College Failure and ADHD: Why YoungMen Struggle — and How a Second Launch Can Succeed
A Personal Introduction
Over the years, I’ve sat with many young men and their families at a very specific crossroads.
A student leaves for college full of hope and relief — finally free from a tightly structured childhood — only to watch things unravel faster than anyone expected. Grades fall. Confidence collapses. Shame moves in. And before long, he’s back home, discouraged and unsure how to try again.
What strikes me is not how rare this story is, but how predictable it has become — and how little language we have to talk about it without blame.
This series grew out of those conversations.
It’s an attempt to name what’s actually happening beneath the surface when a college launch fails, especially for young men with ADHD. Not to excuse responsibility, and not to fault parents or students — but to make sense of the developmental, emotional, and executive-function dynamics that so often collide at this stage of life.
If you’re a parent trying to help without making things worse, a young man wondering why independence feels harder than it “should,” or a professional supporting families through these transitions, my hope is that these essays offer clarity, relief, and a steadier way forward.
College failure doesn’t have to be the end of the story.
Sometimes, it’s where the real learning finally begins.
— Jon Thomas, EdD, LPC
Counselor, educator, and author of Beyond the Edge of Chaos: ADHD Identity and the New Science of Thriving
Escape Isn’t Independence: Part 1 of 5
Why Some Young Men Flee Control — and Collapse Under Freedom
It’s a story I’ve seen repeat itself for years.
A young man grows up in a tightly run household. Rules are clear. Expectations are firm. His days are scheduled. His mistakes are noticed quickly. He learns how to comply, how to avoid trouble, how to endure.
And he can’t wait to leave.
College, a new city, an apartment, a dorm room — finally, freedom. No one checking homework. No one monitoring sleep. No one asking where he’s been or why he’s late.
Then, within a semester or two, everything falls apart.
Classes missed. Assignments unfinished. Sleep inverted. Motivation evaporated. Grades collapse. Shame sets in. And suddenly, the freedom he longed for has turned into a free fall.
Before long, he’s back home — in the very environment he was so desperate to escape.
Parents are confused. He’s confused. Everyone is frustrated.
And the unspoken question hangs in the air:
Why does this happen?
Control Builds Compliance, Not Capacity
In many highly structured, externally managed environments, parents do a great deal of thinking for their children:
schedules are set
priorities are decided
consequences are immediate
routines are enforced
This isn’t malicious. It’s usually loving, attentive, and well-intentioned.
But over time, something subtle happens.
External structure quietly replaces internal structure.
The young person learns how to function under supervision, not how to govern themselves when supervision disappears. They learn how to meet expectations — but not how to set them. How to comply — but not how to choose.
The system works. Until it doesn’t.
Freedom Without Scaffolding Feels Like Chaos
When that structure is suddenly removed, the young man doesn’t experience freedom as empowerment.
He experiences it as disorientation.
Now he must:
decide when to sleep
decide when to work
decide what matters
decide how to recover from mistakes
decide what to do when motivation disappears
All at once.
For someone who has never practiced those skills independently, this isn’t liberation. It’s cognitive and emotional overload.
So the brain does what brains do under overload: it seeks relief, stimulation, or escape — not long-term mastery.
Late nights feel easier than disciplined mornings. Distraction feels kinder than self-confrontation. Avoidance feels safer than failure.
From the outside, it looks like irresponsibility. From the inside, it feels like drowning.
Rebellion Isn’t the Problem — It’s the Transition
Many young men interpret structure itself as the enemy, because the only structure they’ve known was imposed.
So early independence often includes a phase of rejection:
rejecting routines
rejecting accountability
rejecting anything that resembles “being controlled”
But structure and coercion are not the same thing.
Structure can be a tool.
Coercion is a weapon.
Without learning the difference, young men often burn down the very scaffolding they still need — not because they want chaos, but because they’re trying to breathe.
When Things Start to Fall Apart, Shame Takes Over
Once academic trouble begins, shame arrives quickly.
Shame narrows perspective. It turns setbacks into verdicts. It whispers that something is fundamentally wrong — not just with performance, but with identity.
And shame doesn’t motivate growth. It motivates retreat.
Home, even if it once felt suffocating, suddenly offers:
fewer decisions
predictable rules
external containment
relief from constant self-direction
Returning isn’t a failure of will. It’s a nervous system seeking safety.
The Deeper Pattern: Borrowed Structure vs. Self-Governance
Many of these young men were never truly allowed to author themselves.
Their lives were carefully managed, edited, and guided — sometimes skillfully, sometimes rigidly — but rarely handed back to them in graduated stages.
So when independence arrives, it arrives without an internal compass.
Freedom without authorship is terrifying.
And without an internal sense of direction, freedom doesn’t expand capacity — it exposes its absence.
This Isn’t a Moral Failure
While versions of this pattern can appear across genders, it shows up with particular frequency in young men with ADHD who were raised in highly structured, externally managed environments — often by deeply invested, well-intentioned parents.
What looks like self-sabotage is often a predictable developmental crash.
Not because these young men don’t care.
Not because they aren’t capable.
But because escape happened before self-governance had a chance to develop.
What This Pattern Is Really Asking For
The solution isn’t tighter control.
And it isn’t unstructured freedom.
It’s transitional scaffolding — structure that is chosen, collaborative, and gradually internalized.
That work doesn’t happen during the first escape.
It often happens after the crash.
And that’s where the story can begin again — not as a retreat, but as a second launch.
In the next piece, we’ll look more closely at why ADHD makes this transition especially steep — and why “just trying harder” so often backfires right when it’s needed most.