Your ADHD medication helps with focus and impulsitivity — but you still struggle with time management, organization, and self-esteem. Could an ADHD coach be the solution you need? Read on to research the pros and cons of coaching.

What Is an ADHD Coach?

An ADHD coach is a “life coach” specifically trained to help adults (and teens and kids) with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) better manage their lives.

For example, perhaps you want to switch jobs or stop chronic disorganization and lateness, which have been hurting your marriage. Or perhaps your child needs help with completing the piles of homework he gets, now that he’s in middle school. Or maybe you’re looking to better yourself all around — in areas like physical fitness, emotional growth, social skills, financial planning, and the workplace — and need guided motivation.

The solution, in each case, may be to team up with an ADHD coach.

What Can Coaches Do for People With ADHD?

A good coach can lead you to your goals by helping you develop

• planning and management skills
• healthier self-esteem and relationships
• clearer judgement
• self-motivation
• time management skills
• a greater sense of self-efficacy

The key, of course, is finding the right one. “You need to be an educated consumer,” says Harold Meyer, co-founder of Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), of New York City, and The ADD Resource Center. “You should know what you want to change in your life and whether a particular coach can help you make the change.”

While a prospective ADHD coach should have experience working with clients and knowledge of the condition, the chemistry between the two of you determines success.

“One coach might have the ability to motivate you, while another will leave you frustrated,” says Meyer.

“Many clients walk into a coach’s office expecting one thing and getting another,” says Dee Crane, S.C.A.C., A.C.C. “Remember that ADHD coaches aren’t therapists, medical experts, or mentors. They help you achieve specific goals. If you only want to talk about how your parents didn’t understand you, a psychiatrist is a better bet.”

Similarly, Sandy Maynard, an ADHD coach, says coaching is proactive, and doesn’t necessarily deal with psychological issues. “Psychotherapy deals with healing psychological issues and is generally long term and intensive dealing with inter and intra personal issues as well as cognitive and behavioral development,” she said. “The focus is often on past history and how it relates to that individual’s development.”

One mistake clients sometimes make is hiring a coach who doesn’t specialize in ADHD. “They don’t realize that strategies that work for clients without ADHD often don’t work for people with ADHD, whose brains are wired differently,” says ADHD coach Michele Novotni, Ph.D., S.C.A.C., coauthor of What Does Everyone Else Know That I Don’t?(#CommissionsEarned)

What Happens After Finding an ADHD Coach?

After you’ve signed and returned the agreement, you and the coach will schedule your first session — on the telephone, by webcam, or in person. Expect the first meeting — called an “intake” or “foundation” session — to take longer (between one and two hours) than the ones that will follow because the coach will want to get to know you.

They will ask questions like:

• What strategies are working for you?
• What do you think are your biggest problems?
• What would you like to accomplish?
• Why do you think you need a coach?

During the first session, tell the coach specifically what issue you want to address, and, along with the coach, plot the steps to achieve this. The coach will assign you homework, and subsequent sessions will often begin with a review of the assignment.

Says Wright: “Coaches may ask, ‘What did you get done that you planned to get done? What didn’t you get done? Did anything come up that derailed you, or presented a major problem? What strategies might we try to sidestep the problem? Is there anything in particular you’d like to work on today?'”

Doing homework is critical to making progress. “Coaching is a partnership, but the client is in charge,” says Novotni. “Coaches are not there to nag. We’re there for support, to ask questions that get people thinking about whether certain strategies work.” If they don’t work, it’s the coach’s job to suggest others.

Clients should be clear about the kind of support they want — having the coach call or e-mail them between sessions to troubleshoot, or to reserve discussion of problems for the next session.

A coach should cheer your successes and tweak those strategies that didn’t work. “Sometimes the same goals will remain on the to-do list for weeks,” says Wright. “In such cases, the coach might say, ‘Why isn’t this one moving? Is it not that important to you? What’s getting in the way?’ The coach monitors your progress and fine-tunes strategies until you get results.” If you feel that the strategies they are suggesting aren’t working, ask them to come up with new ones.

Making Progress — or Not

You should see small improvements — whether in controlling clutter on your desk or your child’s finishing his homework in a tough subject a little quicker — after the first session.

Improvement should continue during the first month, but clients’ interest and resolve often lag around the fifth week. “This is a pattern that many clients experience,” says Wright. “Change doesn’t seem as exciting after the first month. I warn my clients that this will happen, and that this doesn’t mean they’re not succeeding.”

But what if you don’t make progress — or you stop clicking with the coach? A good coach, experts say, will probably notice the problem before you do, and will gladly discuss how to proceed. The coaching relationship is most effective when you honestly feel that a coach has your best interest at heart and sees you as more than a paycheck. If, however, your coach has exhausted her strategies and you are no closer to achieving your goal, find another professional.

“I worked with a woman for three months on her goal of succeeding in her job,” says Novotni. “After trying several strategies, it felt as if we were putting a square peg into a round hole. So she changed goals — she wanted a new job that suited her strengths — and now she’s elated.”

The coach should give you a plan at each session, and provide perspective on mistakes you may have made. “Sometimes clients come in feeling demoralized, and they say, ‘I had a bad week. It didn’t work. I said something stupid,'” says Wright.

“A good coach should put those feelings in perspective — called ‘normalizing’ and ‘endorsing’ — by focusing on what you did accomplish.” It’s important to remember that if a coach bad-mouths you at any point, you need to call him on it or find a new coach.

Crane and other coaching experts say that a good gauge of progress is when you start solving problems that used to overwhelm you. “The coach isn’t there to fix you, because you’re not broken. She’s there to empower you to achieve your goals,” says Crane.

Winding Down

Sessions are usually weekly for the first three to six months. When you and the coach finally identify the strategies for achieving your goals, sessions are often cut back to bi-weekly or even monthly.

In most cases, coaching isn’t a long-term commitment. Once you’ve internalized the strategies, regular sessions become unnecessary, although most coaches are willing to be called for “tune-ups.” As new life stages or new challenges crop up, a client might come back and say, “Hey, my first child is getting married. I’m not sure how to meet the challenges,” says Crane, “I’ve coached some clients for six or seven years, seeing them every six months.

Coaching becomes a tool, a resource. The real goal of coaching is to change how you perceive yourself and, ultimately, teach you how to coach yourself. As a client, you should expect nothing less.”

Source: Additude Mag.