What is ADHD?

I had an interesting conversation with a dear friend’s mother the other day about ADHD and I realized that there is still a lot of mystery about ADHD, what it is and how it is diagnosed. It seems like all you hear about is ADHD and everyone is getting diagnosed with ADHD. Is ADHD just an excuse for bad parenting? Are we just letting our kids run amok and then labelling them as ADHD? Maybe.

**I should note at this point that I am NOT a medical professional and any opinions voiced in this blog are just that, my opinions. I have no medical training and base my knowledge on my own research and our family’s experiences. If you question whether your own child has ADHD, you should seek medical advice from your GP or pediatrician.**

I too, read articles titled “14 Signs of ADHD” and think that these just sound like busy children. Then I reflect on our own experience. It’s hard to explain other than parental instinct. But you watch your child, among their peers, and there is something different. You child is louder, busier, angrier, whinier, messier, more forgetful, more destructive, more energetic, sillier than the others. All. The. Time. It may be subtle, but the inkling is there. Our son was not diagnosed until grade 4 so he was still only 8 years old. We knew that our son was having difficulty academically. His learning disabilities were the focus of everyone’s energies. However, his ADHD was also getting in the way of his progress.

I also hear arguments about how the school environment is not conducive to children’s natural personalities and therefore we just label kids as having ADHD. I tend to agree somewhat. I think early childhood education is too restrictive, classrooms are too big and that 3 and 4-year old’s do not need to be in institutional care 5 days a week. In Ontario we run play based kindergarten programs. Unfortunately, we also have class sizes of up to 30 children in rooms designed for 20, utilizing a program that was designed for class sizes of 18. So, while I do have some exceptions to the educational system and gaps in teacher training in general, most children can adapt. Perhaps not willingly, but most kids tend to settle into routine and begin to flourish in our education system such as it is. Our son did not. In fact, he got worse. His emotional outbursts were getting him teased and bullied at school, he couldn’t read, he couldn’t remember how to write his last name. When tested, his reading and writing were immeasurable, and he couldn’t follow 2 step instructions without forgetting at least one of the steps if not both of them.

ADHD does not just speak about busy, rough and tumble children. Or the day-dreamy child who must be called back to the task at hand. It’s when the rough and tumble, busy, day dreaming starts to get in the way. It gets in the way of friends. It gets in the way at home. It gets in the way at school. It’s after using calendars and routines and check lists and they still forget to brush their teeth AND get their P.J.s on. It’s after losing endless numbers of hats and mitts and scarves (not just one or two sets but literally a set a week). It’s after getting another phone call home about being hands on at school again. It’s about hearing the announcement for sports try outs in the morning but forgetting to go at lunch. It’s about getting so frustrated that everything is so hard everyday that you can do nothing else but meltdown and hide behind the bushes on the school yard.

This is ADHD.