Parenting Teens and Young Adults with ADHD - A Discussion with Dr. Ari Tuckman

During the high school years, teens live in a structured environment. High school provides a place to go each day; teachers and parents work to keep a student on track and assignments give a student a goal to achieve. But once high school has ended, students may feel lost with the loss of structure in their lives. Suddenly, teens and young adults are responsible for their daily lives, for finding a job, getting up each morning, paying their bills, attending college classes and keeping up with assignments with much less, or none, of the structure of high school. Many young adults fall short, wandering from job to job, floundering more with each passing day. Some will turn to self-medication, abusing drugs and alcohol, some will simply give up and others will simply go from day to day, trying to find their place in this world. No matter how an early adult with ADHD may attempt to navigate the world, it is apparent they still need direction and structure in their lives.

Ari Tuckman, PsyD, MBA is a Clinical Psychologist with a private practice in West Chester, PA. He has written numerous articles on many different aspects of living with ADHD as well as two books, More Attention, Less Deficit: Success Strategies for Adults with ADHD and Integrative Treatment for Adult ADHD: A Practical, Easy-to-Use Guide for Clinicians. Dr. Tuckman's latest book, More Attention, Less Deficit: Success Strategies for Adults with ADHD, provides a wealth of information on living with adult ADHD. According to Dr. Tuckman, this book strives to "tilt the odds of success, to make you more likely to do the right thing at the right time. Not all the time, but most of the time. Not perfect, but better. ADHD takes away your ability to be consistent, so the information and strategies in this book and in this podcast are here to give you back some of that consistency". Dr. Tuckman shared his thoughts with me on parenting a late teen/early adult with ADHD and discussed many of the problems associated with that situation. This is not a transcript of the interview, but has been rewritten to provide you with suggestions on helping your child. Dr. Tuckman has reviewed this article and has approved of the wording.

When parents see a young adult struggling, what should they do?

As a teen moves out of high school and enters the adult world, he or she seeks independence and the ability to control their own destiny. However, teens and young adults with ADHD may lack the awareness of the long-term consequences of their actions.

Parents often try to step in to provide direction and assistance, telling the young adult what to do and when to do it. This advice meets with resistance because the very idea of taking advice gives control to the parent and takes it away from the young adult. When independence is the goal and the main focus of the young adult, a parent staying involved in their daily life takes away that independence.

Parents, however, see a struggling child, not a floundering adult, and clamp down, staying involved in their teen or young adult's daily life, hoping to help him or her move toward a better situation. The reality is, however, that parents also get involved in order to relieve their own anxiety. How anxious they are determines how involved they become. Parents, therefore, need to look at their own feelings. How anxious do they feel about their child's life? Do they need to be that anxious? Are there areas where they can relax their expectations? For example, if a teen decides not to go to college, is that okay?