Do you believe that kids (and adults) who procrastinate waste their time, are being lazy and don’t care about finishing things? If so, you are not alone in subscribing to these myths about motivation. In fact, most procrastinators rarely spend their time doing nothing. Instead, they are great at doing other things — sharpening pencils, picking the right music to listen to, tidying up their workspace, etc. Sometimes it seems that kids, especially those with ADHD, can only be productive if they focus on what interests them. 

When a student is procrastinating, they are struggling. Unsure how or where to begin, daunted by the size of the task, driven by perfectionism or feeling uncertain about their abilities, children and teens may not ask for assistance or reject any help that is offered. Procrastination can be debilitating. Your child or teen puts something off until the last minute when their panic about not having it done kicks in. You may do the same thing. Adrenaline jumpstarts your activity level by fueling the neuronal dopamine pathways in the brain to fire. Jaden, age 15, explains: “I’m the best procrastinator ever. I work best under pressure because I need the heat to…