Re: 25 and ready to be diagnosed…..

[purlgurl]

Hi Daniel! Welcome! I am 28, and was diagnosed last summer, and it has changed my life. I am in school (occupational and physiotherapist assistant), and I work as an adapted aquatics instructor at a children’s rehab hospital. As such, I run into a lot of the issues you mention – long-range lesson plans (for the programs I head/lead instruct), day-to-day lesson plans, report cards, and disability reports (our internal documentation).

I’m not going to lie – even though I’m on Ritalin SR, this area isn’t one that I excel in. In fact, I’m just finishing up the week of “report card due dates”, and I only managed to get 1/5 days in on time. I’m very lucky that I’m really good at teaching – it makes my bosses much more tolerant of overdue paperwork – and I’ve been open with them about having ADHD, so they understand that this is a legitimate problem area for me. This was easier when I wasn’t in school too (or was bombing at school, which amounted to the same thing – more time for report cards), but as this is going to be the next few years of my life, I’m working on it.

What helps me is having a friend (volunteer ADD coach) who tries to help me stay on-track/kicks my butt when I’m not doing what I need to do. Also, I’ve asked my bosses to help me set mini-deadlines for things, so that I’m not just focused on the big deadlines. Lesson planning has become easier over the years – how long have you been teaching? I’ve been in this field for ~4 1/2 years, and the lesson plans that used to take an entire (painful) evening to create now take only a few minutes (I’m sure the Ritalin helps with that too).

I am eager to hear ideas from anyone else who chimes in on this thread!

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