Understanding Our Bochurim with ADHD

I would like to give some examples of the difficulties ADHD creates in yeshiva that I come across. This is just a small feel for what these boys face. Please note that almost all bochorim experience some of these challenges some of the time. The boy with ADHD is grappling with most of these, all the time.

[The main challenges of ADHD are concentration/attention deficits, time blindness, a limited working memory (the part of your brain that holds the information you need to think about right now), and attention systems that respond strongly to what naturally interests them rather than what they know is important (what we call 'wired for interest vs. importance'). Notice how these limitations affect them every day.]

The Emotional Toll of Struggling in Yeshiva

 We are taught from day one the primacy and importance of limud hatorah and davening. It is the central part of who we are. In the yeshiva velt, if a bochur isn’t making it, he can feel incredibly guilty. He thinks he is bad and should be trying harder. On top of that, a bochur is often learning full-time until age 28+. That is a long time to feel deflated and resigned to failure.

Learning Struggles

 When he learns he can find it impossibly hard to focus. His chavrusos get frustrated, they drop him often. He is constantly trying to find a new chavrusa. Between chavrusas, he finds it nearly impossible to learn on his own.

When he learns, the second his chavrusa starts talking his mind is off like a rocket. When he comes back down it is hard to reorient himself. He often needs to go back and start over. Inevitably even when things are going well, if a thought pops into his head he needs to spit it out on the spot, often derailing their whole seder. He often jumps out of his seat to run and tell someone something “important,” it’ll take just a second.” Fifteen minutes later he come back to an irate chavrusa, and he’s not sure why. “I was just a minute, gosh, chill out!”

 He has a very difficult time piecing together all the parts of the gemarra and their meforshim, constantly feeling like he is groping through a fog. He easily forgets what he learnt. He can learn a piece very well, come back after a break, and it is gone, almost like he never learnt it.

Shiur Difficulties

 Shiurim, gosh, a disaster. He can’t follow a word. The rebbi is speaking but the words don’t form understandable sentences. He can get so restless at times. He wishes he can just run around the room or do some jumping jacks. He feels the need to fidget and squirm often disturbing the other fellows in the shiur. Sometimes it starts out ok and then a bit into shiur he daydreams for a minute and he’s lost. If he is in a yeshiva that revolves around shiur these things can be crippling.

Processing and Comprehension Struggles

 When he talks in learning it he can easily get confused. His mind stops processing what the other fellow is saying. He is too embarrassed to admit it so he just pretends he is getting it. He throws around all the right jargon but has no idea what he is saying.

He finds himself barking up the wrong tree all the time. Focusing in on nekudos that have nothing to do with the sugya. He goes down a rabbit hole trying to figure it out. He can’t understand why everyone brushes his major problem off. He doesn’t know how to back off and come back to it later either.

Sometimes he is the guy running around the room with his hands in every shitta, he is on fire. He jumps from shoft to shoft screaming in learning, he seems to be holding in everything. Sometimes he is. Many other times he just knows bits and pieces, thinks he’s got it and can’t wait to run and hondle. He doesn’t though. There is little clarity, and he burns out quickly.

He knows he needs to chazer at night but he is tired and not in the mood. He finds it impossible to push himself. Though strangely enough as soon as he gets back home he is wide awake and can’t get to bed before 3am. Then he can’t wake up.

Morning Woes

 He misses Shacharis too often. He wakes up, realizes he’s late, and knows he needs to hustle—but an invisible force that he can’t explain, keeps him stuck in bed. His mind screams at him to move, but his body just won’t respond. He knows he will lose his chavrusa or get in trouble etc. His body just can’t respond and there seems to be nothing he can do about it.

If he manages to get up, it can take ages to get dressed. He puts on one sock, gets distracted by something or the other and totally forgets he was in middle of getting dressed.

 He is constantly coming late to everything. Even when he is on time he gets distracted and has to race to catch up. Feelings of incompetence and failure seem to be his destiny.

Davening Frustrations

 Back to davening, his tefillos are often inadequate to his expectations. He misses zman krias shema more often than he would like you to know. Pesukei dezimra is on his bucket list of things to do.

Besides that he finds it so hard to concentrate, even when he is focused he messes up. He is often the fellow banging his chest during Shabbos shmone esrei (then rubbing it as if he has heartburn.)

Sometimes he finishes shmoneh esrei and has no idea which one he did… Shabbos or weekday? If there is an add-on like yaale veyavo or al hanissim or changes like mashiv haruach or hamelech hakadosh, no matter how much he tries to remember to say them, he forgets to.

 Sometimes he will be a few words away from the thing he is reminding himself about, but by the time he gets there he has spaced out and forgets to say it. There are times he needs to repeat shmoneh esrei three times in a row before he gets it right!

Oh and don’t forget about when he spaces back in during davening and has absolutely no idea where he is up to!

All of this creates feelings of incredibly guilt.

