As an Occupational Therapist (OT) who loves working with children with ADHD, I frequently encounter a common issue that many parents and teachers struggle with – the inconsistency in your child's performance. Children with ADHD have incredible talents, yet it can be puzzling and sometimes frustrating to see how much their abilities fluctuate.

Interestingly, this inconsistency is actually a hallmark of ADHD. We know that it isn’t a deficit of attention that’s the primary challenge in ADHD, but actually inconsistent attention.

In this post, I will give you some insights into why this happens and offer guidance on how to provide support.

The Homework Challenge: A Familiar Scenario for Parents

Let's dive into a scenario that might resonate with you: your child is often bringing home uncompleted schoolwork, yet when they sit down to do it at home they can complete it in such a short time. You know they have the knowledge to do this work, and feel confused about why they can’t do it during class time like their peers? And why are they able to get the work done in class on some days but not others?

Children with ADHD often have these performance variations in lots of situations, not just homework. It's entirely natural for parents to feel concerned and even frustrated by these fluctuations. But we all know that approaching these situations from a place of frustration will just make things worse. This is where building up understanding is so helpful – it can make it easier to approach these situations with curiosity which supports problem solving, and that’s a big way that positive change happens.

Factors Behind the Fluctuations

To understand these fluctuations in your child's performance, it's essential to consider three fundamental factors: the environment, the nature of the task, and your child's current state. By tuning into these elements, you can gain valuable insights into how to best support your child with ADHD.

How the Environment Affects Children with ADHD

Let’s think back to the homework example: Your child may breeze through their assignments one day but find them challenging on another. The environment plays a really important role here. Distractions at home or in the classroom can really impact their concentration.

Children with ADHD face an extra challenge compared to their peers – managing their attention. When they expend energy to filter out distractions, they have fewer mental resources for the task at hand. Furthermore, many children with ADHD also grapple with learning disabilities (like dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia), which can compound the difficulty of homework.

Add to this that there is also typically a time pressure for classroom activities, which can trigger performance anxiety and slow down or freeze-up your child even more!

In an environment with fewer distractions – like the one at home – your child can stop spending so much energy on the extra task of trying to pay attention. This leaves them more energy to actually work through the activity.

The Task's Impact on Performance

Many people with ADHD find it easier to focus on tasks related to topics that interest them. Tasks that have value and meaning give the work purpose. Tasks that are interesting and meaningful are less boring. Neuroscience tells us that when children with ADHD are unmotivated their brain really just doesn’t function as well -- on a literal neurobiological level.

Motivation provides a level of stimulation that ADHD brains need. But we also know that there are lots of times in life when your child will need to participate in things that aren’t inherently motivating. So what then?

Consider a few of these strategies:

Break it Down: Divide complex tasks into smaller, manageable steps.
Goal Setting: Establish clear objectives for each task - make sure the end point is clear.
Structured Timing: Use timers to create structured work intervals and incorporate short breaks.
Rewarding progress: Offer rewards or incentives for task completion. Note that this doesn’t have to be a tangible reward – oftentimes praise and positive feedback give the dopamine that your child is needing.
Sensory Support: Utilize sensory tools and strategies to help support engagement.
Relatability Matters: Connect tasks to the child's interests or personal experiences.
Choice and Control: Give choices (within predefined boundaries) to empower the child and given them a sense of agency.
Collaborative Approach: Involve the child in problem-solving to make tasks more engaging.

ADHD and your child’s nervous system

Your child’s nervous system state has a lot to do with their performance. If your child has a level of activation that is too high or too low for the task, engaging in the task will be harder. Helping your child develop self-regulation skills, or the ability to manage their nervous system state to make a match to what the activity needs, can help with this.

If your child’s level of activation is not a match for the activity, they are fighting an extra uphill battle to get the work done. At school, this can lead to a triple uphill battle: spending energy to overcome distractions, spending energy to overcome the topics being harder at baseline because of learning challenges, and now spending even more energy because they aren’t revving their engine in their best gear… which just makes everything even harder.

Supporting these self regulation skills takes time and this is often where OT helps. But to start, just notice the times that their level of activation, or nervous system state, is not a match for the activity they’re trying to engage in.

For example, a child with lots of energy (a high level of activation) while trying to do seated work? Not a match. Noticing this might mean that instead you take a movement break, or invite them to complete their work while lying on their belly on the floor, or standing on a wiggle cushion at the counter. Tuning into their state and the demands of the task will help to support this piece.

Navigating ADHD and Providing Support as Parents

As a parent, it can be so helpful to deepen your understanding of what drives these performance gaps. Understanding these pieces can help you to stay curious and to lean into the idea that ‘all kids do well if they can.’

Another important consideration is that many children with ADHD also have other learning challenges at the same time (like dyslexia, dysgraphia, or dyscalculia). This can create additional barriers and really and drive their inconsistent performance because a lack of skill in a given subject, and justified or unjustified low confidence in their own abilities, can also create a barrier: It doesn’t feel good to be bad at something.

Above all, stay curious and try to look for the most generous interpretation. This will help you approach challenging situations from a place of problem solving where you and your child are on the same team working towards the same goals - and this is the best place to start.

With gratitude, I acknowledge the contribution of Student OT Naomi Stager in creating this blog

Shannon Rolph is an Occupational Therapist and a mom to 3 (beautiful, wild, energetic) kids. She wholeheartedly believes 2 things are true: kids are amazing, and parenting can be hard. Shannon shares helpful information and practical strategies with parents and families to support them in finding more ease and joy in their parenting journeys.

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