Six Back to School Strategies for ADHD Students

Here are my 6 winning strategies if you are working with a child or teen diagnosed with ADHD:

1. Gather all of the information from the school on semester assignments and deadlines. Teach your child to set up a calendar with the dates penciled in, with daily tasks designed to eventually prepare for that deadline. If a book report is due 6 weeks from now, break down the book by the number of pages needed to be read daily, the strategy of summarizing and then enough prep time to complete the report. Night before work is the killer of good grades with ADHD.

2. Schedule one extracurricular activity outside of school. We have learned in our practice while working with collegiate athletes that their grades generally go up during their sport season. This is because of the structure imposed on them by practice and training schedules. It requires discipline and scheduled task time for academics. It forces student-athletes to be organized by systems and structure.

3. Before school, cardiovascular exercise. It’s been proven in science to help with focus and concentration, now the test is to find a way to fit it into the schedule. If you only do one of my strategies, please find a way to do this one.

4. Pack adequate snacks for brain health. We now know that certain foods can help feed the ADHD brain in a better way than others. If you aren’t sure on this one, use our service available at the Apple or Android APP store called Click-Eat. Have a registered dietician analyze your child’s food intake and make recommendations based on the ADHD diagnosis. Use the discount code “Blogreader” to save $100 on the service.

5. In high school try to have a spare scheduled so your child can do their homework, get ahead of projects and when the final bell goes, they have completed academics for the day. Often schools will fight you on this one, but extremely important for high school students diagnosed with ADHD.

6. You need to learn more about ADHD and then teach your child. Go to www.adhdsuccessu.com and use the code “livegreener” on the payment page to get it for free. Once you learn the skills, start teaching your child regardless of their age.

Once your child reaches Grade 8 or 9, they should not need your input on completing tasks or staying up to date on school work. You only need to occasionally check in with them and wait for the semester report cards to see how they are doing. Teaching them responsibility and ownership of their academic successes and failures is the life lesson. Going to school and doing their academic best is their primary job at this point in their lives. Your job is to set them up for that success and then back off. Get started today.