Have you had her assessed for ADHD? As we and others have found out, it can be hidden for a long time by good grades when smart/gifted kids are in elementary/middle school and only starts to be more obvious in high school. The way you describe her journey has a lot of echoes in ours.
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I may have brought it up as just a question in about second or third grade at a teacher conference when she was continually leaving her homework folder at home. If I go back through my emails and teacher meetings, we usually hit a low at some point mid-year after I have been contacting teachers via email maybe once a month, and then we meet and try to set things straight, attempting to follow through with their recommendations for the remainder of the school year.
I brought it up once, more formally, at the beginning of freshman year at the pediatricianâs office with the Psych NP who did an initial mental health screening with her. She sent copies of a basic 10-question type form (I do not remember the name of the screening form she used) to her teachers and the results from that were that there was nothing remarkable to warrant further testing at that point. As my daughter had already started seeing a therapist based in the pediatricianâs office for anxiety mixed with mild depression, I feel like they just sort of continued on the path that anxiety was the diagnosis.
Due to scheduling issues and therapist turnover, she has seen two subsequent therapists over the last several years, and everyoneâs sort of continuing with the talk therapy & generalized anxiety diagnosis.
Emotional disregulation, sleep issues, lack of follow through, poor self-concept, pushing back at parents feels more like an ADHD-depression loop than general anxiety disorder (to me), but what do I know.
(Also, Iâve only seen temporary, minor improvements at the onset of several years of therapy at this point. Now I just follow through with it so that she can complain about me to somebody if she wants to - or out of some fear that things might worsen somehow if sheâs not in therapy).
When the screening sheets came back from the teachers pointing out that she was just very social and lacking in academic motivation sometimes, I said to my husband, ânone of her teachers know that it took her 3 hours to complete their basic, four-question & answer homework worksheet.â
Sounds somewhat similar to my S23 who has ADHD and had major issues with initiation of schoolwork which meant he struggled to focus on class and complete homework. Medication was a significant help in high school. We had to play a role in identifying colleges, but did have the advantage that he had a clear interest and focus on astronomy after a summer camp in junior year which along with budget and his middling GPA narrowed down the list considerably (his very high SAT score didnât count for anything in CA). Before that point he wasnât interested in leaving home/going to college and thought heâd just attend community college to figure things out.
Heâs actually doing better in college where he can focus on the subjects he enjoys, and hasnât felt the need for meds. It has been good that heâs an hour away so can come home when it all gets too much. We also picked the college with the fewest GEs, since those are the classes where he loses interest and motivation. It hasnât mattered that itâs a big impersonal UC without much support.
I would see if you can find something of interest for next summer that involves a sleep away camp (preferably on a college campus) that connects to a college major or area of focus. That was key to getting our S interested and motivated to go to college.
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Your post was practically shouting ADHD to me!
Of course it may not be, but like @SJ2727 this is what happened to both my adhd sons. Ok/good at school, until the pace/intensity ramped up.
I would not rely on 10 question questionairres, or short conversations. I would get her assessed by a neuropsychologist. This will be pricey, and also take 6 - 8 hours of testing. But besides a diagnosis, if there is one, your daughter will learn HOW she learns best, which is good information to have.
Good luck!
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Looks like neuropsych evals are scheduled out 6 months+ 
I will pursue asking the school, pediatricianâs office, maybe the tutoring center and see if I can expand the list of names and places or get some sort of referral to speed up the process a bit.
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So, our kid had the basic screening done at middle school and did not meet the threshold for adhd, but a more thorough neuropysch screening picked it up. Also, it seems, ADHD is often underdiagnosed in females.i know every case is different, but C26âs anxiety/depression symptoms lessened significantly once we were successfully tackling the ADHD. At the very least Iâd suggest executive function coaching but it really may be worth your while to push for more extensive testing. Good luck - none of this is an easy journey.
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We live about 50 miles from a major academic medical center and most people I know who need the testing end up there. Much faster turnaround on getting an appointment despite the hassle. The more local providers just donât have capacity to âsqueezeâ someone inâŠ
We live very close to a major academic medical center. Sometimes that just gives me analysis paralysis as there are a lot of options and places to goâŠ
I just looked for the first two places that came up first as doing this type of testing. I will call our health provider number in the morning (connected to major academic med center) and ask. Thank you 
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You may want to talk to the school as well. C26âs analysis actually involved the therapist spending a few hours (over different days) watching C26 in the classroom setting as well. (Iâm not sure how common this is but youâd obviously need school permission for that)
I am a little late to this thread, but just sharing my experience in case it helps. My D is a senior and weâre in the midst of apps and waiting and more apps and more waiting. Quite honestly we didnât do much of anything fall-winter of junior year in terms of college list-making or visits. We mostly did normal family travel and would âstop byâ nearby colleges on our way to vacation, see family etc. It took the pressure off. It also let her see different options so that later she could think through what she may want. We did go on a junior year spring break trip that had a few colleges as part of it. She saw colleges sheâd initially dismissed and liked them, and colleges she thought YES! and didnât like so much after the visit.
