Well firstly, she's a 16 year old girl. We have to attribute some of this to her age, right? But an inability to control emotions is definitely part of ADHD (which is the current proper term-- the term ADD is not used anymore as there are subtypes). Professionals use "ADHD, inattentive type" or "ADHD, hyperactive type", etc.. Maybe that will help her sensitivity about the term.

Having ADHD means not having well-developed "executive function" and one of the things this effects is emotions, and the person's ability to modulate (have control of) those emotions. If you look up "executive function", believe me, you will find more information than you may care to read. I suggest you ignore all the media about ADHD (as much of it is wrong and sensationalized) and go to the CHADD website (www.chadd.org). This is by far one of the best websites out there for this disorder.

I also like Dr. Russell Barkley. He's a leading researcher in this area and is one of the only ones I know of who's doing long-term studies of ADHD kids into their adulthood. Of course, he's got book after book and had done innumerable studies over the last 30+ years. Good luck.

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I couldn't agree more with the pervious poster. Russell Barkley is wonderful and I think his theory of ADHD being more of an "excutive function disorder" is spot on. There is a video of a seminar that Dr. Barkley spoke at on you tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3d1SwUXMc0

It's 1 hour, 20 minutes long and slightly "scientific", but I really thought it explained A LOT about what I see in my son.

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In addition to Dr. Barkley I would suggest reading "The Explosive Child" and "Lost at School" for some insight into some of your daughter's issues which you may have never thought about before. He maintains that explosive children are developmentally delayed in frustration tolerance, flexibility, and problem-solving. He is not that invested in "diagnoses" but in helping to remediate the issues that lead to explosiveness, he calls his approach Collaborative Problem Solving. My son who is 8 is generally quite pleasant at school and in other settings but is often angry, aggressive, and hostile at home. It's like he expends a great deal of effort to control himself in the other settings but by the time he gets home he is worn out, and then the negative stuff comes out. Maybe that is what is going on with you daughter. Take a look at http://www.thinkkids.org/ and see if you find it helpful.

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Thanks for the feedback about "The Explosive Child Book". I do think that my daughter expends a great deal of energy "holding it all together" at school and then we get the anger and frustration she has kept under wraps. Today she took a practice SAT test and was wound very tight. She didn't like how the office smelled, she didn't respond well to the gentleman who administered the test, she could hear music from the dance studio next door, she was bothered by the man in the office pacing and her medication wore off making the last 1/2 hour of the test practically unbearable. She said "I failed it". By the time she got home she was pretty negative and nasty acting. I will look in to getting that book as we need tools to help her better deal with normal life situations. In our case, we did not experience this when she was younger. She was an enthusiastic, busy, talkative, highly creative and very social child who struggled academically in the early grades but improved quite a bit with one on one tutoring. The anger problems did not really present until middle school...which then made us chalk it all up to being a hormonal teenager. It wasn't until her California STAR tests dropped three years in a row that we finally thought maybe the problem is more than just being a teenager. Because she has such an outgoing, vibrant personality and is a born leader, nobody was waving a red flag so it took this constant, unrelenting hostility for us to finally have her see a therapist and eventually be fully evaluated by a neuropsychologist along with an SST at school. She was seeing a therapist for about nine months but did not want to continue and has only been taking medication during this school year. These outbursts and frequent bouts of hostility and anger, however, have led us to seek counseling from the psychiatric division of our medical carrier. They are supposed to devise a plan that will include individual counseling for her, family counseling and academic coaching so we can all learn to deal with her challenges more effectively.

Thanks again for the feedback. As her parents, we want to be as informed as possible so we can help her navigate these difficult years and be as prepared as possible to handle college and beyond.

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