Often these boys burnout completely from davening, not having any interest in pushing themselves to do an exercise in (what they perceive as) futility.

The Ups and Downs

All of this is even more confusing because in the beginning of the zman he was learning amazing. He was on the ball, getting the shiurim, learning the whole day. He was a rockstar. Everything made sense. He was able to holt kup all the way to the end of the sugya. And then bam, two weeks in, he runs out of gas. There goes the rest of the zman, or so it seems.

When he has a chabura to prepare, or a speech, he can learn for hours. If he hits a sugya that interests him, he is all over it, often knowing it better than anyone else in yeshiva. He knows he is real smart, but he can feel so dumb.

There are times he can daven like a gadol hador. Like if he has something important to daven for, or on yamim noraim. He wonders why he can’t do that all the time. “I see I can do it.” He may have had a rebbi or chavrusa in the past that he learnt well with, and can’t work out why he can’t do that again. The guilt he feels is exacerbated by important people in his life constantly pointing out how well he can do when he wants to…

The Difficulty Remembering

When he looks back at a zman or a masechta he usually can’t remember much of what he learned. This can give him a deep feeling that his learning is pointless and he is hopeless.

If he makes a siyum, often if you ask him how he is feeling, he’ll respond with a dismissive comment that it wasn’t an accomplishment. Everyone else seems to think it was, but he won’t. “I didn’t really learn it” “I didn’t learn it with tosfos” “I don’t remember any of it, this is a fake siyum” etc. This a common theme with these boys. They do not recognize, appreciate, or remember their accomplishments unless there was a deep sense of satisfaction that came with it. When they don’t feel good about what they have done, there isn’t much room for motivation to continue.

These are some of the struggles a boy may face in Yeshiva. This is a good boy who keeps trying. They are accused of just being lazy, and told to try harder. They eat themselves up daily.

 How many boys give up after years of trying and feeling misunderstood. Even when they stick it out and stay in yeshiva, the pain and disappointment they feel is overwhelming.

Moving Towards Solutions

These challenges can be managed. These boys can thrive. ADHD is getting a lot of headlines these days. That’s great. Hopefully rabbeim and parents will learn to be more understanding and encouraging.

The boys themselves could use guidance or coaching. For some bochurim, meds make a real difference. It won’t solve everything, but it helps enough that the success spills over into other areas. Why should a bachor have to suffer, feeling like an incompetent loser, when he could fix some of this easily? The meds only help the focus part though. It doesn’t fix everything. He still has a poor working memory and is time blind. He still won’t go to sleep on time. He won’t suddenly be organized. This is where CBT or coaching can accomplish miracles.

Understanding How They Learn

The moment they learn how they are uniquely wired they already feel empowered. As they figure out the ways that work for them, they build up confidence and thrive. They see a future. They can become something. They can shteig. There are so many ways to help a bachor (or yungerman, or any jewish man) thrive and and feel amazing about themselves.

Some Practical Strategies

Allow me to share some things that can help. There is no one eitzah. Every boy is different. The following points can help a lot of them though.

1.      Provide Scaffolding for the Sugya

If a bachor has a basic idea of where a sugya is going, what the main point is, what this rishon says, and what he is saying vs the other rishon, he will be a different talmid. All it takes is a few words to explain each one.

A good way to explain this is when we ADDers learn anything, we often feel like our wife just dumped every sock in the house into our arms. Three socks immediately fall on one side, and as you awkwardly try to catch them, six more fall off the other side, followed by two more... and we end up looking like someone straight out of a comedy act, they don't stay put. Even worse, your heilege wife expects you to know where to put the pile! How in the world am I supposed to figure out where you decided you want to sit to match up socks?!

 An ADDer learning with focus and working memory challenges is juggling a lot of incoming data. He can't keep it all straight. He is in a fog. He keeps on forgetting the thing you said two things ago. As soon as he is reminded of the other point he forgets the one you just said. And he has no idea where to put anything. Everyone else seems to just know, but not him.

 Another great analogy is that it’s like trying to put together a 30000-piece puzzle without the picture on the box. It’s not impossible but it takes a lot of determination which most people don’t have. Oh and if you are not sure if all the pieces are here or maybe it's two puzzles mixed together, how long would you last, if you even start?!

When a bachor with ADHD learns he can feel so lost so quickly. He doesn’t just know what he is supposed to take out of what he is learning. He is having a hard time focusing as it is, the meds make it a bit easier but not enough.

He can’t hold too much info and he has no idea what he is holding it for. The shakla vetarya, the Rishonim, they are a blur of ideas and words. (And btw, these boys are usually experts at throwing all the right words and ideas at you and pretending to be totally on top of the sugya, which is another reason why so many ADDers are missed in the system.)

There is a simple and powerful solution that can transform their learning. Give them the picture of the puzzle. The laundry basket to hold the socks. A way to do that is help them have a map of the sugya.   Check that are getting the main points of the shakla vetarya. That they know what they are dealing with. And then give them a bottom line of each rishon and achron. No, don’t spoonfeed them the whole thing, we just want them to have a scaffold to climb the sugya.

