustration as a parent in trying to address those, so we're going to try to give some tips based on this question that Cynthia asked. So Cynthia asked a really general question, I'm going to try to narrow it down as best as I can, but she said, "How do I work with my teen with ADHD in getting homework, chores, and just getting him to care about life at all." 

Okay, so first of all, Cynthia, that's a big question. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get to that what's going to make him care about life at all. But I think I can understand maybe some of the reasons why he's not caring as much and why he's not participating in life in a real sort of full robust way, okay? 

 
Teens with ADHD are very smart

So what I know about working with ADHD kids and I work with a ton of them in my private practice, is that they are (a) usually super smart, and (b) usually not seen as super smart by their teachers or administrators at school because they tend to be disruptive, easy distracted, they can be class clowns, they can talk a lot - all these things that in a classroom environment are really sort of undesirable. So I always like to start by focusing on the strengths that these kids are really smart kids. But because they have this ADHD diagnosis and the school system responds to them in a negative way, they end up getting a huge hit to that self-esteem piece. 

They'll lose the belief that they can, they'll overtime stop trying because there's no sort of benefit of pleasure in doing so, because they've already decided - I'm going to get told that I'm a loser, a failure, not good enough, stupid - whatever you might sort of layer on as a negative statement with a kid who's not functional well in a school environment. They've heard it, they've experienced it, and just like you or I - the more you hear negative statements the more it becomes easy to believe and the harder it is to believe in yourself from a positive perspective, so let's always keep that in mind. 

 
The ADHD brain works differently

Now as far as chores and tasks with ADHD kids, it's really difficult, because let's be honest - their brain works differently. Most teenagers are somewhat impulsive - put that on overdrive in a kid with ADHD. Different brain structures are underdeveloped so executive functioning and planning, thinking and executing that are sort of compromised. 

And then they're highly emotional because they're operating from that lower level brain system, which causes them to be impulsive which causes them to have sort of extreme emotions. Again, it's like a teenager normally but it's on sort of steroids or times a thousand. 

 
The magic structure for Teens with ADHD

So what we want to do is we want to slow that process down for those kids as much as we can. Now one of the best ways to do that when it's task-related like homework or ... we'll just say homework because that's more academically-focused ... is to focus on this idea of chunking, right? So if I've got an ADHD kid and I'm like, "Hey, here's an hour of homework. Sit down and do it," as a parent I'm going to be on that kid non-stop for that hour and things aren't going to get that. It's going to be a constant battle, I'm going to be frustrated, the kid is literally not going to be able to do it because of the way his brain is functioning. 

So what we want to do is bring in this idea of chunking. Now there's a couple different structures for chunking, one is traditional sort of 15, 20 minutes on, 5 minute off. So what that means if you give them a chunk of time where they're responsible for sitting down focusing, doing the work, and then you give them a chunk of time to take a break. 

Now what you don't want them to do on that break is go in and play video games or watch TV or watch YouTube videos, because that's going to over stimulate them and hijack that process. By a break it just means kind of pushing away, maybe getting a snack, drinking some water, maybe getting up and moving because there's a pent up energy and sort of kind of dispelling all that energy. And then really getting back in the task. 

Now initially parents will have to help them by prompting them to get back in the task after the break, but once they have done that a few weeks they're going to start to really get this conditioned response of like, "Okay, I know this works for me, and this is something I can use to manage my time well, and ultimately I want to do that my own because no teenager wants their parents to tell them what to do." So we're going to always use that for our benefit as parents. 

Now there's also a different way of chunking, it's kind of a pyramid chunking where you start with like maybe it's 30 minutes of time and they get a 15-minute break, and then it's 20 minutes with a 10-minute, and then it's 15 minutes with a 5-minute and so on and so forth. That can be kind of helpful, because you'll see that the kids will start to anticipate less and less as they move forward. There's a little bit of an incentive built in there, there's some excitement that they're not just going to be in this kind of consistent pattern, sort of like ongoing and they can't anticipate when it's going to stop. 

And so anyways, like I said, there's a couple of different ways to do that. Now the timing of which really depends on the kids. Really, severely ADHD kids are going to be able to tolerate less time studying, the break shouldn't be any more time but it should just basically be either a 2:1 or a 3:1 ratio of work to break. If you're going to pyramid it, obviously that changes that a little bit. But you generally start with that and then as you whittle down you want to maintain that ratio throughout. 

 
Teens need to believe in themselves

What this does is it gives teens the opportunity to see that they are capable, that it's not about them not being able to or being dumb or any of that, and it gives parents a really concrete tool to start partnering with their teens around rather than sort of demanding or getting frustrated because they're disinterested. 

If you have a kid who's been in the educational system that have got a lot of bad messages for a long period of time, it's going to be harder to recondition them for this response, so just be patient and know that it's going to take a few more weeks. 

Now if you're a parent with a kid that's ADHD then you're talking about a few more weeks, and you're already at your point of frustration or exhaustion, I know that's a big ask, but I guess I would say you've already been in it this long with not getting necessarily the results you want, so I'm sure you're willing to try just about anything and everything to sort of make this come true. 

So I appreciate giving that advice to you. I appreciate the question again from across the country. And if you have questions that you would like to submit and have me answer on my next podcast, please send those in to chris@parentingyourteens.com. And if you would like more information on how to end teen defiance and disrespect in your teens, then please visit the website parentingyourteens.com where you can learn and gain valuable tools on how to end that defiance and disrespect among dealing with other issues that you might be struggling with, with your teens. 

So until next time, thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you again real soon.

About Christopher Taylor, MFT

Christopher Taylor, MFT is a teen expert, therapist, author, and speaker with 16 years of experience working with teens and families. He provides teen and family therapy services in Folsom, Granite Bay, El Dorado Hills and surrounding areas. Chris is the author and creator of the Back to Basics: Tayloring Your Teen For Success Program, consisting of the book, workbook and online course.