You’ve heard it. Maybe last night. Maybe after every test this semester.
“I studied, Mom. I swear.”
And you believe them. Because you saw them sitting at their desk. You saw the textbook open. You saw the notes out. And then the grade comes back and it doesn’t add up.
So either your kid is lying to you, or something else is going on.
Here’s what I tell every parent who sits across from me with that exact frustration: your child probably isn’t lying. They genuinely believe they studied. And that’s actually the problem.
“I Go Over My Notes” — The Most Dangerous Answer in Education
The number one answer I get from students when I ask them how they study is: “I go over my notes.”
Every time. Across hundreds of students. Middle school, high school, college. Same answer.
And it sounds reasonable. Of course you’d review your notes before a test. But here’s what “going over my notes” actually looks like for most students: they sit down, they read through what they wrote (or what the teacher posted), they recognize the material, and they think, “Yeah, I remember this. I’m good.”
That’s not studying. That’s the illusion of studying. And for a kid with ADHD, it’s one of the most dangerous habits they can develop — because it feels productive, it looks productive, and it produces nothing.
The follow-up question I always ask is: “What does that mean — you go over your notes? What are you actually doing? And whose notes are they?”
Because there’s a massive difference between reviewing your own notes from a lecture and scrolling through the teacher’s PowerPoint slides. Your own notes might be incomplete, disorganized, or missing key information — which means you’re studying bad material. The teacher’s slides might be thorough, but you didn’t process any of it yourself. Either way, you’re not learning. You’re just looking.
Recognition Is Not Recall
Here’s the concept that changes everything for parents once they understand it.
The human brain is incredibly good at recognizing things. Think about someone you went to middle school with. If you saw them on the street today, you’d probably recognize their face. You’d know they look familiar. But could you tell me their name? Their interests? Whether they were nice or not? Probably not. You recognize the face. You can’t recall the details.
That’s exactly what’s happening when your child “studies.”
They open the textbook and see a concept the teacher covered in class. Their brain goes, “Oh yeah, I remember this. I remember sitting in class when we went over this. I remember understanding it at the time.” And they genuinely feel like they know it.
But recognizing that you’ve seen something before is completely different from being able to pull it out of your own brain, make connections between ideas, apply a strategy, solve a problem, or write a full answer on a test — without any help, without any scaffolding, under pressure, with a time limit.
Familiarity is not mastery. And most students — especially students with ADHD — are confusing the two every single time they sit down to study.
Why ADHD Makes This So Much Worse
Any student can fall into the recognition trap. But ADHD makes it almost guaranteed, for a few specific reasons.
The ADHD brain is looking for shortcuts. Sustained attention is hard. The brain wants the reward with as little effort as possible. “Looking over notes” is the lowest-effort activity that still feels like studying. It checks the box without requiring the deep, uncomfortable cognitive work that actual learning demands.
Many of these students are bright — and that’s worked against them. A lot of the students I coach have coasted on raw intelligence for years. They never needed real study skills because they could absorb enough in class to pass. But when the material gets harder — usually around late middle school or early high school — intelligence alone stops being enough. And they don’t have a backup plan because they never needed one.
The cramming cycle is addictive. This one surprises parents, but it’s real. Many students with ADHD have reinforced a pattern: procrastinate, panic, cram the night before, pull something together at the last minute, get a decent enough grade. And here’s the part nobody talks about — some of them secretly love the rush. The panic of cramming, the adrenaline of pulling it off, and the relief afterward. That cycle hits every reward button the ADHD brain is wired for. So when you ask them to study differently — to plan ahead, to spread it out, to do the boring work early — you’re asking them to give up the only system that’s ever given them that dopamine hit. Their response? “Why do I have to change? I’ve done it this way before and it worked.”
Until it doesn’t. And by the time it stops working, the habit is deeply ingrained.
What Real Studying Actually Looks Like
If “going over notes” isn’t studying, what is?
Real studying means actively working with the material — not passively reading it. Here’s what I teach my students:
Rewrite your notes from scratch. Don’t just reread them. Rebuild them. Rewrite them in your own words, reorganize them, fill in the gaps. The act of reconstructing your notes forces your brain to actually process the information instead of just scanning it.
Practice without the scaffolds. Use sample problems, example sentences, practice questions — whatever applies to the subject. Start with your notes and supports available, then systematically remove them. Can you still solve the problem without looking? Can you still write the paragraph without checking? If not, you’ve just found your gap. That’s where the real studying begins.
Expose your weaknesses on purpose. Cover up the definitions and try to answer before looking. Quiz yourself. Get it wrong. Most students hate this part because it proves they don’t actually know the material — and that means more work. But this is the only way to find out where you’re weak before the test does it for you.
Stop studying what you already know. This is a huge time-waster. If you’ve proven you know it, move on. Spend your time on the gaps, not on reinforcing what’s already solid.
Take the test before you take the test. Is there a practice exam available? Can you ask an AI tool to generate a quiz on the material? Can a parent, friend, or sibling quiz you? The goal is to simulate test conditions before the real thing. If you can perform under those conditions, you’re ready. If you can’t, now you know exactly what to go back and work on.
All of this leads to what’s called active recall — digging information out of your own brain instead of just letting it wash over you. That’s the difference between a student who studied and a student who thinks they studied.
The Parent Trap: Pushing Too Hard or Dropping Out Entirely
Here’s where it gets complicated at home.
By late middle school and high school, most kids don’t want their parents involved in their schoolwork. The relationship gets strained. The parent can’t just be Mom or Dad anymore — they become the enforcer. And even if the parent is teaching the right skills, the kid resents it because of who it’s coming from.
So parents usually land in one of two places: they either push too hard and the tension builds until every conversation about school turns into a fight. Or they drop out entirely and hope the kid figures it out on their own.
Neither works.
What I tell parents is this: you don’t have to disappear completely. You should still be checking in. You can still quiz your kid, ask what they’re studying, confirm they’re using real strategies and not just “looking over notes.” But the approach has to shift from enforcement to clarification. You’re not standing over them making sure they study. You’re confirming that they’re using the skills to acquire the knowledge — and then stepping back to let them do the work.
Sometimes, though, the kid is at a point where they won’t let the parent in at all. And honestly, that might be the right call — especially for college students. A 19-year-old shouldn’t have a parent managing their study schedule.
That’s usually where a coach comes in. A coach is a neutral third party. They’re not Mom. They’re not a teacher giving a grade. They’re someone the student can work with without the emotional baggage that comes with every other authority figure in their life. The parent gets to step back, breathe, and stop being the enforcer — and the student gets to stumble through the messy middle with someone who’s there to guide, not judge.
When to Stop Hoping They’ll Figure It Out
There are signs that show up early — usually in middle school. The resistance to schoolwork. The “I got it” when they clearly don’t. The growing strain between you and your kid every time school comes up. The realization that you’ve been acting as your child’s executive function — keeping track of their assignments, reminding them about tests, managing their schedule — when they should be doing it themselves by now.
No parent wants to watch their kid fail. But there’s a difference between letting them struggle and letting them drown. A coach helps you find that line — and helps your kid build the skills to stay above it on their own.
If your child is bright, capable, and still underperforming — and if “I studied” has become a phrase you no longer trust — the issue isn’t intelligence and it isn’t effort. It’s that nobody ever taught them how to actually study. That’s fixable.
Book a free call to talk about what’s going on with your student and whether coaching is the right fit.
Chris Fugelsang is the founder of Exceptional Path and has spent over 20 years working with students with ADHD and executive function challenges. He’s a former special education teacher with a Master’s in Special Education who has worked with thousands of students across public, private, and international schools.