Written by Claire Pech, Careers Advisor and Amanda Krulis, Organisational Psychologist
Career planning is a difficult challenge for anyone. It is especially difficult for young adults who are often not clear on what they want to do and it is even more difficult for young adults with ADHD. Career planning involves many skills that require exceptional executive functioning. These include planning, prioritising, problem solving, imaging the future, maintaining motivation, emotional regulation and self-awareness. People with ADHD often have executive functioning deficits, making the process of career planning seem overwhelming.
As a result of these executive functioning deficits, students with ADHD often have additional support provided by family, friends and the school. Those in support roles can also feel anxious about year 12 and concerned about how their person is going to manage.
The most important thing parents can do in this role is to primarily understand the difficulties that their loved one is going through. The good news is that there are effective workarounds and solutions. Outlined below is a brief summary of some of the common challenges we see, as well as explanations for the challenge. In our webinar event on 18 and 27 February, we will talk in more detail about the solutions to these problems.
Common Challenges |
Career Action Planning There are so many decisions that need to be made for a student to plan for their future. Every decision has implications which need to be thoroughly thought through. This is a daunting process which is often not seen as fun or exciting. Kids with ADHD will often procrastinate and lack proactivity in the process. |
Prioritising With so many tasks to get through and additional admin, Year 12 students need to be organised, requiring ruthless prioritisation. Now, imagine trying to determine your most urgent and important task, when you can’t effectively keep track of your thoughts, you can’t inhibit irrelevant information very well and you have trouble sequencing. |
Meeting Deadlines Procrastination is common for students with ADHD, especially for tasks that feel uninteresting. This is often mistaken for laziness, but is more about the brain’s need for urgency or a dopamine-driven “spark” to initiate action. Very often it isn’t that the student is wasting time, but more so, that they are stuck and have no idea where or how to begin the process. |
Sense of SelfMany students with ADHD have found school to be a challenge. This can impact their vision for the future and their ability to have a positive sense of self efficacy. We know from research that this self-efficacy is essential for a positive view of the future. Being able to work on this with students, can be critical to set them up for success for the future. |
We will be exploring all of these areas and more at our webinar event in February, which we are running twice. Our main aim is to educate parents on what ADHD is and isn’t, how they can best support their Year 12 student in this critical year, areas to be aware of, and a range of other important tips for mapping out the year ahead. Most importantly we want to be of value and service to those with ADHD, to make their lives a little easier and to set them up well for the road ahead.
Tickets for our event can be found here: https://events.humanitix.com/year12-and-beyond-with-adhd
Event details
Tuesday 18 February, 7pm – 8:15pm AEDT
Thursday 27 February, 7pm – 8:15pm AEDT