My best Tips for Homeschooling an ADHD child
I’ve been homeschooling since the beginning, and this year I have a semi-independent sixth grader along with three younger children ranging from first grade to preschool. Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the things that have really worked for us.
Homeschooling is hard sometimes. Homeschooling a child with ADHD can be one of the hardest things I have ever done—and also one of the most rewarding. When they have that “aha!” moment, you know that you both earned it.
If you’re considering homeschooling an ADHD kiddo, please know that nothing happens overnight. It takes years of consistency, practice, patience, and pouring your heart into that child to see the results you’re hoping for. It might not happen in the first year, or even the second. But eventually, if you keep at it, they can thrive.
Just because your child struggles with attention or is hyperactive does not mean they aren’t brilliant or gifted in certain areas. What it has meant for us is that we have to carefully consider the environments and methods in which our child will thrive so that we can set him up for success.
I’d like to share some of the things that have worked for us.
Routine
This might strike fear into some hearts. I know homeschoolers have a reputation for being a little loosey-goosey, but let me implore you: if you have an ADHD child who is struggling, consider your routine first.
Are they getting enough sleep? Are they eating regularly and well? These are things you have to stay on top of in addition to the schoolwork.
It is very easy for my child to wake up, start wrestling with their siblings, and suddenly two hours have passed. They haven’t eaten anything, and have no idea where their writing notebook is.
ADHD time blindness is real.
Consider creating a daily or weekly routine with a set of rituals that your child can learn and eventually master on their own. I never thought there would come a point when I wouldn’t have to remind my ADHD kid every single morning about personal hygiene, but through routine, they have learned to manage that part of their life independently.
For schoolwork, this has meant having a consistent schedule. We do math on certain days, writing on other days, history on specific days, and I don’t constantly get creative by adding extra things here or taking things away there.
We stick to the routine.
A routine also helps a child feel more comfortable and secure as they learn to take ownership of their own responsibilities.
Consistency
I am quite sure this idea will be about as popular as the idea of routine, but I can tell you from personal experience that very little in your homeschool can be successful without consistency.
If you want your child to learn something, you have to consistently practice it.
With an ADHD child, you may find yourself practicing the same letter sounds, math facts, or long-division process over and over and over before it finally sticks. It can take what feels like hundreds of repetitions before a skill becomes automatic.
That practice takes time, consistency, patience, and your attention.
Before you become frustrated because they just aren’t getting it—and believe me, I understand that temptation; I have vented to my group chat many times—consider that their brain may simply be wired differently.
They need you to help them be successful, and a consistent routine can give them the structure they need to build those skills.
Don’t expect something to stick the first time.
Be prepared for some skills to take a lot more practice.
Patience
It is absolutely possible for a child with ADHD to thrive academically. It happens all the time. But it requires patience from you, and it also requires teaching them how to develop patience with themselves.
Because practice is often required—and sometimes much more practice is required—you might find yourself saying, “Show your work,” or “Capitalize that proper noun,” so many times that it feels like those are the only words you ever say.
But your patience will pay off.
If you are in the very deepest pit of despair, wondering if you are doing your child a disservice or wondering if you can even homeschool them, I want to tell you:
You can.
It does require patience, though.
Do your best to mask your frustration when a new skill doesn’t click, when you have to remind them for the millionth time to do something, or when they resist your advice and then fail a math quiz because they didn’t want to show their work.
They are children.
What they need from us is patient understanding and as much kindness as we can muster while six people are trying to talk to us at once.
Be an Accountability Partner
As your child gets older, they will, in many ways, need you a little less. That is normal.
But don’t be fooled into thinking they don’t need you at all.
I know from personal experience that sometimes what they need is an accountability partner.
Imagine your child is at a point where they can read independently. In our minds, that means they should be able to look at their assignments, read through them, and complete them independently.
They may even tell you they don’t want or need you because they aren’t a baby anymore.
And they may be right.
But it may also be that they simply need you to be in the room, working alongside them and providing accountability.
The attention difficulties associated with ADHD can make it incredibly difficult to stay focused independently for long periods of time. Sometimes they need your presence to help them stay on task when their attention inevitably wanders.
That is okay.
That is normal.
Just be there for them and offer patient guidance.
Consider a Checklist
From the very beginning, we have had a contentious relationship with school. It is actually better now than it has ever been in our house, but early on, my ADHD kid needed to know exactly what was on the agenda and, specifically, how many tasks they had to complete.
If you are concerned that you aren’t doing enough or wondering how many things your child should be doing each day, I would recommend this as a general guide:
For every year of life, give them that many tasks, plus one.
