Five sentence summary Telling students to focus is unhelpful and potentially harmful advice. If someone with ADHD is struggling to focus, chances are that they are well aware of this and they are trying their best. Help them by determining if they need to focus right now, identifying what has previously worked in the past, and what tools and resources they might have forgotten about. Brainstorm ways to add novelty, urgency, challenge, and interest. Listen and work with the student. Telling ADHD students to focus on their school work is completely useless advice. It sounds obvious, but I recently read an article for ADHD students that advised them to focus on their school work. ADHD is defined by problems regulating attention, problems in our brains (review the science of ADHD). If we could focus on our work at will, we wouldn't have ADHD. "Try and focus" is a variation of the dreaded "Just try harder" that everyone with ADHD has heard since the beginning of time. We are trying, we do want to focus, we aren't happy our brains are like this, and we aren't purposefully trying to be difficult. Acting as though it is as simple as buckling down and focusing for ADHD learners is harmful and reiterates the idea that this is our fault and it's our own lack of willpower. Although this is rarely the case, it is this type of thinking many ADHD folks have withstood our entire lives. Combine this type of talk with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and you've got a recipe for alienating a person and lowering their self-worth. What to say and do instead If you're teaching or trying to help someone with ADHD who is having trouble focusing, don't tell them to focus or try harder. Instead advise them to: 1) Reflect on what work-life balance looks like. 2) Consider what study strategies work for them when working on boring assignments. 3) Determine what classes they have to take that will likely bore them and see if they can’t be spread out over the course of their college career. 4) Consider what tools are available to help them when focusing is hard (calendars, reminders, study buddies, rewards for doing the boring work, breaking things down, text-to-speech software, etc). 5) Consider how they can add novelty, urgency, challenge, or interest to the task. Work-life balance in this context means that maybe now is not the time to do whatever "The Horrible Task" is right now. Do they need a break from working in general? Do they need a nap? Do they need to do something else with their brain that is fun and relaxing? If they are really struggling to focus, I find it's best not to fight it. It's a poor use of time. We end up stressed and angry with ourselves for not focusing but we still can't focus. Ask students if they would be better off conserving their energy and directing it towards something else. What has worked for them in the past when they've had trouble focusing? What assignments have they worked on without trouble that are similar to whatever "The Horrible Task" is? How were those assignments different? Whatever "The Horrible Task" is will probably not be the last test or assignment that bores them, so identifying patterns and common threads can help them make more informed choices about what their brain needs. Do study groups help? If so, do those study groups need to meet regularly? Do those study groups need to involve the promise of grabbing pizza together after or coffee in the morning before settling down to work? Help your ADHD student dig through these details to understand what worked before and why. If possible, spread out the boring classes, assignments, or work as much as possible. By working on a terrible project for thirty minutes, taking a break and working on a great assignment for two hours, they may find themselves less likely to get stuck in a frozen, depressed, I-am-so-bored-everything-is-awful state. We need excitement, so it's important to balance the work we love and the work that bores us. Help ADHD students identify what classes or tasks might be particularly challenging and advise them to stagger them as much as possible. It may seem obvious to others, but sometimes we forget what tools and tricks we have available to us. We may go months without ever using our reminder app on our phones, but then we're reminded that it exists and it can work really well for us. What tools might we have forgotten? What might we have missed? What tools might exist that we don't even know about? This is an especially important question for undergraduates and folks newly diagnosed with ADHD. There are lots of accommodations, software programs, and tools that can potentially make our lives easier (one of the reasons why ADHD students should register with the disability office). ADHD=Inconsistency, which means that tools that we grew bored of months ago might be interesting and fun after a break. Asking us to reflect (and maybe do some searching on the web to really dust the cobwebs off) can remind us of support we forgot existed. Motivation ADHD folks aren't motivated by the same values as neurotypical folks. Threatening an ADHD student with a failing grade if a final project isn't turned in won't actually motivate them if the project if is too boring, facile, and irrelevant in the student's mind. Instead, help them reframe the assignment using novelty, urgency, challenge, or interest. We are motivated when things are new, urgent, are challenging, and/or interest us. Is there something new they can add to the assignment? Is there a way to make it feel more urgent? For example, checking in with someone on their progress at the end of the day, Someone they respect and wouldn't want to disappoint. How can they make the task more challenging? They could try to see how fast the task can be completed, or they could make a game of seeing how many GRE vocabulary words they can include in their paper. Incorporating their own interests and passions into the task should go a very long ways to motivating someone with ADHD struggling to focus, but this involves having an environment with enough flexibility to allow for it. Provide another perspectiveWhatever you do, I can promise the advice, "Just focus" is not helpful. We struggle with our attention, it is erratic, and it can be unpredictable and inconsistent. Sometimes it's best to go with the flow and try again at another time. This might be days or even weeks later. Other times, when deadlines aren't flexible, we need to be reminded of what tools can potentially help us and how we've managed through similar situations before. Thinking about what motivates ADHD folks, novelty, urgency, challenge, and interest, can go a long ways towards helping us focus. Regardless of the solution, be patient and listen. Work with the student to identify the barriers and brainstorm potential solutions and forms of help. The learner is always the expert on their own brain, so you should try to be a valuable guide that provides another perspective while respecting theirs. Rather than saying something along the lines of, "You always work better when you use a standing desk. I can't believe you haven't tried that yet!" Try, "I notice that you seem to focus really well when using a standing desk. Does that sound right?" Yes, sometimes students benefit from another perspective on themselves, but they should still feel respected as the person with the most experience when it comes to their brain and how they learn. Key points:
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