While this list is not exhaustive, here are some common myths about ADHD:

1. ADHD is not a medical problem
2. Bad parenting causes ADHD
3. ADHD is much more common in boys than girls
4. ADHD is over-diagnosed
5. People with ADHD are just lazy or developmentally delayed
6. An ADHD diagnosis can be confirmed if stimulant medication is effective
7. Children diagnosed with ADHD will outgrow the disorder
8. Children treated with ADHD medications will abuse drugs when they get older
9. Only children who are hyperactive have ADHD
10. ADHD medication cures ADHD

ADHD is not a medical problem.

ADHD is a legitimate medical diagnosis. The American Psychiatric Society labels Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (or Attention Deficit Disorder) a medical disorder, as does the US Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health.  A great deal of research has been conducted, and the conclusion is that ADHD results from problems with the neurotransmitters in the brain. This results in behavioral changes, including impulsivity, attention issues, and sometimes in hyperactivity.

Bad parenting causes ADHD

Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder have biological problems making it difficult to control impulses and behavior. Diligent parents may have tried to teach their children to behave, but the brain chemistry is always working against them. It is easy to label children with ADHD as “brats” or “undisciplined,” but the facts are that the changes in their brain are to blame—not the parents.

ADHD is much more common in boys than girls

Because of this myth, it is true that more boys are diagnosed with ADHD than are girls, but there is no evidence that girls are not just as susceptible to the disorder as are boys.

ADHD is over-diagnosed

About 3% to 7% of school-age children in the U.S. have an ADHD diagnosis. Because there is no one test that conclusively diagnoses ADHD, there may be cases of misdiagnosis, but some experts believe that it is more likely that the disorder is under-diagnosed. This is particularly true in the case of girls. Unfortunately, many children go untreated.

People with ADHD are just lazy or developmentally delayed

A person’s intellectual ability is totally unrelated to ADHD. While people who are developmentally delayed can have ADHD, many extremely intelligent people also have the disorder. Untreated ADHD can lead to problems with schoolwork, but, again, this is not because of intellectual abilities.

An ADHD diagnosis can be confirmed if stimulant medication is effective

Some people think that giving stimulant medications, such as Ritalin, can be used as a test to confirm an ADHD diagnosis. However, even children without the disorder can respond to these medications and exhibit behavior changes. A trial of medicine alone is not recommended as a way to diagnose ADHD.

Children diagnosed with ADHD will outgrow the disorder

The vast majority of people an ADHD diagnosis as children continue to have the disorder as teenagers and as adults. Unfortunately, most adults with ADHD do not get a diagnosis and, therefore, do not get treatment. These undiagnosed people are prone to anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.

The good news is that if a child is diagnosed early, he or she can learn coping mechanisms, get support, and find the right medication, if necessary, to develop into highly productive adults.

Children treated with ADHD medications will abuse drugs when they get older

Untreated ADHD is actually more likely to lead to substance abuse. If children get the support they need, in the form of behavior therapy, medication, and parental understanding, the risk of drug and alcohol abuse is reduced.

Only children who are hyperactive have ADHD

While many children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder do exhibit hyperactivity, not all do. ADHD is now used to refer both the ADHD and ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Some children fall into a category of hyperactivity and impulsivity; some children only exhibit the inattention part of the disorder; and still others exhibit both

ADHD medications cure ADHD

ADHD medications don’t cure the ADHD, but they can be very effective at treating some of the symptoms of the disorder.

While psycho-stimulant medication can help many children with ADHD to be less hyperactive and more focused, medication should be just part of the treatment plan. Other parts of the plan may include psychotherapy and behavior modification therapy.

Mom’s Take:

I guess it makes sense that the myth that hurts the most is number 2, that bad parenting is at fault. I even believed that myself in the beginning. I’d be at the playground with my daughter, and the other mothers were sitting and chatting while their kids played together. I never got to sit down because of the constant barrage of trouble my daughter was causing. She took someone’s toy, she pulled another’s hair, she ran out of the fenced area around the playground and into the street, she screamed for no apparent reason—I could go on. And I saw the way the other mothers looked at me. I felt that I was inadequate to handle my own child and that they knew it. That, of course, was before we got help, but I still hate to think of those days.

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If you are feeling overwhelmed by the constant dealing with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, it is time to look at some things to relieve the stress in your life.  Here are some ideas to help you proactively deal with the stress of AHDH symptoms in your child.

Luxuriating in a bath: This time-honored stress reliever can take you out of your day-to-day routine of dealing with a child with ADHD and help relax your muscles—and your mind. Pick a time when you can spend an hour or so; light a scented candle; and pop your favorite music CD into the player. If you have a comfortable bath pillow to recline on, even better.  Next time you are shopping, pick up some bath oil or bath salts in anticipation of your short “vacation.” Scents can help you relax, too.

