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Enter Our September Sweepstakes: "What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew"

Enter to win one of five copies of "What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew" — a parenting blueprint by ADDitude contributor Sharon Saline, Psy.D. — by answering this question in the Comments: What do you wish the world knew about your ADHD child or your ADHD brain?

46 Comments: Enter Our September Sweepstakes: "What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew"

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  2. Sometimes I just can’t socialise because I have nothing left, its not because I am not interested its just that I can’t!

  4. I wish people could/would understand my grandson is trying to control his behavior. When he feels he has been backed into a corner by asking several times to please leave him alone, and the other child continues, he is going to lash out.
    ADHD is not something that can be turned on or off with a flip of a switch.

  6. What do you wish the world knew about your ADHD child or your ADHD brain?

    That Pathological Demand Avoidance is a REAL thing and my son IS NOT suffering from ODD. That having a high IQ and verbal language skill doesn’t mean it should be easier.

    Being a human with Autism and ADHD adds a whole different level of interconnected and weird outlying modifiers on neurodivergence.

  7. What do you wish the world knew about your ADHD child or your ADHD brain?

    That Pathological Demand Avoidance is a REAL thing and my son IS NOT suffering from ODD. That having a high IQ and verbal language skill doesn’t mean it should be easier.

  8. What I wish for is people to accept my daughter for who she is and not judge her with stereotypes of who she should be. Society is confusing her on who she really is.

  10. I wish people knew my son is not behaving this way on purpose so don’t take it personally & understand he can’t meet all your expectations

  11. I wish that people knew that a lot of what my son does isn’t intentional and that a lot of his behaviors can’t be helped. Some people take the time to learn that and figure it out, but others immediately judge him and/or his Father and I.

  12. What I wish, more than anything, is that my family, friends, colleagues, and especially my partner, could experience what life is like in my head on a given day. I wish they knew just how exhausting some things are for me that most people find to be a “simple” task. I wish they could truly know the amount of effort that it takes for me to “calm the chaos” in my head, or just how hard I try to be more organized…to actually make it somewhere on time, to finish an email and actually SEND it or reply to a text message, or to NOT forget the important items I need in order to make my day feel even the slightest bit “productive.”

    I wish they could see the exhaustion, the embarrassment, the tears of frustration, the shame, the guilt, the mental and emotional depletion that I somehow manage to mask underneath beneath my smile and continued efforts to just spread love and kindness while advocating for those who need it the most.

    To all of you that have posted and can relate….I see you. Your efforts are enough. YOU are enough.

    🙂

  13. What I wish you knew about my ADHD child is she may learn at a different pace and grasp concepts differently than others, but she is who she is meant to be and once you really get to know her, you will begin to understand that she is very smart.

  14. I wish they recognized how intelligent he is and that his impulsivity is not a purposeful behavior. I wish they saw how hard he tries, how he feels labeled and misunderstood, and then tries to exert power and control to defend himself.

  17. This brings up many topics I’d love to chat about.
    I live with my son and husband that have ADHD; it definitely can be difficult. They are such amazing, loving and most loyal people to the ones they love!
    My son and husband can be so hard on themselves and caught up in whatever (anger at themselves) happened instead of focusing on what to do to change it to make it better, learn from it, or change it. In want to help differ or change their mindset but it’s not working.
    I also find it hard as I feel a lot falls to me, remembering everyone’s schedules etc etc and then I can become overwhelmed, frustrated and triggered easily myself.
    Most of all I wish my son could develop strategies to deal with his anxiety or situations that arise that something happened he could better manage the anxiety from it and learn from it rather that get anger or hate himself because of it!
    He is such a great kid. I also wish he could find at least one great friend that accepts and supports him for who he is….because he’s pretty great!

  19. I wish my grandsons dad and step mom knew that my grandsons brain works differently than their’s. His mom died a little over a year ago and he had to move in with them.
    They think he is supposed to be perfect. He gets in trouble all the time for his adhd. He’s a good kid, he does what he is told to do by them and his teachers. He makes all As on his school work. He is in the band and does great.
    They think he does stuff on purpose. He forgets sometimes and they punish him for it. He is loving and kind…a precious young man. I just want them to understand him better. Thanks!!

  20. Also agree on the stigma-also w anxiety and depression, two conditions many w adhd have. The meds are frustrating to get, they aren’t cheap, there’s typically a shortage of them, etc. so tired

  22. I wish people knew how embarrassing it is to have ADHD. I wish there wasn’t such a stigma associated with it. Living with ADHD is not a joke. I also wish it wasn’t so challenging to get prescriptions filled, now that everyone and their brother is on ADHD meds and there are shortages everywhere.

  23. I wish that people realized that ADHD kids often need hands-on learning. Also that kids are often anxious and can’t go at the same pace as others.

  24. I wish people knew that forgetting things was not an unwillingness to remember. I wish they knew that learning things by rote isn’t always the best way for our brains (I’m looking at you, multiplication tables…). I wish they knew that we’re not trying to be jerks by forgetting – remembering is often not something our brains can even do.

  26. I wish people knew that we have to work harder to do regular things. I wish people could take ADHD seriously and understand that we actually do struggle and most of the time we also have anxiety, and no it is not something that we can easily control.