For example, if your child is 10 years old, you might start with 11 manageable tasks.
You don’t need to do every subject every day, and you absolutely need to consider the age and maturity level of your individual child when creating a schedule.
If they aren’t used to a routine that includes a checklist, start small.
And offer praise as much as possible.
Offer Praise for Every Win
One of the best things we can do as parents is offer praise whenever and wherever we can—as loudly and as often as we can.
We often have to be the ones enforcing the rules, but if your kiddo remembers to brush their teeth without a struggle, starts their own laundry, does their reading before you have to tell them to, or keeps their desk clear of clutter for more than 20 minutes, offer a word of encouragement.
Praise the effort.
It might sound silly, but in order for your child to thrive and develop good habits, they need to understand when they are doing something right.
The best way to make that clear is through sincere praise.
Don’t say it sarcastically. Say it with your whole chest.
It might not seem like much to you, especially when you are managing an entire household, a boatload of kids, and a million other little things. But acknowledging them when they are doing what they need to be doing is also part of our job as parents.
And if you model that kind of encouragement for them, they might surprise you someday when they become the compassionate friends who cheerlead everyone around them.
Timers
Timers are often recommended in the ADHD world, and for good reason. They can be incredibly helpful for transitions and for breaking work into manageable chunks.
But let me offer a little guidance.
Start small. Five or ten minutes can be enough.
One thing a timer can help with is focus. You might set a timer for ten minutes of focused math work. When that time is up, your child gets to do something they enjoy.
Rather than offering a three-minute break, consider giving them roughly as much fun time as they had focused work time.
And, whenever possible, make that fun time physically active.
Let them move. Let them run. Let them wrestle with a sibling. Let them get some of that energy out.
When they’ve had an opportunity to move their bodies, they may be much more prepared to sit down and focus again later.
Don’t Try to Conquer Everything in One Day
If you are building skills, don’t try to make your child practice showing their work, learn a new type of math problem, and master all the grammar rules on the same day.
Pick a focus.
Practice that skill.
Not everything needs to be accomplished in one day. Some skills can wait until tomorrow.
Instead, consider breaking academic tasks into things your child already knows how to do well, along with only one or two things they really need to work on acquiring as new skills.
Give them some wins.
Then work on the hard stuff.
Consider Schooling Year-Round
One of the beautiful things about homeschooling is that you often get to decide what your schedule looks like.
We learned many years ago that taking a long break does not work well for us.
It is simply too difficult to get back into a routine after a few weeks or months away. By the time we return, we can feel like we have lost all the progress we made with our routines and schedules.
For us, this has meant schooling through the summer and keeping our Christmas breaks a little shorter while continuing to read or practice some sort of skill most days.
We definitely don’t overload ourselves on days with camps or enrichment classes. But every school day, Monday through Friday, there is a checklist or schedule that needs to be addressed.
Bedtime is firm.
Wake-up time is firm.
Morning and evening routines stay consistent.
For us, that has also meant that nighttime sports with late practices that interfere with meals are a non-starter.
Nothing—and especially not a sport—is worth disrupting a routine that helps a child who already struggles with organization, attention, and transitions.
Over the last few years, we have allowed more nonacademic opportunities as our child has shown interest in them. But we have been careful to make sure those activities don’t interfere so much with our routines that everything else becomes harder.
And something really encouraging has happened as a result:
Our ADHD kid can now recognize his own capacity.
When he tells me he can’t take on any more “fun extras,” I listen. We pull back a little.
That can be hard, especially when his friends are doing something that sounds like it would be so much fun to add.
But I am incredibly proud that all of the work we have put into routines, schedules, consistency, and independence has paid off enough that he can now recognize his own limits.
That, to me, is success.
You Can Do This
If you are homeschooling an ADHD kiddo and you are exhausted, frustrated, or wondering whether you are doing enough, I hope you know that you are not alone.
It takes time.
It takes consistency.
It takes patience.
And sometimes it takes doing the same thing over and over again until you wonder if you will ever see the other side.
But then one day, they brush their teeth without being reminded.
They finish their reading on their own.
They recognize that they’ve taken on too much.
They solve the math problem they’ve been struggling with for weeks.
They have that “aha!” moment.
And you realize that all those little things you were doing every single day were adding up.
Homeschooling an ADHD child can be incredibly hard. But it can also be incredibly rewarding.
If you have an ADHD kiddo, keep going. Give them structure. Give them consistency. Give them patience. Celebrate every little win.
And if you have tips that have worked for your family, we would love to hear them!
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