ADHD in Children

Ingrid

Ingrid lives in a dream world of her own. If you are talking to her she looks right through you or switches off halfway through, especially if she’s bored by the subject. She never gets around to starting homework, let alone finishing it. She always has an excuse or she gets distracted by something else. If you ask her to fetch things, you have to repeat yourself several times, and then she comes back with only one of the things. If it were up to her, she’d always be late for school and clubs. It’s not that she doesn’t want to go. She gets distracted and forgets the time. One day, she can concentrate, especially if she’s interested, the next day, she loses her pencil case, forgets to pass on notes from school and takes hours to do one page of homework.

Ingrid has Predominantly Inattentive ADHD.

Gilbert

Gilbert’s parents had always known he was a bright and before he started school he could write his name. read books easily and understood a great deal of what was going on in the world. However, he never did well at school and whilst he could put his energy into sport and other activities, where he was clearly very confident, in the classroom he was average in some subjects and below average in others. Although his parents were very concerned, they were seen by the school as being over-anxious parents. His teachers found he could concentrate really well in some subjects, like Science and IT, but in English, History and Geography, especially where he did not like the teachers, he did very badly indeed. He had difficulty in concentrating in those subjects but in other things he could over-focus.

His parents eventually transferred him to a private school with a small class sizes and increased structure and support. Gilbert did very well for a while and was at the top of the year for the first two terms. However, he gradually slipped back to his old ways and was in the lower part of the year.

Gilbert is gifted but with ADHD.

Horace

Horace lives in a blur of activity and noise. In nursery school, his constant running about didn’t matter so much, but now he has sit still longer in class, he is always getting into trouble for being “disruptive.” He talks incessantly at home and in class and is always interrupting, but it’s never to the point. When he has friends round, he’s the one being rowdy and making a racket; not that he has so many friends any more. The other children say he’s nasty and doesn’t stick to the rules properly when they play games. You can’t let him go to the park on his own, either. He’s always falling out of trees or roller-blading on the busy road.

Horace has Hyerpactive/Impulsive ADHD

Melvin

Although Melvin was a whirlwind child as a toddler and his mother cut the obvious trigger factors from his diet, she couldn’t regard him as hyperactive now that he is older. In fact his ADHD has been masked by the fact that he is so angry, defiant and easily upset and is getting into trouble for stealing, starting fights, hurting the cat and lighting fires. He has frequent outbursts. He has virtually no self-confidence and no friends.

Melvin’s ADHD is masked by his co-existing conditions and complications.

Toby

Toby is a boy of 8. Just before starting at school it was noticed that he had lots of shoulder struggling and a face twitching and began more and more to sniff, cough and spit. Before that, he had always been quite active, angry and argumentative and was quite a handful. At preschool, he often hit the other children, was regarded as a whirlwind, and concerns had been expressed that he might not concentrate long enough to learn when he started school.

He was also quite obsessive. He needed to line his toys up exactly in the correct position-he insisted on using a certain cup and blue plate-he had to put the milk, then the sugar on his cereal in an exact way. If he had a routine for doing something and this did not happen, he could get very upset and have a “stress attack.”

He was being teased about his tics at school and tried so hard to control them that when he came home they usually became a lot worse. His neck tics were so bad he even saw the physiotherapist because if neck pain. His spitting was getting worse and he kept chewing holes in his jumper.

Toby has Tourette’s Syndrome.

Useful Links:

Useful Resources:

Useful Readings:

The Pain and The Great One, by Judy Blume
Otto Learns About His Medicine, by Matthew Galvin
My Brother’s a World Class Pain – A Sibling’s Guide to ADHD, by Michael Gordon
Shelley, the Hyperactive Turtle, by D. Moss
Putting on the Brakes, by P. Wuinn and J. Stern
A Dr. Spot Casebook: Zak has ADHD, by Jenny Leigh