Remember when your children were little and you assumed that, as they got older, they’d gradually start taking responsibility for their own stuff?
Like remembering their PE kit. Packing their school bag. Keeping track of homework. Knowing where they left their shoes…
And yet, here you are, years later, still reminding them to do all the things you thought they’d be old enough to just get on with by now.
The thing is, in most cases this isn’t simply your ADHD tween or teen being disorganised or lazy. According to clinical psychologist Dr Joshua Muggleton, some children with ADHD genuinely need more support for longer.
And that can run counter to a lot of the advice we’re given as our children get older: stop reminding them, stop rescuing them, let them forget their trainers and get a detention – then they’ll remember next time.
Except, for an ADHD child, it doesn’t necessarily work like that.
If the problem is that they’re still struggling with the executive-function skills needed to remember, plan and organise themselves, experiencing the consequences of forgetting their trainers doesn’t magically give them those skills.
Which means that if we withdraw our support before they’re ready, we may not be teaching them independence at all.
We may simply be setting them up to fail.
Why your older ADHD child still struggles with basic things
Executive functions are the mental skills we use to plan, organise, remember what we need to do and actually get things done – and these are all things people with ADHD can struggle with.
Children with ADHD can also develop some of these skills more slowly than their neurotypical peers, which is why, well into secondary or high school, when other parents might be starting to step back, you can find yourself still very much in charge.
And, rather unhelpfully, this can happen at exactly the point when life starts demanding more of those skills from our kids.
Why secondary school can make everything harder
As your ADHD child gets older, their world becomes increasingly complicated.
More homework.
More teachers.
More logins.
More clubs.
More deadlines.
And suddenly, their school life relies on exactly the executive-function skills they may find hardest.
Which means that rather than needing less help, they might temporarily need more.
So when should you stop doing everything for them?
Of course, the ultimate goal is for our children to become independent – I don’t want to still be checking my daughter has packed everything she needs in her handbag when she’s 20.
But equally, removing support before an ADHD child has the executive-function skills to cope without it doesn’t necessarily teach them to be more independent. Sometimes it just gives them more opportunities to forget things, miss deadlines, get into trouble and feel like they’ve failed.
And the truth is, children with ADHD can already experience an awful lot of those little blows.
The forgotten homework. The missing PE kit. The teacher asking why they haven’t been listening. The thing everyone else seems to have remembered. The constant sense that somehow they should be able to do things that, for them, are genuinely difficult.
Over time, all those seemingly small failures can start to affect how a child sees themselves.
Which is why I think giving our ADHD children the support they need for longer isn’t necessarily holding them back. Sometimes it’s about protecting their confidence while the skills they need to become more independent are still developing.
Of course, that doesn’t mean doing everything for them forever. We can gradually step back, hand over responsibility and help them find their own ways of remembering and organising themselves as they’re ready.
But I’m increasingly convinced that independence doesn’t come from repeatedly letting a child fail at something their brain isn’t yet equipped to manage.
Sometimes the best way to help them stand on their own two feet later is to give them a little more support now.
If you’re trying to work out how much support your older ADHD child still needs, I go into much more detail in ADHD Mum, ADHD Kid about executive-function struggles as children get older, and practical ways to help them remember, organise themselves and gradually take on more responsibility without simply leaving them to sink or swim.
