ADHD in children and young people

Get help straight away if

These are uncommon, but they need same-day care — go to an emergency department, do not wait for an appointment.

Contact us promptly if

Not an emergency, but worth being seen sooner rather than waiting it out.

• Fainting, chest pain, or a racing irregular heartbeat while taking stimulant medicationContact us. Worth checking rather than continuing.
• New or worsening low mood, or thoughts of self-harmIf there are thoughts of suicide or self-harm, call 911 or call or text 988.

What usually happens

The core difficulty is regulation, not capacity. A child with ADHD generally knows what they are supposed to do; the problem is starting, staying with it and stopping the competing impulse. That is why being able to concentrate intensely on something absorbing is entirely consistent with ADHD rather than evidence against it.

It is not caused by parenting, screens or sugar. Parenting affects how much difficulty the condition causes, which is a different claim, and the sugar link has been looked for repeatedly and not found.

The quiet presentation is the one that gets missed. A child who is inattentive and disorganised without being disruptive causes nobody any trouble, and is often noticed years later than a hyperactive one — which is a large part of why girls are diagnosed later and less often.

Difficulties at school and at home are usually both present, though they can look quite different in each. Coping at school while falling apart at home does not rule it out; it often means a great deal of effort is going into holding it together during the day.

Medication is one part and not the whole. Support at school, structure at home, and understanding from the adults involved all change outcomes, and medication works better alongside them than instead of them.

At your appointment

We will want information from school as well as home, because the diagnosis depends on difficulties showing up in more than one setting.

We will ask about sleep, mood, anxiety and learning difficulties, all of which can look like ADHD, sit alongside it, or both.

Height, weight, blood pressure and heart rate recorded before any medication and monitored afterwards.

A conversation about what would help at school, whether or not medication is part of the plan.

Worth asking

• —What would support at school look like for my child?
• —What are the realistic benefits and side effects of medication?
• —Should we be looking at anything else alongside this?
• —How will we know whether it is working?