When young people have to choose an education, there is often one specific piece of advice from family and friends: Choose something you like.
For young people with ADD and ADHD, it is more than just good advice – it is a recommendation, it really makes sense, because although many people with ADD and ADHD naturally complete and certainly also enjoy their studies, this group of young people will experience more than others that the joy of studying disappears to a greater or lesser extent during their studies.
There can be many reasons for this – from the experience of monotony due to a lack of understanding from the study environment to frustration over demands for initiating and maintaining the level of activity.
The Danish Institute of Public Health has conducted a questionnaire survey with 86,000 respondents, where STX (a 3-year upper secondary education), HF (2-year higher preparatory examination) and EUD (vocational training of varying duration) are compared to each other in terms of well-being.
The study, conducted in 2014 and again in 2018, shows that no young person with ADD or ADHD can say they are free from feeling stressed. At the same time, the figures show that girls generally feel more pressured than boys.
One of the most concrete examples of where problems arise is with homework. It is often postponed, and then the pile of assignments that need to be handed in grows, as does the feeling of pressure. A vicious spiral occurs, and studying becomes unmanageable.
The pressure experienced by students with ADD or ADHD is greatest at STX and HF. These are both academic programs, and this can cause problems for this group of young people. People with ADD and ADHD have the challenge that the production of dopamine – the brain's reward chemical, which is triggered by, for example, love, exercise, sex or food – is delayed compared to others. The lack of dopamine production often means that the young person has difficulty starting to do homework, because he or she does not have enough energy to get started on the task. When it so desperately HAS to be solved because the deadline is approaching, it is difficult to maintain concentration, and solving the task takes (too) long. And this pattern contributes to the fact that young people widely lose faith in their own abilities.
A possible explanation for why young people at EUD do not experience the same degree of pressure may be that, in addition to academic subjects, they also have practical elements in their education. This helps with dopamine production and, all else being equal, reduces the feeling of restlessness.
