So 6 weeks before the A levels, my son tells me this (possible ADHD)

[blueshoes]

6 weeks before the A levels, my son has admitted that despite all the timetables he did, the hours studying at home and notes he has written, he has not taken anything in. He just cannot get himself motivated to study.

For his GCSEs, it was the same thing. He performed below expectations. I thought he had cracked it but he kept it from dh and I. It has got worse for the A levels😓

For his recent A level mocks, he only watched videos for 4-5 hours before the actual exam. He got A (fave subject), B and C. All below his predicted grades and below the conditional offers he got for university.

Does anyone recognise this in their dcs or themselves. What can you advise for ds?

Could this be ADHD? Appreciate this is the eleventh hour. We are willing to go private for diagnosis and medication, if that is even a possibility.

Unless you have other concerns about ADHD behaviours I think jumping to that is because it is something you can control and fix.

Get the phone out of the room when studying. It is incredibly addictive and intrusive. It could well be the ‘hours’ he is studying is diluted significantly by phone use.

If he is at private school does he have a 3 week Easter? If so that is a perfect time to get some serious work done. And next to you husband sounds great.

Learning styles is a myth (a very pervasive one as it sounds reasonable). This is a good website. https://www.learningscientists.org/faq

For physics alevelphysicsonline.com is a good place to start. 5 minute videos on the topics broken down by spec. Then practise questions on IsaacPhysics.

Use past paper wisely - marking it is crucial and can take as long as the paper - figuring out why you were wrong, watching the video and making notes, etc. For the essays ChatGPT does a reasonable job of instant feedback and areas to improve.

I have always struggled to do a full past paper in timed conditions at home but I’m fine with the adrenaline of an exam, doing a concentrated 30-45 minutes is better than a long slog with attention wandering.

Then honestly, it doesn't sound like adhd and he wouldn't meet the diagnostic criteria. That's not to say that he wouldn't get a diagnosis from a dodgy private psychiatrist, because who knows, some doctors might diagnose anyone if they're paid to do so. But adhd is much, much more than struggling with motivation to study, and if that's his only symptom, then you'd be better off trying to get to the actual cause rather than slapping a label on that doesn't apply.

He might still find that adhd strategies like body doubling are helpful, so they're worth a try. I would avoid medication though, if he doesn't need it, because it does have some side affects that he probably won't want!

His grades show that he knows a lot. If he practices exam questions from now on, he could lift those grades easily.

Do you really want him wasting 60k for uni when this might happen again? Is this the right path for him or just what YOU want?

I wouldn't be jumping to ADHD just on the back of struggling to revise. My husband and son have it and to get a diagnosis you need to be showing a lot of symptoms in at least 2 areas of life (e.g. home and school) and for it to be having a real detrimental effect on your life. In addition, the meds are not to be taken lightly. Methylphenidate is basically speed and can have a lot of side effects. It also doesn't work for everyone. You often need months of titration where you find the right dose and stimulants don't work for everyone so some need non-stimulant ADHD meds. I'd concentrate on revision techniques for now and look into ADHD after exams if you feel he has a lot of other symptoms.

I didn't do as well in my A levels as he did in his mocks! Degree went ok. A and B are a great result, C can be boosted.

I'm a trainer.

Focus on what can be done in the time. The immediate issue is the looming A levels.

Get him off his phone. It's a habit and they can be changed.

Maybe a formal lock box and a revision timetable for him to follow.

When's he at his best? For me it's morning. So Grade C subject study in the morning, Grade B after lunch and Grade A last. Although if he gets drowsy after lunch (the graveyard shift, we call it), maybe swop those two round.

He could inform his friends he's just not available between certain times in the day, and then check-in in the evening.

The body doubling idea is useful. Just being in a calm, studious atmosphere where others are getting on with work and the phone isn't THERE may be ideal. Just like being at work.

Regular breaks, hydrating and eating well. Avoid sugary things and focus on brain-friendly food and snacks!

And regulating himself by not having the phone in his bedroom, going to sleep at a sensible time, getting up and to his desk at work/study time after breakfast.

All the little things.

Peer group study / action learning set with friends MAY help but beware they may be distractions.

Some great advice here @blueshoes and yes, if he got ABC with minimal work he’s clearly able.

Good tip about body doubling and structure for revision. Also talk to him about what he wants and how yo get it. Car journey is good for talking to teens.