  29. I was one of those 2e kids but was not diagnosed until later in life. Kids may be in my future and I want to make sure that they get the knowledge and understanding that I never got. I have no idea what I could have accomplished if I had, but I will make sure that any kids I have, have every opportunity. I hope that schools will guide them so they can learn more and better, with better strategies from the start.

  31. So many things to say…first, you may find out that you have ADD when you find out ADD is what is holding your child back! Then comes the realization that you have been working harder for years, by developing coping mechanisms, than many other of your peers and always wondering why things seem so easy for them. I found out about myself this way when my daughter was in college. Now I have an 11 year old granddaughter, who has been writing and illustrating books since age 4, reads voraciously at the level of a HS student since 3rd grade. She was diagnosed as “twice exceptional”, a term I had never heard, but when I researched it…’ah ha! That’s been me my whole life. Really smart, curious and creative, but ADD/ADHD has kept me from making decisions due to fear of failure and now I look back with regret. My granddaughter will not have to live the same life. ADDitude has been in my top 5 most helpful resources for understanding how ADD has effected my life and what to do about it. So now I have the resources to pass on to my family and as a mental health therapist, to my clients!

  33. What I wish people knew….How loving my son is and how he is harder on himself than any punishment you could give him. He comes off as a very confident individual but inside he is the exact opposite. He works on a farm and makes plenty of mistakes and some can be very costly. Deep down I know he feels bad but doesn’t know how to say I’m sorry or explain entirely how the mistake happened. The pressure of it all causes his mind to get confused, defensive, argumentative and angry. ADHD individuals need a cooling off period to give their minds a moment to calm down and be able to focus again on the issue at hand. They need to be allowed to walk away or take a time out and then try to explain what happened and for a lot of people they don’t understand that. Schools need to be educated on ADHD and understand this is a disability and these children need IEP’s in place to help them through school and to receive addition aide to learn social skills and other aspects of life.

  35. I wish people understood having ADHD is a disability and you wouldn’t tell a child in a wheel chair to just stop acting like they can’t walk. Yet, child has been told to just stop acting like that. And as a parent I have been told “He just needs to learn how to manage his behaviors”. Please recognize that ADHD children are not behaving this way because they just need to learn how to manage their behavior, or that my parenting skills are deficient. If you get to know my child and build a relationship you will see his awesome abilities not his disabilities.

  36. I wish I didn’t have to listen to other kids say “she’s acting so crazy right now! Why does she act so crazy sometimes?”
    I wish I didn’t have to hear her say “No one wanted to play with me today. They all excluded me.”
    And the worst one I wish I never had to hear, “I hate myself.”
    But she has us to help her through it all, and we are thankful for the research and knowledge we have from the ones before us!

  38. I wish people would acknowledge that just because THEY don’t understand it, doesn’t make it any less real for those of us going through, or living with someone who has ADHD. 🙄

  39. I wish people could see beyond the crazy weirdness and accept him for who he is. In his meltdowns. In his defiance. In his quiet withdrawn moments as well as the moments when he over explains. In the constant loop of songs or noises. Just accept him for who he is.

  40. I wish they knew that my son can’t help it. He’s always doing something wrong but he is a good kid who wants to do well. He has a disability.

  41. I just want to say. I didn’t read the details properly and i am infact not too late to enter. 🙈

    I wish people knew how hard it was living like this. We don’t want to be like this. My bad.

  42. I know I’m too late to enter. But id like to leave a comment anyway.
    As a recently diagnosed 38 year old.

    What i wish people knew..
    A lot.

    People see me and other ADHDers as childish, rude, obnoxious and dumb. To the point they will say “how on earth did YOU get marks like that” because of how they see us. (I’m in UNI)

    I wish they knew that what they see isn’t who we are. I wish they knew the internal daily struggle to fit in to the neurotypical world and rules that humans have created.

    I wish they knew the deep emotional impact of ADHD and the constant self critism and feelings of failure we go through on a daily basis because “why can’t i just be and act like everyone else.”
    “Why do i say and do these things”

    The constant bombardment of internal and external stimuli sending us into an overwhelming state of confusion and stress”

    We feel everything on a heightened level with no “calm”.

    Despite what people see on the outside. We ARE empathetic, very caring and loving. We ARE smart even when we ourselves sometimes believe and have been taught we aren’t.

    Our minds are like a race car track through the Himalayas where every driver forgot the rules and is just speeding and crashing around into things in an effort to get to the end. Everything goes full force until you crash and burn.
    Whilst everyone else’s minds are Sunday drivers enjoying the scenery.

    We do wish we could slow it down and be like you.. we really do. It’s all we want.. but there’s no brakes on these cars and they are out of control.

    We wish you could see we try.
    We wish you could see us for who we really are.
    We wish we had friends.
    We are desperate for someone to love us and care about us and see us for who we really are behind the mess and chaos.
    Because we really can be the best friend anyone has ever had.

  44. When my 6 year old daughter has a tantrum it’s because she’s overstimulated or frustrated and instead of discipline she needs help and love and understanding! She’s trying to tell us she needs us not push us away.

  45. My ADHD child likely wishes I knew how it actually feels to have such scattered thoughts and understand how tremendously difficult it is to stay focused and on task.

  46. What ‘I’ Wish You Knew it… You’re frustrated with me? I’m WAY more frustrated with myself, my mind, and I don’t want you to see it.

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