Now all that said, her list is a little bit hers and a little bit from me. My main focus has been making sure she has options to choose from, not getting her to actually decide on anything. She has targets, safeties and a reach, big schools and medium schools, urban schools and suburban schools. The one constant is the college needs an Arabic program - thatâs what she wants to major in. I suspect when deciding where to apply, she just wasnât ready to narrow it down a ton. Iâm ok with that. She applied to 9, wide variety, all with Arabic and all financially feasible. Sheâs not ready to decide and she really doesnât need to be until May of senior year!
Itâs ok for your daughter to not be ready. Itâs way early. If it were me, my main focus would be on preserving her college options by helping her work through her challenges now, so that when she is ready, sheâll have lots of opportunities.
I definitely agree with this. Over the course of the last 4-5 weeks, my mindset has definitely pivoted to this outlook because it is really necessary right now - simply using my spare time to really help my daughter get back on track and focus on the task at hand.
As for it being relatively early thinking about colleges anyway, as two of our state flagships (major targets for most kids at our high school) do rolling admissions and my wanting to attempt to utilize Tuition Exchange benefits, the process should/ would typically be earlier than average.
This combined with a busy kid that really could not handle schoolwork and college apps concurrently, as evidenced by her current struggles, I had really been planning on quick local/regional visits on in-service days/ Presidentsâ Day, etc. during Junior year to help get a preliminary list together (or schools crossed off) and then to do SAT prep and SAT early summer and college apps late summer. Any further away or/and lower chance of admission schools would be worked in to any potential 3-day weekends or/and in-service days off, etc. during Senior year.
Focus is definitely on supporting current studies now, though, and not much of any emphasis on college discussion beyond whatâs already likely ramping up at schoolâŠ
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I wanted to ask if you would recommend pursuing the neuropsych eval via the school psychologistâs office first, or through your health insurance provider, pediatricianâs office, or just scheduling it directly? There seem to be a lot of pathways for this - of course, I want the one that will be most efficient yet most effective.
I could foresee that there might be a little reluctancy from the school due to the fact that she is already halfway through 11th grade and the responses from freshman year teachersâ survey results. I could see there being some reluctancy from nurse psych at pediatricianâs office because of their previous depression/anxiety screenings that have led to the LPC therapy sessions [without much improvement, btw] over the last several years. When I asked there about being evaluated by a psychologist or psychiatrist as she was having a lot of âteenage tantrumâ type behavior at that time, (which she still kind of does, especially when stressed out), I was told that unless she was self-harming, they did not see any need for that.
Anyway, I guess I do not want to either âoverpayâ or âover waitâ by going a more direct route by just getting on the phone and trying to schedule a full neuropsych evaluation somewhere, and yet I want to be successful in some resolution and a path forward that will set us on a course to lessen some stress and feel like we are making some positive momentum and salvaging what remains of Junior year.
This was our experience with S23 in middle school, their view was that it would take most of the year to evaluate and implement accommodations and heâd be off to high school in 18 months so there wasnât much interest in helping.
We had to force the issue by getting our own neuropsych evaluation (without much help from the pediatrician, fortunately we were plugged into that milieu through friends). But it was expensive ($5000 then, more now) and still difficult to get anything out of the school (though it was a bit better with accommodations in high school).
Iâd think about what you want out of this, beyond a diagnosis? Itâs too late to make much difference with accommodations in high school (especially as senior year grades donât count for much). It seems like medication is the most plausible concrete action that could result (though thatâs not something for the school to decide). Is that a path you want to pursue?
This is what I was going to say. Especially as, from what I can figure out from a Facebook group Iâm on, many schools are not actually that good with what is probably key for her right now ie executive function coaching. We found a combination of meds and EF coaching was the most effective - luckily our school is one of the ones that seems to be good on the latter.
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You get a lot out of a neuropsych eval though. Like, eg, the student doesnât retain oral instructions, they really need to be written. Or, they have really slow processing speeds. Or, they are really gifted in math. (All examples from my son, whose math teacher didnât realize how gifted he was, and instead accused him of cheating).
