If you have ADHD or one of your children does, then I don't need to tell you how stressful it is on the family. It started hitting home for us in 4th grade and now Only Son is in 8th grade and it's really hard. In 1996 my co-founder and I were running a Sylvan Learning Center, one of the largest in the U.S. and my co-founder was going crazy with all the disorganized ADHD kids that couldn't get any
thing done. So he makes a planner page in Excel and brings it to me. We saw results. We made a hack website, and took it to a Sylvan Conference in Vancouver and showed it to the VP of Education. She immediately "got it" and we had our first client. The planner went through several changes over the years and in 2008 I bought my partner out and took the planner to market aiming at the college audience. 2008 - 2009 the market crashed and my company along with it. A painful time. Well, it is 7-years later (2016) and the wounds have healed. I started watching my son keep two planners, one for home (evenings and weekends) and one for school. You know already that just getting these kids to write anything down is a challenge, let alone keeping up with it is difficult by itself, but when he did use his school issued planner, there wasn't enough space. Let's face it, these school planners are homework logs not organizers. So I'm railing on him one Saturday for not writing down some commitments he has in his planner and he yells back "there is not enough room!"
That was the turning point. I went to the computer, dug through files and found the original artwork, drove to Kinkos and spent the $45 to have it printed. Brought it home and said "We're back. This is your new planner." If you made it this far and you need help for your ADHD kiddo, then there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This is THE planner that will teach your child how to get organized IF you will make him/her use it. It's not a pill. But it is the platform to start rewiring a brain that lacks the executive function to be organized. You have to make it his life. You have to make it as important as insulin to a diabetic. In time, with some painful consequences and a little bribery from you, he will start to use it to write down what his brain cannot remember. You will have to check it every day, you will have to require it on Saturday and Sunday. You will have to remove privileges if it is not filled out. But you will see improvement. Check out our dated website and you will see that organization and study skills are the number one predictor of academic success. Even over SAT scores. Let us know if you're interested in a planner. We will have fresh inventory soon. Good luck with your student. Hang in there! Clayton & Leticia