A brisk walk: Moving your muscles—especially in the open air—can help alleviate stress. If you have an MP3 or CD player, load it up with some favorite popular music—Motown or David Bowie or Sarah Vaughan—whatever makes YOU feel good. Twenty minutes of exercise can make a world of difference and refresh you to face the next issue with your child with ADHD.

A planned weekend or a night away from home: It’s great if you and your spouse can plan a weekend away, but if that doesn’t work, even an overnight break can be restorative.  While a spa environment is wonderful, it’s not what you do as much as that you are away from the stress triggers in the house.

A shopping spree: For some people, shopping for a little something special or a gift for a favorite friend can help redirect your focus. This helps lift your mood and dissipates stress.

Break your routine: Do something entirely different—try a new menu; take the dog with you on your walk; call a friend you haven’t seen in a long time; play a computer game. Again, it’s not so much what you do as that you do something to shake things up a little and help distract you from thinking about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Get a massage: Now, who doesn’t like a relaxing massage? A deep muscle massage can promote relaxation and help tension disappear. An occasional massage can be like a mini-vacation, and if you can afford to have a massage regularly, you may find your neck and back aches becoming less of a problem.

Get organized: Spend some time cleaning out your purse or a drawer where things tend to collect. Get a calendar or personal organizer—and use it! You will be surprised at how good you will feel when you’ve accomplished a small organizational task or a larger one, such as starting to use a system for keeping track of appointments.

While it is easy to claim you don’t have time to relax, if schedule these relaxing moments regularly, you and your child with ADHD will benefit.

Mom’s Take

It just snuck up on me. Since my daughter’s ADHD diagnosis, I have been so involved in talking to doctors, getting her medication right, setting up charts at home, communicating with the school—that I didn’t even connect the headaches I was having and my short temper with what was going on with my daughter. Once I realized that much of what I was dealing with was stress, I had to admit that a little time out for Mom was in order. It wasn’t easy, even to find half an hour, but once I saw how much I got out of it, I put it on the weekly schedule. I make sure that at least once a week –twice is even better—I take a walk, see a friend, soak in the bath, or get away. This helps me have more patience with my daughter and with the others in the family.

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1. At the top of the list is getting the proper amount of sleep. Sleep deprivation can be a common side effect of having a child with ADHD. You must work at setting up your life and training yourself to go to sleep—and stay asleep—for at least seven or eight hours a night.

2. Build in stress reducers into your schedule. These may include a regular walk, an evening out with your spouse, time alone just to think. A stress reducer is whatever helps you relax and enjoy something for yourself.

3. Try to be open-minded and admit when you are wrong. This is an important element of good mental health. This can be particularly challenging when parenting a child with ADHD, but cultivating this attitude will contribute to your own mental health.

4. Eat properly and try to keep your weight at the appropriate level.

5. Take time to exercise—even a short daily walk will help you stay in shape.

6. Get organized. Use an organizational tool, such as a calendar organizer, to help you stay on top of your appointments. Again, this is a way of reducing stress—one that will ensure that everyone in the family of a child with ADHD will reap benefits.

7. Drink enough water. Staying well hydrated is important to good health.

8. Get regular checkups. With all of the appointments you may have with your child with ADHD, you may not feel like seeing another doctor, but regular checkups, including PAP smears and mammograms, are vital to caring for yourself.

9. Limit or eliminate alcohol and tobacco use. These are substances that may make you feel better in the short term, but in the long run they are bad for your health and even for your mood.

10. Try to be optimistic. Studies have shown that people who have a positive attitude towards life tend to live longer. Being discouraged wears you down and can influence your health. As Winston Churchill said, “Success is measured by your ability to maintain enthusiasm between failures.”

Mom’s Take

I was so tired of calling and making appointments for my daughter that I didn’t think I could pick up the phone and schedule my own yearly checkup. I had let it slide six months past when it should have taken place. When my friend Gina pointed out that it was not going to do anyone any good if I get sick, I forced myself to call. While everything was fine, it felt good knowing that I was doing the responsible thing—for myself for a change!

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Why is Homework So Important?

You may wonder why your ADHD child needs to do homework at all. Educators agree that homework provides many opportunities for ADHD children to learn and practice the academic skills that they may not have the time to acquire in the school setting. Homework helps a child in the following areas: 1) review of material learned in school; 2) preparation for future class learning; 3) extension homework, which helps the child take general concepts and place them into unfamiliar contexts; and 4) creative assignments, which requires the child to take the known and produce something new and original.[1] These areas are so vital to learning, that effectively assisting children with ADHD and homework can help them to engage more actively in their school work. What the classroom setting cannot provide due to the limitations of teacher time and other distractions, homework can successfully accomplish. This is where parents can really pitch in and assist their ADHD child. The key is to get the struggle and suffering out of the equation by developing homework help uniquely designed for your ADHD child.

