I have an ADHD kid and in addition to the thread posted above, I want to highlight one comment (emphasis below is mine): General Advice & College Recommendations for ADHD & Neurodiverse Students - #14 by blossom
The biggest problem I see is when families are in denial about how much support and scaffolding they have been providing to the student. They spend tons of time researching campuses and programs; they spend zero time coming to terms with how much support they have been providing in order for their child to make it through HS and on to college.
Deans do NOT show up in your kids dorm room and shake him until he wakes up so he can get to class on time. That does not happen. So if YOU have been habitually waking your kid up because he sleeps through his alarm, it’s time to stop. The Dietician does NOT walk your D down the cafeteria line making sure that in addition to the carbs she loves and the caffeinated beverages she’d live on if she could, she takes a piece of salmon or grilled tofu because a college kid without protein is going to crash eventually. The Housing office won’ show up to do your kids laundry even if the towels smell of mildew, and the bursar doesn’t take your kid by the hand to the ATM to check the balance on the account because your kid forgot to deposit the paycheck last week.
The kids I know IRL who have crashed in college have NOT been unable to compete academically! They’ve struggled- and in many cases failed- at Life 101. And that- coupled with a demanding workload- has created a perfect storm. Going to bed at a reasonable hour. Waking up on time for an early lab. Eating regular meals. Buying an apple at the campus grocery store even when you want a Snickers bar. Changing the sheets on the bed and replacing them with clean sheets.
If your kid is a junior or senior and is not taking control of “Life 101”, get to it. I’'ve got friends with HS seniors who they are STILL driving to school once or twice a week with the lunch that got left on the counter, the homework assignment sitting in the printer, or the athletic equipment that was sitting in the front hall. How is your kid going to manage all these things independently if you aren’t transitioning now?
This is so, so important. No matter how accommodating any accommodations at student services may be, more of your kiddo’s hours are spent outside of the classroom, where there is a lot of “adulting” that college kids need to be able to do on their own that support services will 100% not be involved with (and for good reason).
Regarding a gap year, you know your daughter best and every kid is different.
For my ADHD kiddo, one thing we talked about a lot about the transition to college was the difference between having your day quite highly structured for you in high school—from starting in the morning and going from class to class all day, then to after school sports and activities—in contrast to college, where your classes may meet 2-3 times a week, and you are expected to independently be doing quite a lot of work on your own, on your own time.
For my kiddo, if he has all day to do something it will take him forever, in fact he might not get it done at all, because he has a case of the “I’ll do it later, I have all day.” Yet if he only has an hour to get it done because his day is busy? He can get it done in an hour.
When he doesn’t have a pretty scheduled day, that’s really tricky for him. So to help with that, he takes additional non-academic classes (e.g. kayaking or rock climbing), and he’s involved in an a cappella group that meets for rehearsals 3x a week and a club sport that’s 4x a week. Those additional activities keep him chugging along on task, keep him physically active, and use different parts of his brain. Additionally, he specifically chose a small LAC because he knew that he would fight to not zone out in large lectures, and he is very engaged when there are smaller class sizes, discussions, and labs.
The last few years of high school were me forcing him to use an online calendar, and to transition to him scheduling all of his own medical and dental appointments and other needs. He also needed to get himself to and from school and activities on the city bus (navigating the schedule, making plans), and quite importantly—to ensure that he knew productive ways to write emails to teachers to touch base or ask for help. For example: name the issue and name what you’ve done and tried so far; then ask for a set period of time to meet (e.g. a few minutes after class, or 15 minutes, etc.); then offer three time frames you have available, and then close by asking what would work best for them.)
A student’s ability to talk easily with teachers and professors, and to understand how and when to reach out, is crucial in college. The more comfortable you can make your student with that process, the farther ahead they’ll be. When in doubt, reach out! But as Blossom mentioned: there isn’t any help in college for the out of the classroom adulting skills like getting yourself up for class each day.
If you feel as if your daughter needs some more time, via a gap year, to grow in adulting skills such as getting up and out the door, and managing more of her life independently, then it may be something to consider. But as you mentioned:
the reduction in schedule structure has had the opposite effect. She is behind in school and struggling
I would be cautious about the possibility of a gap year being a little detrimental if she doesn’t have some sort of daily structure to help her stay on track. A year is a long time; I know one student who wanted to do a gap year, and found a job part time. By the end of fall they were adrift, and all their friends were gone and busy in their first semester in college.
Maybe instead of an entire year, perhaps your daughter might benefit from taking the summer off, if that’s something that financially could work for your family? A few months to just do whatever feels good to her?
Or if you feel that she would benefit from a gap year - have goals for the gap year that are about adulting skills, and make sure that these are shared goals for her too! Set her up for success and celebrate tackling this stuff. Have her take a 1-2 months off in the summer, and then a full time job and she graduates to handling all of her things as if she were living in a dorm: her schedule, transportation, her banking, her appointments, her breakfast and lunches (and some dinners?), her laundry, and “extracurriculars.” And you stay on track teaching her how to do something and giving her tools, and walking her through a scenario, and then stepping back.
Maybe if she feels more grounded in being able to handle all of those things, she’ll have more bandwidth and be more confident and ready to tackle the academic part of college when she arrives.
Best of luck! It is hard to make the transition, I can only say from experience that the more adeptly that your kid can operate independently, the easier the transition to college will be as that’s one significant thing they don’t have to fret about.
It is not a disaster if they try and then it doesn’t work out. My kids have lots of challenges, ups and downs, but it tends to work out, in our experience.