Your child is bouncy. He doesn’t seem to pay attention; she forgets to follow through on tasks. The book bag is a disaster area; necessary books never seem to make it home; and you regularly have to turn around and go home to pick up shin guards or ballet shoes.

Well, what can it be, besides ADHD – the psychiatric diagnosis of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, diagnosed off a checklist and sometimes suspected of being over-diagnosed?

The symptoms associated with ADHD can be due to a wide variety of issues; here are a few:

1. Stress at home or in the environment. If you are having marital or other family difficulties, your child is stressed – whether you know it or not. Research indicates that a, adults are pretty lousy of telling when children are anxious or worried and b, the children of adults with marital problems, when tested in research studies, have high levels of stress chemistry metabolites in their urine.
2. Maybe it’s not at home; maybe it’s the environment. Live in a noisy and/or high crime neighborhood? Is your child bullied or afraid of being bullied at school? Sources of ongoing stress will interfere with the parts of the brain that are important to focus, attention and memory.
3. Insufficient sleep. Is your school-age child getting 9 or 10 hours of quality rest per night? Falling sleep by television, computer, or with a cell phone close at hand? These will all interfere with quality and quantity of sleep.
4. What are overtired kids like? You know what you do when you’re driving late at night and you are too tired to be driving – so you bounce in the seat, sing too loudly and pretend having the windows open will magically keep you alert? Yeah, well…meet the 3^rd grade kid who is up too late because of football or soccer practice a few times a week and fidgets around looking dazed in class.
5. Insufficient exercise. The recommendation for children is two hours of physical activity a day – real activity, not standing-around-hoping-coach-lets-me-play-this time activity.
6. Boredom. Brains + boredom = either shutting down and not trying at all OR driving grownups and other kids bonkers. Look out for the introverted or shy child who may shut down and go into dreamland; a lot of gifted children are very introverted and self-contained, and unlikely to be overtly disruptive. They simply tune out.
7. Frustration. A child who is having difficulty – perhaps an undiagnosed or insufficiently supported learning disability – will often give up and stop trying. Remember that children personalize things; if they are struggling and the grownups act like they “should” be able to “get it,” the child assumes the adults know best and that the child must be flawed/”stupid” etc.
8. Your (or some other involved grownup’s) inconsistency. If you flipflop on rules, fail to follow through, and run an unpredictable life for yourself and your child, it’s not fair to look at the child who seems scattered or (more likely) is gambling on this being one of those times when you are too stressed or preoccupied and let things slide, and blame the child.

You’ll notice that none of these issues can be blamed on the child. These are all grownups-need-to-pay-attention flags, not “naughty kid” flags. So, before you assume your child has a brain disorder, rule out the many factors that we grownups often unwittingly inflict on children and see if, with a few months of more consistent attention to these risk factors, your child’s behavior and morale improve.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.