Hard agree with @JamesWebbSpaceTelescope - learning styles are widely discredited so please don’t start him on that. Wow how I hated it when kids would tell me “I can’t do this sheet miss, im a visual learner!” Arrrgh.

Just work to help him do the best he can. At this stage that’s best imo.

To be fair ABC is very decent grades for A-Levels, and will certainly get him into a decent university (albeit perhaps not the one he wanted).

Your DS sounds a lot like my older sister. She ended up doing much more poorly than that in her A-Levels because she had no study skills. Her idea of studying was lying on her bed reading the textbook. She had no idea about how to revise actively (making notes etc). She basically raw-dogged it on natural intelligence alone. I think she got something like DDE. She went on to have similar issues in her degree. She failed her degree the first time round, but ended up scraping a 2:2 in the end on appeal and re-submitting her dissertation (written with a lot of help from our dad).
It was only once she was well into adulthood that she was diagnosed with autism.

Obviously can’t comment on the ADHD

But I did want to say that I’d advise looking at the way he is revising - there is a general expectation that you should revise by sitting and reading notes/textbooks or copying out paragraphs and highlighting things. But that is incredibly boring for anyone, too passive and really hard to retain information that way!

Revision needs to be as active as possible. ‘Teaching’ is a great way to revise - can he take a module/topic/concept at a time and teach it back to you? Ask him clarifying questions or to expand on certain points. Can he watch a video and explain 3 (or whatever) key points to you? Could you look at the syllabus and come up with questions to ask him? Or a debate topic for you to discuss.

Could you Involve siblings or other family members. If there’s a topic he’s struggling to understand or remember, can he explain it to you all at the dinner table and you have a family discussion about it?

Make revision cards together and you ask him questions. Create illustrated revision guides if he likes to draw. Record his own podcast to listen to whilst on a walk. Create rhymes, mnemonics. Use sticky notes. Play matching games for definitions, processes, dates or formulae etc. Create mind maps and use those to ask him questions or get him to talk them through with you.

If there was a key date or formula or something I had to memorise, my gran used to tell me to write it with my non-dominant hand. It would stick out in my memory because it was unusual.

Obviously he will need to read and learn the information and eventually do practice papers, but maybe try some different things to shake things up a bit and see what works.

Just some ideas and he may already be doing these things, I don’t mean to be patronising but the main thing is that to remember information, it needs to be memorable! Anyone would struggle to sit and read for days on end and be expected to remember what you’ve read. Make it as active as possible, hopefully you’ll find something a bit different and ‘fun’ that works for him.

@JamesWebbSpaceTelescope Appreciate the tips. Today is ds' first day of body doubling next to dh with his phone removed. Ds spent a morning revising doing Maths questions. It seemed to work. Hopefully something is going in.

Ds then rushed off to MPW for a week long 40 hour cram course in A level Physics. It is a week of Physics. I have sent him the alevelphysicsonline.com and the strategies in the learning scientist. I will mention using the past papers to supplement his revision. In the past, he marks his answers and then says he got it all right.

He is in private school so has 3 weeks to revise. I think ds is just relieved to have got his 'secret' off his chest. Having met an attractive course mate at MPW seems to have given him new spring in his step

Mine use an app I think called Fauna or something that blocks your phone while you revise and they compete with their friends as to whose phone is blocked the longest.

@2JFDIYOLO and @LDB2024 appreciate your putting together a great list of little things ds can do. He can certainly make his revision more active and environment more conducive to learning.

Interesting to introduce an element of competition to revision. I will mention Fauna to ds.

On the ADHD assessment, I am not in a particular hurry to get ds assessed before A level. However, I am worried that once he is at uni, he might flounder because there are not as many resources available to him (like tutors, MPW or past exam papers or his parents) like there is at A level. If he hid his condition from dh and I for so long, I fear he would similarly hide the fact he is struggling at uni.

IF ds is assessed to have ADHD (I don't know because he does not show obvious symptoms other than what he told us or beyond the realm of usual teenage scattiness), I'd want to explore medication and dosage before he starts uni whilst he is still living with us at home.

Hence I am making enquiries with 2 private consultants and will be led by them whether this is a worthwhile exercise to embark on given Ds' circumstances. Ds is supportive of doing this investigation. If it is anything like dd (who has autism), he would have known there was something 'wrong' with him for some time and kept it inside. If anything, it will be a relief for him to be able to take about it with a professional.

