Understanding your child’s ADHD
[🔗 TL;DR? Read our ADHD Quick Guide: 5 things to know, look for, and try.]
“Such a busy child,” said my kid’s teacher on the first day of school. “Nobody else ever figured out they could climb that to reach the music player!”
That’s kids with ADHD, in a nutshell. They’re bright, curious. Able to solve things no one else can. Then comes the rest: “won't listen,” can't stay focused, doesn't follow through, interrupts class.
They sit down to do five-minute math homework, but 30 minutes later, they're in tears, you're in tears, and the worksheet is still blank. Or has a hole ripped through it. Or got eaten (sigh).
Everything feels chaotic. You don’t have time to think before you respond. Send them to brush their teeth; find them ten minutes later dismantling the can opener. Getting ready for bed takes two hours, seventeen reminders, and at least one meltdown. And yet, they are the sweetest kid who can spend three hours building an incredibly intricate Lego, so focused they forget to pee.
“If only they’d try harder,” adults lament.
They ARE trying. It’s not motivation, laziness, or bad parenting, I promise. Here’s what to understand.
ADHD is about executive function
Despite the name, ADHD isn’t all about attention or hyperactivity. It’s about executive function: how the brain manages, organizes, and executes tasks and projects. It’s planning, processing, focusing, remembering, managing time, and more.
Brains of people with ADHD do all those things differently. The executive function parts of the brain develop more slowly, and the brain's chemical messaging system (particularly dopamine and norepinephrine) works differently. It can feel confusing, like, why can my kid focus for 3 hours on an anthill but not 10 minutes on math?! More on this below.
The “disorder” piece is important and imperfect
Lots of kids experience attention deficit and hyperactivity, but for some kids, it’s a disorder: real neurological differences significantly affecting their life in multiple contexts, requiring real support (see also OCD, ASD, generalized anxiety disorder…).
“Disorder” isn’t my favorite word, though. ADHD isn’t all bad news. It’s about DIFFERENCES, not DEFICITS.
The same traits that make everyday life harder can help ADHD brains do extraordinary things when they’re supported.
The hyperfocus it’s hard to come out of lets them dive deep into passion projects and do extraordinary work. The nonlinear thinking that surprises teachers is creative problem-solving, shortcuts, and solutions no one else saw. The intense emotions and sensitivity that cause meltdowns also bring deep empathy, noticing when someone's upset before anyone else does.
I’m not pretending ADHD doesn't make things hard. It absolutely does, and we can help you figure out how to address those challenges. But please also remember the goal isn't to "fix" your child or make them act "normal." ADHD is part of them, for worse AND for better. So the answer’s about figuring out what’s going on, appreciating their amazing differences, and helping make their way of thinking work for them.
It’s often not just ADHD.
Most kids with ADHD (60-80%) have something else going on too: anxiety, learning differences, sleep problems, sensory challenges, and more. The tricky part is these things are all interwoven. Bad sleep is both a symptom of ADHD and makes ADHD harder. Sensory overload can look/feel like ADHD, but ADHD makes it harder to filter sensory input. This is why figuring out what's going on often feels like untangling a massive knot.
You have to do something.
If I could go back and change one thing about when my kids were little, it would be to figure out the ADHD piece earlier and better.
I'm not a doctor. I'm not here to suggest specific treatments or medications. But I will be uncharacteristically pushy: you have to do something.
Unsupported ADHD increases the risk of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. It leads to relationship and social challenges that compound over time. It creates educational struggles that didn't need to happen.
More heartbreakingly, it builds a history of failure, shame, and being in trouble for things they can't help. They're trying so hard, but everyone (including them) thinks they're “bad” or “dumb” or “lazy.” This creates lifelong self-esteem and social consequences.
Don’t let this panic you! Thousands of families figure this out. You will too. Your kid will be okay. They have an awesome parent who knows they are already trying and is on their side.
The first thing to do (as always) is understand what’s making it hard for your specific child. ADHD manifests differently for each person, and we need to tailor support to each child’s specific needs. Then we’ll talk about real life strategies for your real life child with ADHD.
[We know this is a lot. Take a breath!]
How ADHD might show up in your child
ADHD has different presentations: some kids are primarily inattentive, some are hyperactive and impulsive, and many have a combination of both (called "Combined Type").
The official types are honestly less important to me than figuring out what pieces a given child struggles with.
Here’s a partial list of what those might be. It might seem overwhelming. Scan and dive into only the ones that resonate about your child!
“She’s so spacy” / “He can’t pay attention”
Attention Regulation
Your child seems to not hear you when you call their name. They walk right past the thing they need without seeing it. They can spend four hours on a Minecraft build, but can’t make themselves finish ten minutes of homework.
This is the attention regulation or attentional focus problem.
Kids with ADHD can focus intensely, joyously, super-productively, sometimes for hours. It’s that they can’t always control where that focus goes or direct it where we (or they) want it to go.
For many kids (and adults), that control happens only under specific conditions: novelty, competition, urgency/deadline, or passion. Without those activators, the brain struggles to engage.
