NEURODIVERSITY: UNIVERSITY TRANSITION

My ADHD Son Has Left the Nest — But Is He Flying or Falling?

Why can’t he master this one crucial skill?

Photo by Husam El Haq on Unsplash

Last September, I left my teenage son in a cramped room in an unfamiliar city, with a rucksack full of his things and the hope that he’d work out how to survive.

It’s a stressful moment for any parent, but for those with neurodiverse kids, it’s especially nerve-wracking. My son has ADHD and dyspraxia. He frequently can’t navigate his way around his hometown, hold on to his wallet and keys, or even find his shoes to get out the door.

Bittersweet beginnings

But there was joy mixed in with the pain.

It felt like the parental finish flag, the culmination of all those days, months and years of coaching, advocating, training and encouraging. The transformation of that helpless baby into a young adult who can do everything you used to do for him, and so much more.

Neurodiversity can make that journey longer and more convoluted, but possibly more rewarding too.

A winding road

My son always found life skills hard to master. When he learned to swim, both ends tried to go in different directions. Numerous swimming teachers gave up on him, until one recognised dyspraxia and helped him co-ordinate his limbs to stay afloat.

He is a pressure cooker of energy and can’t sit still for long without jumping around like a frog on a hot plate, which made school, meetings, and even meals borderline unmanageable.

Although he made friends, he also found himself on the pointy end of people who got their kicks by targeting anyone different – every school has its share of those.

Finding his wings

But in one domain he went further and faster than all of his peers. He built his own computer at age 13, coded his first game a couple of years later, then aced his maths and computing exams.

He had discovered the wings with which he could navigate the world.

When I left him at university last September, those wings were put to the test.

Almost a year after his launch — has he flown or fallen?

A promising take-off

Initially, things seemed to go well…

He made it to most of his lectures (not usually more than 5 minutes late, he reassured me). The only lectures he didn’t understand were the ones he turned up to by mistake.

He made a group of friends and organised a house for next year (or his friends organised it, but he’ll take the win).

He remembered to attend all of his exams. He turned up halfway through one but nailed it in the time he had left.

What worries me is what happened after the exams were over.

One missing skill

At the end of the last term, students have weeks of supposedly unstructured fun, but here my son’s progress stalled.

He lapsed, not like most students, into debauchery, but instead into boredom. Once the pressure was off and the lectures over, he didn’t know what to do. His friends are fellow introverts. Kids who have the collective brainpower to light up a small planet but who couldn’t seem to work out what party time is for.

He didn’t go to balls, pubs, picnics, or take a boat out on the river. Instead, he stayed in his room, curtains closed, playing on his computer, then leaping around to work off his energy like a kangaroo kept in a broom closet.

He left his room for meals, but not much more.

When I picked him up, I asked him why he hadn’t carried on with structured activities like sport and music.

‘I didn’t know what day of the week it was.’

For weeks, he had been lost in a timeless fog of boredom and computing. He hadn’t been outside, exercised or socialised.

So should I worry?

The final reckoning

He got fantastic grades in all his exams (despite the late arrival).

He was physically safe. What’s he going to do? Hit his head on the ceiling?

But mentally?

‘I’m fine!’ he said, and I’m inclined to believe him.

So what am I worried about?

I thought of my own college days.

Scaling the college wall in an evening dress with five litres of cider tucked under my arm. Speed eating cream eggs in front of a cheering crowd to get into a sports club. Cycling into a lamppost after a drunken night out.

I realise most of my ‘fun’ recollections involved alcohol, but my son, like a third of young poeple his age, doesn’t drink.

Although catalysed by excessive amounts of alcohol, my memories are probably also blurred by it (and who knows how many have been wiped out entirely).

Before my son’s A’ levels, a friend reminded me, ‘This is not your mountain to climb.’ A good thing too. Whilst he scaled the maths and computing peaks, I wouldn’t have made it out of base camp.

I could give him plenty of tips on partying though.

But this is his university experience. These are his friends, his memories; they don’t need to be like mine. I can’t teach him to enjoy tequila shots any more than he could teach me algebraic equations. I’ve never played a computer game, and maybe that’s more fun than dancing on tables in a bar.

I know that social experience is more tiring for those with neurodiversity, so after the stress of exams, maybe some kids want to retreat to their rooms and recover.

But he does like outdoor activities such as skiing, walking, wildlife and sport. I worry that the executive dysfunction from his ADHD means he can’t organise himself into a good time.

He’ll do it his way

At the end of the day, he’s nineteen. He has to pay for his own dentist bills and eye tests. He can get married and buy a house (if he can ever afford one). His version of fun might be different to mine, and that’s OK. Just as he’s managed his academic course, maybe he’ll work out how to find his way to activities he enjoys. Or perhaps they’re all in his room anyway.

I’ve now realised there is no parental finish flag. Questioning whether kids are OK goes on long after they’ve paid their first rent bill and set up a house with friends. But our influence fades, and it’s over to the kids to work out whether they have a problem and, if so, how to solve it.

All I can do is watch him spread his unusually shaped wings, and hope they catch the wind and take him where he wants to go.