13yo doesn’t want accommodations
My son is almost 13 and just started 8th grade. He was diagnosed with ADHD (mixed presentation) over the summer and I’m trying to begin the 504 process to get him accommodations.
The team that evaluated him provided a list of accommodations that would likely help him. Stuff like breaking large projects into a smaller series of assignments, taking tests in a distraction-free zone, not having time limits on tests, getting materials from the teacher to supplement note-taking, and that sort of thing. He is extremely resistant to getting accommodations because “he doesn’t need them.”
He started getting into trouble and refusing to do schoolwork around 4th grade. At that time, his teacher suggested he may have autism, which surprised me, because I was never concerned about that. We had him evaluated and they ruled out autism. They said he had some inattentiveness but not rising to the level of ADHD and to return if it became worse.
Cut to 7th grade and he started getting into lots of trouble—for not staying seated and talking all the time despite repeated redirection, for leaving class without permission, for pushing a chair down 3 flights of stairs, for using a classmate’s asthma inhaler to be funny, etc. The only explanations he could ever provide made it sound like he just had no impulse control and never thought stuff through in the least before doing it. That’s what prompted the re-evaluation and diagnosis.
We haven’t gotten much guidance beyond suggested accommodations. No one has suggested medication. I’m just curious how others have helped an older kids come around to accommodations. My son is extremely intelligent but gets Ds and Cs and occasionally a B. He’s an avid reader, extremely creative and talented artist, loves learning instruments, and even does fairly well on standardized tests. I’ve tried explaining that he’s so smart he could easily get straight As and have tons of opportunities before him. That his brain works differently and accommodations would open that door for him.
He is very popular and socially conscious, so I think a part of his resistance is not wanting to seem “different” in front of his peers. I just worry that his getting into trouble will continue to escalate and become more serious stuff. He got suspended four times last year and with one of the incidents, he was extremely close to expulsion (being transferred to the disciplinary campus for our public school system). At the same time, all the accommodations are about academic stuff, which I do think would help, but also doesn’t really address the behavioral stuff.
His dad definitely relates to the stuff our son gets in trouble for, and if he had grown up in the United States and not a developing country, I’m sure he would have gotten an ADHD diagnosis very young. And he did have a lot of behavioral and substance issues as a teen, that he was able to pull himself out of in his 20s and now leads a pretty calm and productive life. I just worry we’re at an age where things could start getting bad and out of control very quickly.