Stop Trying Harder and Try Differently
As school-based professionals, it’s easy to fall into the habit of expecting every student to fit into a one-size-fits-all solution. Disorganized and forgetful? The typical advice is to “just use a planner.”
However, students with ADHD don’t have neurotypical minds, and trying to force them into neurotypical methods often leads to frustration and failure.
The deficit model, which focuses on weaknesses and tries to make students more neurotypical, simply doesn’t work for ADHD learners. Instead, it’s time to embrace an individualized, strength-based, neurodiverse-affirming approach that celebrates each student’s unique abilities and interests without invalidating their struggles. Let’s empower students to embrace their differences and focus on trying differently, not harder.
Whether you’re a school-based professional, an ADHD coach, or a parent, using a strength-based approach , tailored to your learner’s strengths is the most effective—and universally applicable—intervention. Below we detail the five simple steps to help your students discover strategies that will help them manage their ADHD.
Five Steps to Managing ADHD in School
Step One : Identify Interests and Likes
The key to managing ADHD in school is to identify what is already working. Start by helping your student identify their interests and likes. Understanding what subjects, topics, or activities naturally engage them provides valuable insights into their intrinsic motivations.
Humans often enjoy the things they are good at. This information can guide the development of personalized learning strategies that align with their strengths.
Surveys and conversations are effective tools for uncovering these preferences.
Step 2: Identify Strengths and Successes
When working with students with ADHD, the key to discovering effective strategies by focusing on what already works well. This is harder than it seems when our brains are hardwired to focus on the negative.
Children with impulsive thoughts and weak working memory due to ADHD are prone to suffer from cognitive distortions of epic proportions. Within the entire school day there may be subjects our students enjoy and are great at. But the wins get buried by a mountain of distorted losses. If five minutes of a seven hour school day did not go well, the whole day is remembered as horrible. This is called all or nothing thinking and despite being disproportionate to reality the student truly experiences it as reality.
To help we use a “ schedule autopsy“. We explicitly break down the week and color code the periods. This visual representation helps us to discover what is currently supporting the student, where breaks may be needed and gives the student proof they at not ” bad” at everything.
Schedule Autopsy: List out all the activities your student participates in during the week into a schedule.
Then color-code the week into 4 categories:
- Red: Stressful or dreaded
- Blue : Boring or un-stimulating
- Green: Good or look forward to it
- Yellow: Meh or neutral
Using powerful questions, we can identify the supportive conditions within the context of the classes/activities.
Ask Powerful Questions
Using powerful questions, we can identify the supportive conditions within the context of the classes/activities. Avoid asking “why” questions, which can make students feel defensive. Instead, ask “how” questions, which encourage curiosity and understanding.
Psychologist David D. Nowell, Ph.D., suggests using the phrase, “How exactly did you do that?” to explore the process that led to success.
“How” questions examine the process, helping students see the steps that lead to an outcome and identify where changes are needed.“
Avoiding “why” questions helps prevent defensiveness and fosters a more constructive conversation.
Examples of Powerful Process Questions:
- Did you enjoy the task? What did you like about it?
- Did you feel challenged? What part of the task was tricky and made you want to try harder?
- Did you feel a sense of competition? If yes, what made you feel like you were competing?
- Was there something new or different? What was it that made it feel new or exciting?
- Were you working with friends? How did working with friends help you stay focused?
- Did you have a deadline or time limit? How did knowing you had to finish by a certain time help you?
Step 3: Discover Supportive Conditions by Documenting the Zone
Being “in the zone” refers to a state of heightened focus and engagement. For those with ADHD it often occurs when they are deeply interested in or intrigued by what they are doing, when tasks are challenging, competitive, or present a novel stimulus.
Using motivation and engagement strategies that we know work for the interest-based nervous system will increase learning, improve classroom behavior, improve classroom management and help to prevent lifelong academic underachievement for children with ADHD.
To determine what conditions trigger you students best focus , track these moments for a week. Enlist the help of teachers and parents to point out in-the-zone moments reflect upon the conditions.
Questions to reflect on:
- What about the task or situation intrigued them?
- Was there a sense of competition or urgency?
- What specific conditions led to success?
- Was the task enjoyable? Challenging? Done with friends or under a deadline?
Step Four: Analyze and Name the Strategies
Now it’s time to use these insights to develop strategies and techniques tailored to their unique ADHD nervous system. Review the collected data with your student to Identify common themes and conditions that led to success.
Using their identified interests, what is already working and conditional triggers , we typically are able to identify over 20 different strategies unique to the student.
Name Them: Naming these strategies gives them immediate value and makes them easier to remember and apply. Assigning names also adds significance and helps create a personalized toolkit for the student.
Example Strategies
- Switch Pencils: When I start to lose focus in class, I switch to a sharper pencil. The new pencil wakes me up and I can keep going.
- The DFC: I never forget what I need for tomorrow because we keep it on the “Do not Forget” chair in the hallway.
- Leave No Trace: When I use the bathroom in my home, the way I remember to shut the light and flush the toilet is by playing spy in my head, wanting to leave no trace of me being there.
- Double Buffers: I know that time gets slippery so I always leave a buffer in my schedule. If I think it will take 5 minutes, I leave 10.
Step 5: Create a Strategy Inventory
The last step is to make an inventory of these strategies to support the students ability to access this information at the point of performance. Your strategy collection method is whatever works best for your student., a deck, a list, a manual . The goal isn’t perfection, but sustainability.
I prefer cards (index or playing card size ) to create a hand held ” Strat Deck” or deck of strategies .
Using cards facilitates easy reference, supports working memory, and reduces overwhelm.
Cards provide the flexibility we need because of one very important guiding rule…..Strategies expire, expect it!
Strategies expire, expect it! : You will discover that strategies that were working at one time for many with ADHD just lose their glimmer and stop.
Instead of trying harder to make that strategy work again, expect it and find another. Effective strategies WILL change over time, so regular review and updates to the deck is essential for sustained success.
If a strategy that worked before does not work now, there are others in deck.
To learn more about STRAT DECK and explore various Strat Deck resources click here.
Stop Judging a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree
The key to helping students with ADHD thrive is to stop expecting them to conform to neurotypical standards. School-based therapists, teachers, coaches, and parents can empower students to identify their own ADHD strategies by identifying strengths, documenting successes, and personalizing interventions.
Empowering your student to discover and name strategies that are already working truly embodies the only one-size-fits-all (but completely individualized) intervention. It empowers your student to stop trying harder and start trying differently.
The Strength-Based ADHD Strategies Pack offers powerful surveys and tools to help identify student interests, strengths, and success patterns. Empower your students by discovering their unique “zone” of focus and engagement, and create personalized strategies that truly work. Perfect for therapists, educators, and coaches, this toolkit is designed to foster growth through a strengths-based approach.
To learn more about STRAT DECK and explore various Strat Deck resources click here.