ADHD Teens: Help for School and Social Skills Difficulties

Written by Sarah-Jayne Bass

For ADHD teens, here are tips on bettering social skills, plus dealing with school, homework and time management problems.

Being a teenager is tough enough, but being a teenager with ADHD can cause many more difficulties. For teens, being one of the crowd and fitting in is very important. Feeling different can be painful. When you reach the teen years, you also want to start showing your independence and begin to solve your own problems. These tips can help you to begin to find solutions to many of the common difficulties teens with ADD/ADHD seem to experience.

These tips can help you to begin to find solutions to many of the common difficulties teens with ADD/ADHD seem to experience.

Social Skills Tips

1. Let your friends know you have ADHD. Although it might be embarrassing to tell them, it might be less embarrassing in the long run if you forget important details, are always running late or feel you need to explain or cover up for forgetfulness.
2. If you have a difficult time expressing your feelings or ideas, ask family members to help you practice. Try reading a passage from a book and take turns summarizing what you read as well as discussing what you think about it. This will help you practice your own skills as well as observe how others communicate.
3. Join clubs or after school activities. The more people you are around, the more practice you will have in talking with peers as well as adults.
4. Ask questions. When trying to talk with someone, ask questions to find out what they are interested in.
5. If you have a difficult time reading people's expressions and body language, ask for help with other members of your family. Although it sounds corny, role playing and acting out different situations and discussing them can help you be prepared when different situations come up.
6. Learn relaxation and deep breathing techniques to help relieve the anxiety that may be present in social situations. Use these techniques to keep yourself calm and take a moment to focus on what you want to say.
7. Ask people to repeat what they have said if you forget. It is better to ask them to repeat it than answer a question that is irrelevant to the conversation.
8. Ask questions during a conversation, the more interaction, the more you will stay interested and focused.
9. Respect other's space. Don't stand too close to them that they feel closed in and don't stand so far away they feel you are avoiding them.
10. Use frequent eye contact during conversations.

Homework Skills

1. Try to complete your homework in daylight hours. Some studies indicate it takes longer to complete the same task at nighttime.
2. Create flashcards for yourself when studying for a test. These allow you to break down information into small segments easily.
3. Use an assignment book. Don't rely on your memory to keep track of what you need to remember. You can also try using a pocket size tape recorder (you might need to get permission from the school to use this) and you can speak your assignments and what you need to remember. You can also use this at home to record what you need to remember to do in school the next day.
4. Create a space for yourself to complete your homework. Keep this area as clutter free as possible and have supplies, such as pencils, pens, and paper, readily available.
   Ask your family to respect your homework space and not take supplies or move items around so that you are not using homework time to reorganize yourself each day.
5. Use a cardboard box to keep all your loose papers in. Each day when you do your homework, empty your books, backpack, pockets, etc. of loose papers and add them to the box. When you need old papers for school, you will know exactly where to find them.
6. For long term projects, break down into small chunks and make a schedule for completing each item. Keep your schedule on the wall of your homework area (use a white board or bulletin board on the wall) so that each day you can see what needs to be completed toward your project.
7. Complete the hardest homework, or the subject you dislike the most first and get it out of the way. If you save this for last you could drag out the rest of your homework in order to delay it.
8. Keep a list of classmates and their phone numbers in your study area so that you can call if you have forgotten the assignment or have questions about what should be completed.
9. Take a short break every half hour to stretch and then get back to work. Be sure to limit your break time to 5 minutes and make sure you don't start watching TV during the break.
10. When studying for a test, read through the summaries of sections and chapters before reading the chapter itself. This will help you to focus on the main ideas of the chapter.