> My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD
The second D - disorder. When it affects the kid's ability to learn, socialise, etc
The second D - disorder. When it affects the kid's ability to learn, socialise, etc
Behavior patterns that were once totally normal may get in the way of living the kind of life that some parents have come to expect of their kids—running from school to dance to piano to soccer to tutors to therapy to whatever. Are these kids disordered because they can't keep up, or are the demands unreasonable?
Decent enough in school but dropped out of college twice. Fell into an entry level IT job with loads of scripts, processes, and procedures but the more I progressed the more autonomy I was given and the worse I performed.
Was mostly terrible but occasionally amazing (enough to keep my job at least) for ~10 years then bumped into the ADHD symptoms at some point, got myself checked out, got the diagnosis.
Doing pretty well now (tho never perfect) with medication and a stint of cognitive behavioural therapy to help set up my own structure. Getting there!
I originally went for help with low confidence which expanded out to digging into and addressing self-esteem, confidence, social anxiety, procrastination, and perfectionism.
If I'd taken one general thing from it though it's "do I have evidence or is this an assumption?" - if I have no evidence (that I'm terrible at my job, I did bad, that guy hates me, etc) then I should reevaluate if it's even accurate before doing anything with the thought
Writing things down when things go wrong was a big part of it too - what's the situation, what led to the situation, is it possible to view the situation in a better light, if not how can I fix the situation, if I can't fix things myself is there anyone that can help me with this situation rather than wallowing in it. That sort of thing.
As I say I imagine it'll differ from person to person so other people may have an entirely different experience with it, I'm not sure. Definitely worked for my systems/coding flavoured brain though, really was like debugging faults in a program. Figure out the underlying issue, try a fix, did it work? y/n? If no, try another fix. If yes, work on the next problem.
Where are you? I can't think of a single place in Europe where medication alone is the treatment standard for ADHD.
Looking back on my own life (diagnosed early 30s, but part of the process was looking at how I was in school): I struggled to keep up with the bare basics outside of lessons - getting ready for school on time, remembering books, remembering to tell my parents I/they needed to do stuff on specific dates, doing (small amounts of) homework.
On the social front - Billy no mates until college (where I met people who were as weird as me), constantly bullied for reasons I couldn't figure out, could not work out how people managed to make friends. Felt like I'd missed the day of school where they taught everyone how to socialise and be normal. It was also like my prime directive was "don't speak unless spoken to" haha. So damn quiet.
Unless someone directly invited me or gave me permission to do an activity that activity was just for other people, not for me. Dancing, sports, and pianos weren't even on the table lol.