I think it's great that your child with ADHD has made it to college!!!! My son dropped out at 10th grade, basically. Just refused to do the work!!

You can't MAKE them take the meds. And at some point they have to take responsibility for their own lives. ADHD and all.

"Train up a child in the way he should go....."

You taught him/her the best you knew how.....now it's their turn to learn to live with the lot they've been given. God bless!

I wish I could say I've been through this but I haven't yet. I have a 17 year old son who sounds a lot like your daughter. He has been formally diagnosed and does take medication but I know as soon as he's on his own he'll stop. The grades have been a nightmare. He still has his senior year to get through but I worry a lot about what happens after that.

Granted things can change over the course of the school year but for now I've come to the conclusion that my son simply isn't ready for a four year college. What's more, I'm not ready to spend a small fortune on tuition and have him wipe out. He may go to a community college or he may pursue a trade school. Either of those options is fine with me.

Depending on where you live I know there are counselors who specialize in helping kids with ADHD move on to college but from what I've seen these tend to be kids who look much more ready and much more mature than my son is.

I have found it difficult to find parents of older ADHD kids here and it is nice to hear from someone else.

I also have a 17 year old son who is very immature and my guess will not be ready for college. We're not sure that my 18 year old daughter is really ready either. We've typed up some "college agreements" with her that we'll help her with a small amount of finances only if she helps with tuition and comes through with the grades. If she does not do this, she will be on her own. With my daughter we have to put things in writing because she is big on saying that we never told her something, blah blah blah -- so we've learned to type things up and I email things to her because she'll read her email. Sounds like a weird way of parenting but with technology today, this seems to work with my daughter. Anyway, back to my son. He is getting ready to go into the 11th grade. He has an IEP but doesn't want the help. He failed Geometry last year and will have to retake it this year. He is very very immature for his age. I would guess he thinks and acts more like a 12-13 year old. All of his friends are driving now but he doesn't seem to have a desire to do so. He has his learners but just sort of stopped asking to go driving. He is into his PSP computer gaming right now and that seems to be all he wants to do. He tends to quit things very easily and won't stick with anything. He had no desire to get a job this summer and did nothing but lay around and play his PSP and watch TV all day. We're afraid where this might lead as he gets older. My husband and I have decided that we will not let him graduate from school and lay around the house with no job or goals. He will have to live somewhere else. We have two more school years to get him through so we're praying that he'll make a turn and wake up and live his life. I know it's hard for ADHD kids to see their future and he definitely has problems with this. The teachers started in 10th grade talking about careers and going on field trips and he just kept saying he didn't know what he wanted to do. I too worry a lot about what will happen with our son after graduation. We kept hoping things would change with our daughter in her senior year and they never did for her. She still was fooling around in school, pulling D's and F's, not turning in work and lying to teachers. We had so hoped that she would outgrow all of this foolishness but she didn't. So going off to college really scares us that she will still not do her work and will be unorganized with assignments. She hasn't accepted any help from anyone in the past when we tried. So we don't know if she'll accept help at college. That's why we put things in writing with her on what we will help her with and if she doesn't pull her end of the bargain, than financially we'll have to step back. Thanks for writing. I am new to this group and it did seem like most of the children were younger. Maybe the parents with younger children can learn from us with older children that have been through our ups and downs with ADHD.

Have any of you considered alternatives? Like apprenticeships? Many of these kids are great with their hands and make great apprentices. But I'll caution you, you have to find someone who is willing to take the time and effort to work with them. That is hard to find these days. But there are apprenticeships out there if you look around - check with your school's guidance counselor, post on local bulletin boards, etc.

Trade schools are also a great alternative. There are also schools now where they earn an associates degree but it is all transferable if they decide to go on for their bachelor's. In these ways the initial output is smaller until they make up their mind for sure what they are meant to do.