But when hyperfocus works, they can do incredible, creative, prolific things.
“They won’t sit still”
Hyperactivity (the "H" in ADHD - when kids have this plus impulsivity without the attention issues, it's called "Hyperactive-Impulsive Type")
Your child is always moving: tapping, bouncing, fidgeting, making noises. They won’t stay in their seat (or, they’re technically in their seat, but upside down).
Staying still feels itchy or buzzy inside. Their body is driven by an internal engine they can’t turn off; it’s uncomfortable enough to take all their energy. The movement might be unconscious (the leg jiggle, pencil tapping, rocking). Sometimes that movement actually helps them focus. When we force stillness, we take away the thing that was helping.
A “plus” of hyperactivity is that kids who have it tend to get noticed. The kids with Inattentive-type ADD (no H) are far more likely to slip under the radar. Girls especially are significantly underdiagnosed because they're more likely to have inattentive presentation. They have all the challenges without the disruptiveness that gets attention. They’re often better at masking. It doesn’t mean they aren’t struggling.
“He never stops to think”
Impulse Control
Your child’s hand shoots out before they’ve decided to hit, they grab the toy, they eat the thing. Crass jokes come out of their mouth before they can stop them. They spend all their money on the shiny thing they see today, and then are heart-broken when they remember they were saving for something cooler.
It’s not “making bad choices.” It’s no gap between impulse and action.
A therapist once told my kid to practice “stop and think” before doing things that got them in trouble. My kid stared at her like she was speaking gibberish. “I have ideas ALL THE TIME. How am I supposed to know which ones are bad before I already did them?”
“She can’t get started”
Task Initiation and Planning
They know what to do. They’re cognitively capable. But they sit there, staring at the blank page, and nothing happens. Or they do everything else in the world first. You use all your force of will to pin them to the homework chair and still have to say, “Time to start” 100 times. It’s not procrastination or defiance. It’s a neurological block that keeps the brain from “starting the engine,” especially when the task feels big, vague, or boring.
Kids with ADHD often see the end goal but not the path. They can’t break it into steps, so the whole thing feels like a giant, overwhelming blob. What if I told you, “Build a washing machine from scratch with no directions or internet?” You can picture the washing machine, but not the builder’s manual. So these kids abandon even projects about which they were super excited, and end up with a history of letting themselves and others down.
And also: this piece can make folks with ADHD super enthusiastic “yes” people who can help the rest of us not be boring. When *I* hear about a possible adventure, I picture the process: the hours of work it’s going to take to get there, the cost, the to-do list items, the massive weight of it all. My partner only sees the amazing endpoint, says, “Cool!” and signs us up.
“She forgets everything”
Working Memory
The permission slip is signed. It’s in the bag. You remind them twice. Nope. That slip lives in the bag now. You’ll find it months later, after fielding frantic phone calls from the office the day of the trip. Given a task with three directions, one is never done. This is working memory. The information goes in, but the brain doesn’t hold it up at the forefront where it’s useful.
Working memory struggles don’t just affect details and tasks. They make it hard to focus on important pieces of social interactions, comprehend what you read, remember what the question was by the time it’s your turn to answer, and solve multi-step math problems. Working memory is what’s supposed to help kids remember how their behaviour system works or that it exists. It’s a lot.
“He has no sense of time”
Time Blindness
Your child has no idea how long things take. “Five minutes” is meaningless. Planning for the future is futile. There’s only now and not now. Things are either happening right this second (urgent!) or they don’t exist yet. That’s why projects get ignored until the night before, why it’s so hard to transition, why it’s hard to change behaviour to earn a reward that won’t come for three weeks.
However, as a Huddle friend pointed out: “When I am with you, I am 100% with you. No part of my brain is remembering I have to take trash out or leave by 1pm. I’m late all the time, but I’m fully with you. You’re partially distracted by everything you’re remembering.”
“They just go 0-60”
Emotional Regulation
Your child explodes over tiny things. Criticism feels catastrophic. Rejection (real or imagined) feels unbearable. Emotions hit faster and harder, and impulse control turns feelings into actions instantly.
Kids with ADHD experience emotional time differently. Urgent things take over completely; future ones barely feel real. Small frustrations explode into huge reactions, because they feel permanent. There’s no mental fast-forward to remember that it will pass.
ADHD can also include extreme rejection sensitivity. Some kids experience rejection – real or perceived – with what might feel like an outsized reaction. Their brain is wired to notice and react to social threats more intensely than other people's brains, so mild criticism feels catastrophic and even imagined rejection triggers real emotional pain.
These feelings are real, even when we don’t understand where they come from. All of this emotional intensity, though, can also mean big empathy, big love, big excitement when their friends succeed. Kids with ADHD often feel others’ emotions deeply, which can become a huge strength and mean they’re great friends, once they learn to manage it.
So, What Do I Do About It?
First, breathe. This can be exhausting and overwhelming, but again, you’ve got this.
Now. Let’s figure out some ways to help.
Head over to Part 2: ADHD: Real life strategies for your real life child.
Or, find a time to talk with me 1:1 and figure it out.