If you can, Iâd schedule an appt directly with the neuropsychologist. Our insurance didnât cover it, so it was expensive, but itâs the fastest way to get the best answers.
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I think knowing the root of some of my daughterâs challenges whether ADHD related, more mental health related or learning related - could help us better navigate post high school planning.
Any IEP or 504 plans of any kind could potentially help my daughter to see the seriousness of our commitment and the schoolâs commitment to her success, and how her buy-in to the goals of this type of plan are crucial to her success⊠(keeping phone in locker; keeping a planner; no zeroes on assignments, etcâŠIf teachers are providing printouts of their notes or things, for instance, having a written agreement with the school that she was following her âend of the bargainâ as well could help things).
We have really struggled with our daughter the last three or more years, in many ways, and I think all of us are more open to a medication route of some sort than we were previously. For instance, a previous therapist had recommended trying an antidepressant but because my daughter didnât want to do this (because she thought it could lead to weight gain), but with the additional stress of this school year and getting really down about it all, sheâs mentioned recently that sheâs now more open to it.
I know a college student who went through with a full neuropsych eval and she was given the same anxiety diagnosis that she started off with, but somehow there was some analysis of what type of medication and what type of therapy would be best for her, and she is on a very common antidepressant combined with an exercise plan, and sheâs told me that this has helped her a lot with her ability to concentrate and not seek our various diversions.
If there is any kind of evaluation that could help to analyze which meds are best given a particular personâs particular physiology or brain chemistry, etc., I think that seems worthwhile, especially in situations like this where we have already been struggling for years.
I feel like our own due date with all of this is certainly overdue⊠yet the drop-dead date with this seems like either high school graduation or/and the 18th birthday, and knowing that Iâve done everything that I could possibly due (even if I dragged my feet on it for years and tried to figure it out myself) would help me unburden myself somewhat of some of this too.
Also, I have quite a bit saved for her in 529, and weâre looking at possibly no college at this point⊠I believe if there is any kind of IEP in place that I could potentially pay for tutoring/ academic coaching, etc. with 529 funds, which - to me - makes a lot of sense.
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FWIW starting in middle school our S took an antidepressant along with Concerta ER because he had anxiety about school. Once the Concerta (combined with EF support) helped him to focus more in school, the anxiety diminished to the point that he decided he didnât need the antidepressant. I think that was after junior year of HS (but sophomore year was remote due to Covid so that was a mess anyway). Then he stopped the Concerta ER in college, just taking the shorter acting version sometimes for tests.
Your pediatrician might well prescribe an antidepressant without neuropsych testing and say wait and see what happens before worrying about ADHD. But Iâm not sure that an antidepressant alone is the ideal solution if your kid actually has ADHD, it might just mask the EF and focus issues for a bit longer.
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I wouldnât count on counselor being super helpful. I would ask to other parents at your school, counselors sometimes are amazing, and sometimes ask your kid if they are OK (and leave it at that) or may not talk about college at all - HUGE range.
Do you have access to naviance/scoir? Can you walk her through it? Even if she is resistant may help to see together.
(both my kids schoolâs parents have their own accounts to see stuff, though we canât do things like ask for recommonedations, etc (rightly so)).
We got our son in within a month, didnât take insurance so it cost about $4500, my niece and nephew were diagnosed senior year in HS, medication helped so much (my nephew had a 35 act, 1540 sat, around a 3.0 gpa, the low grades were in the easiest classes). My diagnosed adhd son started medication in 6th grade, but junior year of HS started badly with executive functioning issues, grades tanking, but we got it under control.
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If your daughter is struggling with AP classes, somewhere deep down inside she is wondering if she can handle college. I had many convos with my now college junior daughter that the daily expectations in college are not the same as HS âŠthey are working on what they want because they want for ECs and not just because they might have looked good. The GPA may not be the be all and end all unless a post grad degree is on the table. Iâm not saying everyone does what they do in HS to âlook goodâ to AOs nor am I saying go ahead and graduate with a 2.5 from college. But the mindset is different. My daughter was a two sport athlete in HS and captain of both teams but had outgrown being an athlete by the time she hit senior yearâŠreally stuck with it for the ECs on her apps. I could go on but I hope my point is clear. Your daughter is UNDOUBTEDLY feeling the pressure and trust me her friends and peers are talking about college. She needs reassurance this will all work out. She may also be better off re-visiting whether AP classes are the right fit.
My niece went to NYU. My BIL told her if she got in she could go. It was 10000% the wrong fit for her. She could have gone to Fordham and should have - sheâd be a college grad now Iâm sure of it. Instead she failed out of NYU and never recovered and has never done anything with her life.
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