Parents of children that suffer from ADHD often feel lost.  You are experiencing an ongoing struggle to find answers to understand what is going on with your child.  It is heartbreaking to witness your child struggling with impulse control, attentiveness, planning, and organizing.  Most of all, it is heartbreaking to see your child struggling in school.  You know your child is intelligent.  You know your child is smart enough to master the coursework being presented to him or her.  The truth of the matter is that your child is experiencing a lack of executive functioning skills as a result of the disorder that plagues them, ADHD.  Adolescents in general lack important skills such as working memory, goal setting, self-evaluation, time management, organization, planning, etc.  ADHD exacerbates this void in adolescents.  These skills are fundamental to success in school; which can help you understand why your child is struggling in school.  If your child walks into a classroom without a plan and strategies to execute this plan, success is not attainable.  ADHD breeds feelings of uncertainty and fear for children and parents.  More uncertainty and fear builds as your child moves into adolescence and school becomes more fast-paced and competitive.  This is a very stressful time for parents because the overwhelming nature of schoolwork can take a toll on your child.  More than anything, you want success and happiness for your child.  Success in middle school leads to success in high school, success in high school leads to success in college, and success in college leads to success in career and life.  This success is not attainable without the acquisition of executive functioning skills.

Searching for Answers…

I can only imagine how demanding and frustrating it can be for parents of children with ADHD.  You know the inner essence of your child; try not to lose sight of that as you search and pray for answers.  I am not here to tell you how to parent your child, you are infinitely more equipped to make decisions about your child than I.  I am only here to give you some tips of how to help your child in school and offer our courses as a resource that can go a very long way to help your child attain success and confidence in school.  Executive functioning therapy is no secret.  If you look at the bio of any child psychologist, you will find executive functioning listed as one of their services.  I have no doubt that these services offered by these highly qualified individuals are very effective, but I do know that these services are very expensive.  Our mission is to offer inexpensive executive functioning therapy at home, with you as the therapist.  As a parent, you know your child better than anyone on Earth.  You know your child’s strengths and weaknesses.  Who better to sit down with your child to learn executive functioning skills and formulate a step by step plan to learning than you?  We understand that your child has a problem with attention span, which is why our courses are self-paced.  You can go through each topic in each course, slide by slide, at your own time.  With your child, plug into working…

  • To develop a plan for a balanced lifestyle
  • To reduce school related stress
  • To master and practice the executive function skills in our courses

Identify Your Child’s Strengths and Challenges

Strengths are the tasks and responsibilities that your child is especially good at, while challenges are the areas where your child’s performance could stand a fair amount of improvement.  Strategic flexibility results from identifying your child’s strengths and weaknesses.  This identification process will help you develop an understanding of what strategies work best for your child; why they seem to work so well; areas that need improvement; and strategies that do not seem to work so well.  Think of the various strategies that exist for various tasks in school as your child’s toolbox; self-evaluation helps your child choose the proper tool for each job.  In our course, “Self-Evaluation”, these five worksheets are provided so that you and your child can work together to identify their strengths and challenges.

Set Realistic Expectations

Teach your child how to set realistic goals and work with them to learn how to achieve these goals.  The only way to judge the ongoing effectiveness of strategy is to evaluate results.  Success should always be measured as progress toward the accomplishment of goals.  Teach your child the difference between short-term and long-term goals and emphasize that achieving multiple very small goals can lead to the achievement of one very big goal.  Identify obstacles to achievement of goals with your child and stress the importance of positively reacting to obstacles that are presented along the way.  Goals must be clear and attainable for your child to be motivated to achieve these goals.  Provide rewards to your child for goal achievement; it is vital that your child understands that the goal was achieved.  Rewards serve as motivation for your child to set and achieve goals on the path to ultimate success.  Most importantly, help your child discover their ideal learning styles and techniques.  They will use strategic flexibility to match the task with the strategies and techniques that work best for them.

Excerpt from “Setting and Achieving Goals” course. Each topic helps students identify their ideal learning style.

Use Strategies for Organizing and Planning

As you know, organization and planning are difficult strategies to master for children with ADHD.  Don’t worry, there are simple steps that you can take with your child to create an organizational structure.

Simple things like learning to organize your child’s binder, locker, and backpack can reduce school related stress and create feelings of calmness and confidence for your child.  Create a balanced lifestyle for your child to optimize health, happiness, and effectiveness in all they do.  There should be a healthy balance of school, study, physical activity, fun, family time, and sleep.  In order to be effective in all activities and endeavors, your child must learn how to manage time effectively.  Our course, “Getting Organized and Managing Your Time” teaches students and parents how to create and use daily, weekly, and monthly calendars.  Calendars and Planners work to break down the big picture and approach every task in a step-by-step manner.

Improve Study Habits

Time spent studying and doing homework is so very crucial to the overall success in school.  That obviously goes without saying, but environment and studying strategies become all the more important for a child with ADHD.  Paying attention and focusing are difficult tasks for your child, therefore you must create the perfect study environment for them.  Start with your child’s planner to know which tests and assignments need to be addressed first.  Break all the tasks down into chunks or manageable parts which will help your child stay focused and not test their attention span.  Find a good study place for your child; one that is free from electronic devices, noises, food, and distractions in general.  Even simple things such as good lighting, comfortable temperature, and a comfortable chair are important for focus.  Monitor your child’s study time to make sure they are using their time well, and make yourself available as a resource if they need assistance.

Now the How

While all of this sounds amazing, you are wondering how you put these tips into action.  You would love to improve your child’s study habits, establish effective goal setting, get your child organized, and teach your child strategic flexibility.  But how do you do it?  It is definitely a process, and it can be an arduous one at that.  It takes hard work, time, and dedication but the work you put in with your child will pay off in the end.  Imagine a world in which your child is flourishing in school and the fruits of the labor are success and happiness.  We created a platform to help you get to this point.  Our eLearning courses allow you to plug in with your child and learn executive functioning skills for success in school.  Navigating through our courses can be very effective therapy for your child with ADHD.  Try our courses in order for your child to learn strategic flexibility, goal setting, planning, organizing, note-taking, test-taking, memorization techniques, good study habits, and effective writing techniques.  This program is truly life-changing.