You’re standing in the kitchen, making coffee as you scroll through your Instagram feed and reply to a quick work email. Then—ding!—a reminder about tomorrow’s dentist appointment pops up, immediately followed by a breaking news notification and two direct messages from your boss. Suddenly, the lights seem a little too…
This guide is for parents who are struggling to understand their child’s ADHD symptoms or diagnosis of ADHD, and for the adults who grew up believing that something was wrong with them – because their brains didn’t work like other people’s. The ADHD mind has its own rules. When you know…
Living with ADHD isn’t always easy. This condition, which may feel like a superpower at certain points, may also feel like a burden on other days. For adult men with ADHD, their hyperactivity or inattentiveness may be expressed in specific and unique ways compared with women. Men are often expected…
A Story About a Kid In 1989, I was 7 years old and just starting first grade. Early in the school year, my teacher arranged a meeting with my parents and stated that she thought that I might be “slow” because I wasn’t performing in class to the same level…
Adult ADHD does not have its own section in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which clinicians often use for classifying mental health conditions. According to that manual, ADHD in adults and ADHD in children is the same neurodevelopmental disorder. And yet attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can…
It’s easy to want your children to thrive; it’s harder to know exactly how to help them achieve their full potential. Parents, grandparents, and other caregivers aren’t always given the resources to identify and find treatment for mental health issues in kids. The Covid-19 pandemic shone a much-needed spotlight on…
Think back to a time when you were “online shopping” for a new health care provider — be it a counselor, a primary care doctor, or a specialist. What did you look for? Who did you gravitate toward? Who did you trust? You likely perused their education, years of experience,…
You may wonder why handwriting still matters in an era when we’re all typing on smartphones and computer keyboards. Americans aren’t especially known for their great penmanship. In fact, in 1955 the Saturday Evening Post called the US a “nation of scrawlers.” But we do still write: at school, on…
A toddler who gets overwhelmed when she hears a lawnmower. A kindergartner who can’t read your facial expressions. A grade-schooler who repeats the same phrase over and over. A teenager who will only wear one color. These can all be signs of neurodivergence: natural variations in the human brain. At…
