Jeni Bridges knows what it takes to get through college with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. After all, she had nine years to practice.
Bridges says it took her that long to get her degree because she wasn't sure what she wanted to do when she grew up. She would impulsively switch majors, even schools, to indulge her latest passion. That's classic ADHD behavior, guidance counselors say.
Nearly 10% of young people in the USA have been diagnosed with ADHD at some point in their lives. And although some grow out of it, most don't, leaving more and more teens with labels and struggles unknown in their parents' generation.
Some flounder in college when Mom, Dad and homeroom teachers aren't there to offer support, and haphazard course schedules don't provide the structure of high school.
It's important for parents and other adults to take ADHD seriously, says Stephen Hinshaw, a psychology professor at the University of California-Berkeley, whose recent study found that girls with ADHD are more likely to attempt suicide or injure themselves than girls without it.
But figuring out how to best help those teens can be tricky, say counselors, psychiatrists and adults with ADHD, because everyone's situation and form of ADHD is different.
There are certain common threads: adequate preparation, getting the right accommodations and being on the appropriate treatment, they add.
Bridges, of Grapevine, Texas, says her own parents did lots of things right. "They did not let me use my ADHD as an excuse," she says. They said that having it "means you have to work harder, but it doesn't mean you can't achieve what you want to."
But she says they also could have been more sensitive to her needs. They often got upset because her room was a mess -- a battle she says wasn't worth fighting. And they encouraged her to take a reduced course load in her first semester of college, which provided too little structure.
Several experts say it's important for students to figure out what works for them. And it's a good idea to start training teens to do this years before they're ready to leave home.
"Let them practice living independently before college: getting up and going to bed on their own, scheduling their daily tasks and keeping their own appointments," says Jamie Davidson, a psychologist and associate vice president for student wellness at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.
It can be frustrating for parents to be suddenly cut off when their child is at college. But parents still play a key role in monitoring, staying in touch and calling attention to small problems before they become big ones.
"Parents have to find the right balance," says physician Ralph Manchester, director of the University Health Service at the University of Rochester (N.Y.), where roughly 5% of students take prescription ADHD medicines. Demand for counseling has jumped 45% in the past five years.
Colleges can't monitor whether kids take their medications, says Jennifer Haubenreiser, president of the American College Health Association, and sometimes students share -- others think it helps them concentrate, but no data show that it does.
That's why patients should keep their ADHD diagnosis and medication status to themselves, "so that at finals time, no one comes around looking for it," says psychiatrist Craig Surman, an adult ADHD expert at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Now, heading into another year of teaching third-graders, Bridges says she's happy with her life and her ADHD. "It gives me my creativity, my spunk definitely my patience."
And she's grateful for the meandering she did in college: "I went on this incredible journey and found myself, and what I'm meant to do."
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