I know some posters have queried whether uni is right for him given his difficulties and the cost and whether he is doing it for me rather than for him. I am grateful for all viewpoints.

I am certain that university is what ds wants. He will be studying a subject he loves. He says he does not anticipate the same issues with motivation and concentration because Economics is his pet subject and he finds it interesting and easy.

He is also excited about living away from home amongst mates and the freedom he sees his older sister enjoy. I have no doubt he will have a ball at uni.

Surely no way he can go to university if he can’t even self motivate to do his a levels? Sounds like an expensive disaster waiting to happen.

Sorry to hear about the tears, but it’s great that he came to you and that you have a plan. One of mine has focus issues, he finds working in the library with friends helpful - body doubling it seems! Good luck to your boy.

If your daughter has autism, was your son assessed at all? It is genetic.

Hi. I've just come across this thread. How is your son getting on? And any tips for what worked/is working? My son has (late diagnosed) ADHD and has two essay-based A levels to revise pretty much from scratch in the next two weeks. (For GCSEs revision was all done in one day so this is a vast improvement but still stressful/a challenge).

@Maplewood6 is your son on medication?

We went for a private assessment. Ds was diagnosed with mild combined type ADHD. He was prescribed Lisdexamfetamine (Elvanse Adult) last Friday immediately upon diagnosis and has been taking it for 5 days now.

The medication has helped ds a lot. However he may require a higher dosage as it takes a few hours to kick in and wears off quickly. But when it is working, ds says he is much more focussed, less distracted and wants to revise. Even his friends who he revises with have noticed the difference.

I think ds is relieved and grateful the drug has unlocked the key to his revision.

Elvanse costs about 3.50 a tablet. We are going to see if we can get a GP to prescribe going forward and source it more cheaply. Ds only has to take it when he is revising. It is not a daily thing. Ds says so many of his friends are on medication for ADHD. Usually methylphenidate because that is what is prescribed for children (below 18). Ds is prescribed the stronger dexamfetamine because he is an adult (above 18).

It is worth your ds having a trial of medication within these 2 weeks. If the side effects are bad, the drug leaves the body within the same day so no harm done. Or at least that is what we were told.

Good luck with it.

That's great that you got on with all so quickly. My son is on the same medication - which I feel helps but I'm trying to see if there is a top up that can be used in the evening. Did you find body doubling helpful? Or anything else. I'm just trying to use anything that works at this very late stage.

Yup, ds has just emailed the Psychiatrist to ask for a top up dosage for the evening. Many of his friends take a top up, so it is a thing.

I asked ds about whether body doubling works. He says it does not work when it is dh (his dad) working in dh's study. He feels too much like he is 'forced' to focus and it does not work. Body doubling helps if it is with his friends, who are all studying for A levels. He meets up in someone's house or at Gail's bakery where they take a table. During study leave (from next week), he intends to go to school to work in the teacher's classroom. He says it helps to have the teacher body double and also to consult if he gets stuck.

There are very useful tips in the thread about studying in the way that best corresponds with the way your son might absorb information e.g. videos, flash cards, teaching others. ADHD may need him to interact more with the subject matter. Ds says he cannot just look at text head down and expect to absorb it.

I know what you mean about wanting to throw everything at it for the final stretch. As your son got through GSCE with one day revision, he is a bright boy and just needs a bit of focus (2 days? 😆) to get through the A levels.

Two days is what we're aiming at for his first history paper - total nightmare. I think he's pushed it too far and it's unachievable based on what he's saying. I'm finding it all quite heartbreaking as he's actually got into the stride of revising (literally two weeks ago) but just far too late.

@Maplewood6 my heart goes out to your ds. Two days is better than nothing. Every minute I crammed before an exam still helped.

There are gaps between the papers that your ds can use to revise and more than one paper for each subject. He can still make up ground.

Wishing him focus and resilience ❤

Thanks blueshoes. Yes, I'm pinning a lot on the gap he has between exams so still hoping he can turn it around at least a bit (I'm also doing that serenity prayer - trying to accept what I can't change - and just accept it) It's all a v painful watch rhtough. Like your son, he's at a private school so the gulf between where we're at compared to his friends adds to the pressure/stress. That said, they're all going to uni and he's not. I do hope things are going well your end and that some of the advice you go on here worked. All the best to your son in his exams - and to you being by his side. X