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A young person can be forgiven for feeling out of control when everything—their body, brain, hormones, interests, perspectives, identity, and relationships—are all changing. The people around them are changing, too, in their expectations and interactions. This period is more fraught, more challenging, and more dangerous for kids with special needs like ADHD.

Early Adolescence: Intense Brain-Building

Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist specializing in adolescence, describes the period from 11 to 14 as the “age of opportunity,” a time when so much can go so wrong, but also a time of great possibility, a time when a young person can find and develop strengths that will help them thrive into adulthood. It’s a time of intense brain-building, with all of the vulnerabilities and possibilities that that suggests.

Steinberg writes about early adolescence as a time when brain plasticity is heightened, second only to early childhood in opportunities for developing good (or bad) habits, and a critically important time for strengthening skills, resilience, and emotion regulation.

The Age of Vulnerability

Early adolescence is a time for your child to consolidate their ability to monitor and regulate their emotions and behavior. As true as that is for all kids, it’s absolutely essential—and terribly difficult—if your child has ADHD. Given their distractibility, need for stimulation, and problems with impulse control, they’re more likely to be interested in drugs and alcohol and befriend older kids engaged in high-risk activities.

Because kids with ADHD usually need more structure and scaffolding than others, their academic frustrations can increase as they move into higher grades where the expectations are higher but the support is lower.

As kids with ADHD move into early adolescence, they can feel increasingly ignored or rejected by other kids, acting impulsively or in ways that others find intrusive or emotionally excessive. At an age when friendships matter enormously, this can result in social isolation, a retreat into the virtual world, or spending time with troubled kids because they’re the only ones who accept them.

Parenting Challenges Intensify

As your child moves into early adolescence, they can appear to need you less. They can actively reject your requests and demands or your invitations to spend time together. But don’t fall into the trap of taking it personally, and don’t be fooled by it. They need you just as much as ever, but what they need is different than what they needed when they were younger.

What can you do to help your child find opportunities in the challenges?

1. Take good care of yourself. Practice breathing techniques and other habits that support your mindfulness and good health. You’ll be better at managing your own stress, and you’ll provide your child with a better model of coping with life’s challenges.

2. Be present. Do your best to be openly available for relaxed conversation whenever you’re in the presence of your child. Whenever possible, set aside your phone and pay attention to their mental state. Be warm, welcoming, and positive. Don’t judge or criticize. Your being patiently available at the right moment can make the difference between a good decision and a dangerous one.

3. Take your child’s friendship concerns seriously. Their worries might seem trivial or fleeting, but being liked and accepted by their peers is one of the most urgently important dimensions of your child’s life right now and one of the areas most likely to trouble them. Support them in figuring out how to solve the problems of the day.

4. Encourage and facilitate healthy social activities. Sports, choirs, clubs, and other extracurricular activities can provide social opportunities in a structured environment. This is true for all kids, but it is especially important for an early adolescent with ADHD. It can help with social connection, the need for structure, and emotion regulation.

5. Include your child in a network of social support. Having a strong network of social support can prevent the social isolation and loneliness that can be dangerous at this stage. Your child will benefit enormously from feeling part of a rich network of warm and caring people—adult friends, relatives, and neighbors—and so will you.

6. Actively support your child’s coping skills. Depending on how impetuous or volatile your child is, they might benefit from having a tutor or counselor to help them develop and strengthen their coping skills. Strong emotion regulation skills can make a difference in the trajectory of their life going forward and will become critically important when they start to drive.

7. Talk with your child about risky behavior. Talk openly with them—thoughtfully and respectfully—about the serious problems associated with substance abuse, sexual activity, vandalism, and other risky behavior. Let them know you have rules and expectations but that you’re open to talking if they run into issues.

8. Minimize the rules. Make rules only when necessary for your child’s protection or your sanity. You don’t want to spend valuable time and parenting capital enforcing the rules you make.

9. Welcome power issues and conflict. You’re a good parent if you find yourself arguing frequently with your teenager, as long as there’s also love, warmth, and good humor in your relationship. A hot debate is a great way for your teenager to discover what you care about and why it’s worth caring about.

10. Be open to non-academic learning opportunities. School can feel irrelevant to an early adolescent. Education does matter—and it’s important your child knows you believe that—but figuring out who they are and feeling good about that is a lot more important at this stage. Everything else builds on this going forward.

11. Work on balance. Encourage good habits of sleep, nutrition, outdoor time, social interactions, and pleasurable activities, along with all the responsibilities of home and school. Keep technology use to a minimum.

12. Stay connected to your child’s best self. Your early adolescent is changing quickly and will try on a series of different identities, some of which you won’t like very much and some of which they might not like very much, either. By believing in what’s best in them and seeing past the clothes and attitudes of the current phase, you can help them make good decisions in the long run.