'My 6-year-old son has ADHD. It's nothing like you think it is.'

Two months ago, my six-year-old son was diagnosed with combined ADHD. The combined part means he has both the inattentive and hyperactive traits rather than just one or the other. I know what you’re thinking, that kid must be a real handful, but I’m here to dispel some pretty common misconceptions about children with ADHD. I should know; I had the same thoughts before I knew anything about it.

An estimated 8.4 per cent of children and 2.5 per cent of adults have ADHD. Watch to understand what ADHD means. Post continues after the video.

We didn’t get our son assessed because he was violent, because he isn’t. We didn’t get our son assessed because he is failing at school, because he isn’t. We also didn’t get our son assessed because he’s losing friends and socially unaware, because he absolutely is not. Why did we get him assessed? For reasons that I’ve never heard associated with ADHD, which is why I think this conversation is so important to have. 

In my son’s first year of school, he fell over a lot. It wasn’t uncommon for me to get multiple phone calls from the office alerting me to the fact that there had been yet another non-serious injury to document. This coincided with the fact that my husband and I noticed our son couldn’t easily hop, skip or balance on a beam properly. No big deal, we thought; the kid’s a little uncoordinated.

A few months later, as he was beginning to delve deeper into writing at school, his teacher made a point of letting us know his pencil grip wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t worried, as this was a common problem for year one students, but suggested we start him with some occupational therapy to help with hand strength. No big deal, we thought, and we started him with regular OT appointments, as well as speech therapy for his lisp.

It was during these allied health appointments that the penny started to drop. He was showing inconsistency with his progress and frequently showed signs of becoming easily distracted. For our son, this was in the form of spinning on chairs, looking ahead at the next task before finishing his current one, and not being able to follow more than two-step instructions easily. 

What might have been glaringly obvious to these health professionals was still quite puzzling to us at home. Our son had breezed through kindergarten and enjoyed a bustling social life. He played sports, not super well but not terribly, and had always been a positive, happy, and seemingly bright kid. There were no behavioural issues to speak of outside of the occasional age-appropriate meltdowns, and he has always been generally well-liked by everyone.

Image: @marisa_remond

After seeing a developmental paediatrician, my husband and I were interviewed separately to our son, and were tasked with a pretty mammoth amount of questionnaires to fill out and to also pass on to relevant teachers. Barely a month after our initial appointment, we had our diagnosis with zero ambiguity — our son had ADHD. 

I’m pretty ashamed to admit that the diagnosis hit me like a tonne of bricks, and I immediately started to picture a life ahead filled with roadblocks and hardships for not only him but our entire family. How does a kid with ADHD do well in school? How do they keep friends, succeed in life, or even tie their own shoelaces? I had a few weeks of falling into a pretty deep slump until I decided to arm myself with all the knowledge I could to better understand what we were dealing with.

After way too much Googling, my husband came home one day pretty elated to school me in all the successful personalities who also have ADHD. Justin Timberlake! Jamie Oliver! Richard Branson! Bill Gates! As I began to further explore the concept of success and neurodiversity, I came to realise it’s not all that uncommon to be really good at some things while also struggling with the everyday basics. For every perceived negative attribute of ADHD, there is a matched superpower — a skill that goes above and beyond what is deemed normal. This could relate to a sport, a musical talent, an academic or even an emotional trait. There’s also the concept of hyper-focus, which is when someone with ADHD can devote uninterrupted time to a task thanks to the ability to block out any outside noise or distraction. Slowly but surely, we were beginning to understand that an ADHD diagnosis was not all bad news.

Of course, it would be remiss of me to suggest that it’s all smooth sailing and roses right now in our household. As much as we feel a deeper understanding of our son’s behaviour and quirks, we are still challenged by unexpected emotional outbursts that can happen without any warning or good reason. It’s not uncommon for our son to interrupt conversations, speak loudly at inappropriate times and find regular tasks, such as zipping up a bag or doing up a button, challenging. I’ve already replaced his school pants twice this year, thanks to self-inflicted large rips due to his constant fidgeting, and getting him to wear weather-appropriate clothing can come with hours of negotiation. Sometimes, it can appear as if he doesn’t care about anything other than himself, while at other times, he’s overwhelmingly sensitive, caring and compassionate.

Image: @marisa_remond

The subject of medication comes up as soon as you utter the letters ADHD from most people, and for now, we have been advised that we won’t need to go down that route if we instead invest in some positive parenting techniques from expert psychologists. We’ll be assessing him regularly throughout the year in case that changes, but in the meantime, it seems early intervention comes in the form of strategies for both parents and carers, not just a pill. This is undoubtedly reassuring, but I’m also overwhelmingly grateful to know that we do have the benefit of medication if things do get harder to manage down the track. And I’m sure our son would be grateful, too. 

It’s hard to differentiate regular six-year-old behaviour from ADHD, and at times I’ll admit the positives far outweigh the negatives with our son, who has always had a quick wit and the social skills of someone twice his age. As his parents, we have a lot to learn, but most importantly, we also have a lot to unlearn when it comes to the stigma around ADHD.

Feature image: @marisa_remond