ADHD Teens: Help for School and Social Skills Difficulties

Time Management

1. Make a schedule of your day: what time you go to school, what time you arrive home, how long it takes you to complete your homework, household chores and work hours. From there you can determine how much free time you have and schedule your day so that everything can be completed.
2. Make a list of things you want to do. When you find yourself sitting and watching TV for hours or just doing nothing and being bored, use your list to change your time into productive time.
3. Set goals for what you want to accomplish. Make your goals specific. For example, "I want to make some money" is not a goal, "I want to make $50.00 to buy a new pair of shoes" is a goal. It is much easier to reach a goal when you have something specific in mind.
4. Divide your daily activities into categories and decide on the priority of each category.
   Completing homework is a priority, getting exercised is a priority. Hanging out at the mall is not. Set your activities based on their priority.
5. Set time limits for yourself. If you need to complete household chores, set a time limit and then work to complete them within the time limits.
6. Use a date book or a PDA to help you keep track of your responsibilities and plan your days based on what needs to be accomplished. Doing this will allow plenty of time to do what you want to do.
7. Keep as much routine as possible in your day. Knowing what you need to do and when you need to do it will help you to accomplish more.
8. Keep supplies for your chores or homework in one place. Having to reorganize yourself each day can waste much time. Keeping supplies in place will help you to accomplish the task quickly.
9. Don't procrastinate. Procrastination causes wasted time.
10. Take the time to complete a task correctly the first time. Having to redo your work over again can waste time.

School

1. If you have a study hall available to you during one class period or after school, use it and take advantage of a quiet time to study and complete homework. If you are in a classroom full of students completing work, you might go along and complete yours as well.
2. Take notes during class. This can help to keep you focused on the material being taught.
3. Use your assignment book to keep lists of things to do. Don't make lists on scraps of paper or you may end up losing them or forgetting about them. Get into the habit of completing a list of things to do each evening for what you want to accomplish the next day.
4. Talk to your teachers about your ADHD and how it affects your work. Ask for their assistance in areas you are experiencing problems. They will be more willing to help if they understand that you are trying to overcome rather than making excuses.
5. Sit in front of the classroom
   This will help you to focus on the lesson and will enable you to pay attention and will minimize distractions.
6. Be prepared. If you are constantly going to class unprepared, buy a box of pens and keep them in your locker. Buy several small pocket size notebooks. Each morning, if you find you don't have a pen and paper, use a small pocket size notebook, and take a pen from your locker.
7. If you end up each day at home without the books needed to complete your assignments, use different methods to remember which books to bring home. One student used different coloured strips of paper for each class and would keep one in each book. If he needed to bring that book home, he would take the paper out and put it in his pocket. At the end of the day, he only needed to check his pocket to see what books to bring home. Another student would write the class on his hand to remember. He wrote M for Math, E for English, etc. While at his locker, he had on his hand what books he had homework in.
8. Find a partner to help you. Find someone you trust and work well with to help you stay focused during the day. Have a secret signal they can give you if they see you have lost your focus.
9. Clean out your locker every Friday. Get into the habit of bringing home all loose papers in your locker each Friday. When you get home you can sort through to see what you need and organize the papers. Having a clean locker will help you to stay organized and be prepared.
10. Ask the school about bringing home an extra set of books. You will not need to carry your books back and forth and will never forget your books at home or school.

Part of this is from the books by Chris A. Zeigler Dendy: Teenagers with ADD and Teaching Teens with ADD and ADHD.

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