Have you ever sat in a classroom, listened to your teacher explain something, and felt like everyone else understood what they were supposed to do except you? Or perhaps you understood the lesson perfectly well, but when it came time to complete the assignment, you couldn't quite work out where to start.
Maybe you've studied really hard for a test, only to sit down and suddenly find that the information you knew yesterday seems to have disappeared.
Perhaps you're the student who's constantly reminded to pay attention, stop daydreaming, get organised or just try a little harder. And perhaps, somewhere along the way, you've started to wonder whether you're simply not as clever as everyone else.
For many students with ADHD and AuDHD, school can be challenging in ways that aren't always obvious to the people around them.
And for those of us who have already finished school, particularly those diagnosed with ADHD or AuDHD later in life, these experiences can stay with us long after we've left the classroom. But here's something I think is really important to understand:
Struggling at school doesn't necessarily mean you lack intelligence. Sometimes, it means the way you're expected to learn doesn't quite match the way your mind works.
Not Every Mind Learns the Same Way
Traditional classrooms generally follow a fairly structured approach to learning. Students are expected to sit and listen, follow instructions, manage their time, remember information, complete assignments and demonstrate what they've learned through tests and assessments. For some students, these expectations are relatively manageable. For others, particularly those with ADHD, ASD (autism) or AuDHD, they can present some very real challenges.
ADHD can affect executive functioning skills such as working memory, attention regulation, organisation, planning and task initiation.
Autism can involve differences in sensory processing, communication, flexibility and the way information is processed.
For someone with AuDHD, the combination of ADHD and autistic traits can create a particularly complex experience.
You might love learning about something that interests you and be able to spend hours exploring it, but find it incredibly difficult to begin an assignment on a topic that doesn't capture your attention. You might understand what your teacher is explaining but struggle to remember all the instructions once you're working independently. Or perhaps you can explain your ideas beautifully in a conversation, but organising those same thoughts into a written response feels almost impossible.
None of these experiences automatically mean you're not intelligent.
They may mean that you process information differently, or that you need different strategies and support to demonstrate what you know. And that's an important distinction.
When You're Trying Harder Than Anyone Realises
One of the things I think can be particularly difficult for neurodivergent students is the feeling that they're putting in so much effort, but it isn't always recognised. Perhaps you spend an entire evening trying to begin your homework, only to find that you've barely written anything. You know the work needs to be done. You understand why it's important. You might even really want to do it. But somehow, getting started feels incredibly difficult.
Or perhaps you're sitting in class trying desperately to concentrate, but you're distracted by conversations around you, the hum of the lights, movement outside the window or the thoughts constantly moving through your mind. By the end of the school day, you're completely exhausted.
From the outside, these experiences might look like procrastination, a lack of motivation or not paying attention. But for some neurodivergent students, they can reflect genuine difficulties with executive functioning, attention regulation or sensory processing, and being repeatedly told to "just try harder" can be frustrating when you already feel as though you're trying as hard as you possibly can.
Sometimes, what you need isn't more effort. Sometimes, what you need is a different approach, a little more understanding or the right support.
Memory and Intelligence Are Not the Same Thing
Have you ever known the answer to something, but the moment someone asks you, your mind goes completely blank? Or perhaps you've forgotten instructions almost immediately after hearing them, even though you were genuinely listening.
Working memory is the ability to temporarily hold and use information in our minds, and it's an area where many people with neurodivergence can experience difficulties. For example, you might be able to understand a mathematical concept but forget one of the steps halfway through solving a problem or you might read a paragraph several times because you've forgotten what you read by the time you reach the end. Most impactfully in secondary school, you might know your subject really well but struggle to recall information during a timed exam.
These experiences can be incredibly frustrating, particularly when your grades don't seem to reflect your understanding. Of course, memory is an important part of learning, but the way we assess that learning doesn't always reflect what a student actually knows or understands. For many neurodivergent students, the pressure of a timed written assessment can create significant anxiety and stress. When we're stressed, our bodies activate a physiological stress response, which can interfere with working memory, information retrieval and our ability to organise our thoughts. A student might have spent hours studying, understand the subject incredibly well and be perfectly capable of explaining it in conversation. Yet, when faced with a timed written exam, they may struggle to recall information, organise their ideas or put their knowledge into words.
The result can be a test paper that suggests very little understanding, when the reality is quite different. If you sat down with that same student and had a conversation about the topic, you might discover that they have a wonderful depth of knowledge that simply wasn't reflected in their written answers.
Sometimes with the school system, what being measured isn't how much a student understands, but how well they can demonstrate that understanding under the particular conditions of an assessment. And for some neurodivergent students, those are two very different things.
“You are more than your school results, your unfinished assignments and the things you find difficult. Your mind has its own way of learning, thinking and understanding the world, and that deserves to be understood, supported and valued.”
Intelligence Comes in Many Forms
When we think about being intelligent, we often think about academic achievement, exam results or IQ scores. But intelligence is much broader than any one measure. It can involve reasoning, recognising patterns, understanding complex information, solving problems, learning from experience and applying knowledge in different situations, and different people have different combinations of abilities and strengths.
