![]() ![]() But if you ask them a question, it serves as a gateway into their options, and helps them activate their knowledge.” Not Enough HoursĪs David Burkhart learned the hard way, college lets students choose how to spend their time: Write the paper or attend the party. It’s not about teaching a system, but about engaging in a learning process.”īoutelle encourages parents to ask their children what she calls “curious questions.” “When people with ADHD run into a roadblock,” she explains, “they tend to feel they have no option. “If you let them experience disappointments, they learn to make choices and handle the results. “Children must be allowed to fail,” Boutelle says. Rehearse real-world situations that will let your child practice essential skills before leaving home. To give your child the best chance at succeeding in college, try to make him the “author of his own life,” says Karen Boutelle, director of coaching services at Landmark College, in Putney, Vermont. Your youngster must know how to manage his time, set and stay within a budget, do laundry, and generally get through life on his own. But knowing how to listen in class and keep up with assignments aren’t enough to ensure success at college. If you’re the parent of a child with ADHD or a child with learning disablities (LD), you probably try to make sure he or she learns critical academic skills. David’s dad sent him to live with an uncle in Florida, where he spent four grueling months pouring asphalt and considering what he would do differently if he returned to college. He tried to hide the truth from his parents, but his father, the chairman of Auburn’s psychology department, and his mother soon found out. Within weeks, David had dropped all his classes. I bought a new pair of slacks every week.” I ‘washed my clothes’ by buying new stuff. I went from having one hour of free time a day to having three hours of class a day – and nobody cared if I didn’t show up for those. “I had no clue how to eat or plan my day. ![]() For the first time in my life, I didn’t have a bedtime and I was a night owl,” he says. “I got to college and moved into my own apartment. Given the order imposed on him, no one even suspected that David had ADHD, as well as dysgraphia.īut David’s life unraveled as he began his freshman year at Auburn University. He had done well at the prep school he attended, where students woke up, ate, studied, and went to bed at prescribed times. Things were different for David Burkhart, a 28-year-old graduate student. Of course, laughs Mary, “The fact that we owned a pastry shop and brought stuff to school didn’t hurt either.” “Teachers would help me revise them,” he says, “and I’d hand them in again, when everyone else did.” And he cultivated close relationships with faculty members – a strategy he continues at Pennsylvania’s York College by e-mailing his professors at the beginning of each semester to introduce himself and explain his academic “issues.” He got this idea from his mother, Mary, who always made it a point to meet with her son’s teachers to give them a heads-up. In high school, John handed in papers before they were due. I would get home from sports, take a shower, eat dinner, take a pill, and then do all my work.” I wrote down upcoming papers and dates, so I always knew what I had going on. “I also had a big calendar on my bedroom wall. “I had an assignment pad where I wrote everything down,” he explains. That’s because the 20-year-old cultivated good habits while attending high school in Glen Head, New York. John Muscarello had no trouble making the transition to college life, despite his severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD). ![]()
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