This idea can be adjusted for boys on all levels. We want them to have a a clear path ahead. When what he is learning looks like a fog ahead, the boy is either forcing himself through it, or giving up before he gets too far. Many of these boys are not picking up the fine points or even the main point. Even when they do get it, they often can't hold it long enough to compare it to the other pshat. 

If he knows the basic point of the Ritva, Rashba, Reb Baruch Ber, and Reb Shimon, he knows what he is looking for. He knows what the point he is getting to is. This not only guides him but charges him up with the all elusive interest he needs to motivate himself to figure it out and retain it. He may get excited to explore the idea and see what is said. When he gets confused the boy now has something to fall back on. He knows the bottom line.

What we are looking to do in Yeshiva is teach a boy how to learn. We want him to gain the skills that he needs to learn on his own. Some boys never pick it up. Even when they learn well they don’t get the skills. Getting his brain activated with the bottom line, plus allowing him to avoid getting lost, will allow him to get to the point where he can learn independently.

If a rebbi senses that a boy is ADHD and struggling, he can try this. Call him over and have a list of the shittos he needs to know. Best to have the boy write it himself. Outline the sugya. In as few words as possible, but make sure he gets what he is writing or reading. Watch what happens.

Another idea, along these lines, is to go ask him a kushya or tell the boy a ha’arah on the sugya. This can also help him get interested and motivated to learn up the inyan.

 Now when he is in shiur he may not get completely lost when he inevitably spaces out. Watch how much more enthusiasm he will have as he navigates the sea of shittos. Watch him actually hondel a sugya. He can do that because you gave him a handle to hondel. It can be magical.

2.      Reorienting Recapping and Proper Processing

Another point is to get bachorim with ADHD to learn their limitations. If they space out they may need to reorient themselves for a moment or two. When they space out they clear out their working memory. They need to get it it back up in front of their brain, to continue. They must learn to be ok saying “hold up, I am getting lost, let me just go over this again for a sec.” If you are talking to him one-on-one and see his eyes glazing over, stop and check in, have him recap, he needs to process.

When the sit down to learn after a break and for sure for the first time that seder, they need to do a quick recap on the relevant gemarra, rashi, tosfos, etc. In most sugyos they should not just jump straight to the birchas shmuel, they will feel lost and scrambled. If they are in middle of a shtikle and doesn’t need the gemarra per se, he should just do a recap on what he learned so far in that shtikle.  They need to refresh their memory. It can take a few moments. The clarity it provides is immeasurable. (this is good for everyone to do, but for a bachor with ADHD it’s imperative.)

They need to make sure they are processing what they are learning. Everyone uses different things to process. Some by talking it out, some by writing, some by chazering, some by pacing and talking to themselves, etc etc. The bachor must realize that he must know what he is learning. If he can’t summarize what he just learnt in a few words, he didn’t get it. It may have ‘clicked’, he may think he has it but he doesn’t. The kushya, the teretz, tosfos’ kasha his raayah his teretz, each point needs to be understood well enough to verbalize in a sentence. So often these boys impatiently jump ahead without reall understanding. This makes the struggle infinitely harder.

3.      Learn the Language

Another common struggle is with language. Some boys don’t just “pick it up.” While they may learn to make a leining and read from a sefer, they often guess from the context rather than truly reading the words. They guess, filling in gaps based on familiarity. Many are bright enough to do this well, making their struggle hard to notice. However, their brains don’t naturally pick up on small details—like male and female forms or past, present, and future tenses. Some frequently misunderstand, while others get by—until they don’t. Guesswork leads to confusion and frustration.

The solution? They need to be taught the rules of Lashon Kodesh—dikduk. These boys can become strong learners, but they won’t absorb language skills on their own. Some boys just need to be taught. When you show them, they know it.

For those struggling, I highly recommend The Guide to Lashon Kodesh. It’s well designed for the ADHD brain, breaking things down into small, manageable steps that anyone can do on their own.

4.      Notice their Progress

Boys with ADHD are very hard on themselves, more than average. They also, as we said, often don’t notice their accomplishments. They are usually very sensitive to both rejection and recognition. You can help profoundly, by noticing and pointing out things you see them do well. Try not to over do it or they will dismiss it as empty praise. Just see and comment.

For example:

“I noticed you davened well today.”

“I saw you were very involved in the sugya.”

“I see you have a klorkeit here.”

“I noticed you have been trying”

“Your chavrusa told me you have been learning better this week”

I’ll finish by saying that the best thing we can do for these bachorim is to help them believe in themselves and show them what they are capable of. Not by telling them to try harder but by showing them how to try smarter. They want to do well. More than you can imagine. But they don’t know how to. Love them, believe in them, be there for them, and we’ll have a future of boys who now have a chance of becoming who they dream to be.