Now that the rush of starting school has passed and students are settling into a familiar routine, it’s time to evaluate what your child or teen with ADHD needs for academic success this year.  Kids with ADHD spend their days at school trying to pay attention in classes that often seem uninteresting and doing work that is unfulfilling. Throughout the day, they have to use their weaker executive functioning skills such as impulse control, working memory, planning, organization and motivation (typical challenges related to having ADHD). Even when they enjoy a subject, they often struggle with staying on top of assignments and remembering to turn them in. 

Fostering progress at school and self-reliance at home means sharpening kids’ executive functioning skills. Executive functioning is a term used to describe the directive capacities of the brain located primarily in the prefrontal cortex. They connect, prioritize and integrate cognitive functions moment by moment and, in neurotypical brains, mature around the age of 25. In kids with ADHD, there is a lag of up to three years in this maturation process. There are 11 executive functioning skills that range from impulse control to time management to sustained attention. Some of these skills…