One area that's often discussed in relation to ADHD is divergent thinking. Divergent thinking involves exploring multiple ideas, possibilities or solutions rather than working towards one expected answer. Some people with ADHD and AuDHD show strengths in this kind of thinking. They may make unusual connections, approach problems creatively or see possibilities that others haven't considered. Other neurodivergent people may have strengths in analytical thinking, attention to detail, recognising patterns or developing deep knowledge about subjects that interest them. Some may not identify with any of those particular strengths and that's okay too. Not every person with ADHD is creative, and not every ASD person is exceptionally organised or detail-oriented. Every neurodivergent mind is different, with its own combination of strengths, challenges and interests. You don't need to have an extraordinary talent or a particular type of intelligence to be valued and you certainly don't need to excel at everything to be capable.
When School Starts to Affect How You See Yourself
Something that concerns me about the experiences of neurodivergent students is how easily school-related challenges can begin to affect their confidence and sense of self.
When you're constantly reminded about missing assignments, forgotten homework, unfinished work or disappointing grades, it's easy to start believing those things say something about who you are.
You might begin thinking:
"Why can everyone else do this when I can't?"
"Maybe I'm just lazy."
"I'm not smart enough."
"I'm always getting things wrong."
And over time, these thoughts can become part of how you see yourself.
For students who are currently navigating school, I think it's important to recognise that these feelings deserve to be taken seriously. There's a difference between finding something difficult and believing that you're incapable, and that difference matters.
For adults who weren't diagnosed until later in life, these beliefs may have followed them well beyond their school years. I was diagnosed with AuDHD in my early 40s, and that diagnosis gave me a different perspective on many of my earlier experiences. Things that I'd once viewed as personal shortcomings began to make more sense when I understood how my mind worked. It didn't remove the challenges I'd experienced, but it helped me understand that there were reasons behind them, and sometimes, understanding those reasons is the beginning of changing how we see ourselves.
Schools, Teachers and Different Learning Needs
Having worked in education myself, and as a parent of neurodivergent children, I understand that supporting different learning needs within a classroom isn't always straightforward. Teachers work within curriculum requirements, assessment expectations and time constraints, often while supporting a classroom full of students with very different needs.
Many schools offer Independent Learning Plans (ILP’s) to make sure modifications are undertaken to create supportive learning environments. This isn't about suggesting that traditional education has no value or that modifications can’t be made to support student needs. It's about recognising that a standardised approach to learning won't always suit every student, and sometimes, relatively small adjustments can make a meaningful difference.
For example, a student might benefit from written instructions as well as verbal ones, help breaking a large assignment into smaller tasks, access to movement breaks, reduced sensory distractions or different ways to demonstrate their understanding. Another student might need support with planning, organisation or communicating when they're feeling overwhelmed.
The important thing is recognising that education should be diverse, include reasonable adjustments and support should be based on the needs of the individual student, rather than assuming the same approach will work for everyone. Most importantly, parents and students themselves deserve to be included in conversations about what helps them learn. After all, students the ones experiencing those challenges every day.
Learning to Understand Your Own Mind
If you're a teenager reading this and school feels difficult right now, I want you to know that you don't have to wait until adulthood to begin understanding your own mind. You can start recognising the things you find challenging, the environments where you feel most comfortable, the strategies that help you and the strengths you bring to different situations.
Perhaps you learn better when information is presented visually.
Perhaps you need to move while you're thinking.
Maybe breaking an assignment into smaller steps helps you get started, or talking through an idea with someone makes it easier to organise your thoughts.
And perhaps there are things you're really good at that don't always show up in your school results.
Understanding these things isn't about making excuses or avoiding challenges. It's about developing self-awareness and learning how to work with your mind rather than constantly feeling as though you're fighting against it. It's also about recognising when you need support and feeling comfortable asking for it. You don't need to have all the answers. You don't need to manage everything independently, and you don't need to become a completely different person to succeed.
One of the things I love to discuss is helping young people and adults develop a greater understanding of how their minds work. Exploring strengths, recognising challenges and developing practical strategies that suit individual needs. Not because there's something wrong with them that needs fixing, but because understanding ourselves can help us make more informed choices about how we learn, work and navigate everyday life.
Different Doesn't Mean Less
Whether you're currently sitting in a classroom wondering why school feels so difficult, or you're an adult looking back on your school years with a different understanding of yourself, I want to leave you with something to think about.
Your grades don't tell the whole story of who you are. Neither does the time it takes you to complete an assignment, how easily you remember instructions or whether you can sit still and concentrate for an entire lesson.
School is an important part of life, and learning matters, but the way you perform within a particular learning environment is not the only measure of your intelligence, your abilities or your potential. You may need support in some areas. You may find certain things more challenging than other people do, and you may still be discovering where your strengths lie.
That's all okay.
You are more than your school results, your unfinished assignments and the things you find difficult. Your mind has its own way of learning, thinking and understanding the world, and that deserves to be understood, supported and valued, because different doesn't mean less. It simply means different.
Supporting Neurodivergent Teens Through School
At Bright Fox ADHD Coaching, I work with neurodivergent teenagers and adults to help them better understand their minds, recognise their strengths and develop practical strategies that work for them.
With a background in education, professional ADHD coach training and my own lived experience of AuDHD personally and as a parent of two neurodivergent teens, I'm particularly passionate about supporting young people as they navigate the challenges of secondary school.
Through strengths-based, neuro-affirming coaching, we can explore executive functioning, organisation, school-related overwhelm, confidence and self-advocacy, always recognising that each young person has their own individual needs and goals.
If you're a teenager or a parent looking for support, you're welcome to explore how coaching might help.
By Lauren Nielsen
As with all my blogs, I share this because it’s the foundation of how I work with clients now. Not from just from theory and professional expertise, but from a lived experience that has been understood, unpacked, and rebuilt.