Hoping from some wisdom from other parents of ADHD teens. DS is 16 and in Year 11. Diagnosed with ADHD at age 13 but not considered severe enough to recommend medication.
For months his bedtime has been a source of friction. He is supposed to be in bed by a certain time, so that he gets at least 8 hours' sleep before he has to get up for school. Without 8 hours' sleep, he finds it really difficult to get up at the right time and is then late for school, can't concentrate in class or take in information etc - and if he's late regularly he gets detentions and I have to field emails from school.
He hasn't managed to get himself to bed at the agreed time since last Christmas. He will pay lip service to the idea that he should be in bed by a certain time, and agrees that life is better when he's had enough sleep, but then goes to bed anything up to an hour later than agreed. I suspect it's partly "can't" (time-blindness/disorganisation) and partly "won't" (he can be quite oppositional and resists anything he sees as being "managed"). I make suggestions about alarms and reminders and he has visual timers but usually refuses to use these sorts of strategies.
We've tried rejigging his evening routine in various ways - supper earlier/later, homework earlier/later, etc and nothing works consistently. We now argue about this most nights and I worry about the toll it's taking on our relationship. Yes, he's 16 and not a small child to be "put to bed", but I don't feel I can just leave him to turn in whenever he gets around to it because it's his GCSE year and he has enough trouble maintaining focus in lessons for his weaker subjects as it is. I also work from home in the evenings and checking whether he's gone to bed, reminding him, keeping him on track means that I can't start work until very late in the evening and then I'm working into the small hours to catch up.
Clearly I'm going wrong somewhere with managing this but I just don't know how to do things any better. (Plus I suspect I have undiagnosed ADD so find it hard enough to keep myself organised, let alone DS as well...).
Does anyone have any advice or suggestions?