Let’s Get Organized

Loose papers, half-written assignments, book bags in disarray – this is most often what a parent faces when trying deal with ADHD and homework. Helping your ADHD child become more organized can be the most important step in achieving homework success. Firstly, it’s important to check and help your child organize their belongings on a daily basis, including backpacks, folders, and even pockets. Use part of homework time to help teach your ADHD child how to clean out old useless items from their backpacks. These items often distract the child, and hinder their ability to find what they need.

Once you have done this, check what is missing and then go shopping with your child to pick out school supplies that are appropriate for organizing homework. Depending on your child’s age, you may need folders, binders, and/or color-coded dividers to help them organize and file their papers. It may be helpful to buy different colored folders, notebooks, book covers and even colored pens. Then match each color to a particular subject. Buy a separate closable folder to use for homework papers. This folder will provide your child with a consistent place to store the homework papers. Then you must teach them how to file and organize themselves What may seem obvious to you is not at all obvious to the ADHD child. Your child can then store these folders in his or her backpack and sort them out each day with your help.   

Here are some other tips for helping to organize your ADHD child. Keep in mind age-appropriate tasks:

• Speak to the school about obtaining an extra set of textbooks and other materials to keep  at home.
• Help your child learn to make and use checklists, crossing items off as they are accomplished.
• Help your child learn to write down homework assignments in an assignment book and then check off completed assignments. Teach your child to break down long-term assignments and projects into smaller parts, writing each part into the assignment book. This can lessen anxiety when they see that they don’t need to do so much at once.
  • Help your child estimate how long it will take to complete each given assignment and help them plan their daily schedule accordingly. Include in this daily schedule study time for tests and other projects. This will help them learn to divide homework and study time effectively.
  • Help your child learn to plan ahead. We all know that it’s much more effective to start working on major assignments or reviewing for major tests well ahead of time rather that cramming the night before.

How Can the School Help Children with ADHD and Homework?

As a parent, you have a great deal of ability to work with teachers in helping your ADHD child with homework. Don’t underestimate how much teachers welcome and appreciate the involvement of parents in the learning process. Meet with your child’s teachers to discuss homework expectations. If appropriate, teachers can lessen the amount of homework assigned to your ADHD child and also give them extended time to complete assignments. This can be done in a way that is not noticeable to other children.

Here are other ideas that you as a parent, and the teacher can implement to make homework a success for your child:

• Ask the teacher to say the homework assignment out loud in addition to writing down all the steps necessary to complete each assignment.
• Give assignments one at a time to avoid work overload.
• Increase the quality instead of the quantity of time spent on homework:
• Give fewer and shorter homework assignments.
• Allow the child to stop practicing an activity once he/she has demonstrated the mastery of that particular skill.
• Reduce assignments into manageable sections with specific due dates.
• Give the child only the amount of work that can be done at one sitting.
• Have the teacher check the child’s assignment notebook at the end of class to make sure it is accurate. If possible, try to get a schedule of the week’s assignments so you can have them at home as a backup.
  • For the ADHD child with poor handwriting, which is very common, reduce the need or amount of handwriting required.[2]
• Set up a homework procedure at school: establish a place where the student can easily find his or her finished homework and pick an appropriate and consistent time to hand in work to the teacher.

Let’s Sit Down to do Homework!

After you have helped your ADHD child get organized (and this may be required on a daily basis) and become a partner with the teachers in establishing homework expectations, now it’s time to sit down and provide homework help!

Establishing a Set Homework Routine for your ADHD Child

Most children come home from school and need to unwind for a bit, be it with a snack and a book or to go outside and play with their friends. For the ADHD child this is especially true. You as the parent can figure out what time works best for your child to do homework and then create a daily routine that will support this decision. Stick to this routine so your child knows what to expect. If your child is on medication, it must be taken into consideration.

Children with ADHD may not be able to sit still for a long periods of time. You can give your child breaks after a predetermined amount of time so that your child can stretch or do brief exercises before resuming homework.  For example, set a timer for 15 minutes for a younger child, and allow a 5-minute break to stretch, run around, or play with a pet. The child’s work time in shorter segments will be more productive.

Designated Area for Homework

Next, you need to locate a designated area for your ADHD child to do homework. The homework area must be free from distractions, but close enough so that you can monitor and provide homework help as needed.  Also, make sure that your child has all the materials at hand. A child with ADHD who has to wander off to find a pencil will have a difficult time settling down to concentrate again.

It is also important to consider the noise level. Some children do best in quiet. Some do better with a little background noise or music. You and your child can work out which environment is most productive and then stick to it. Make the homework routine predictable and stress-free. After homework is done, check it over. Then help your child put the completed assignment in the homework folder and return all appropriate items to the book bag, zipping it up securely when done.

Positive Feed-Back

Positive feedback is extremely useful in trying to provide homework help to your ADHD child and help them remain relaxed. Check your child’s work often and compliment their efforts. Remember to point out the things your child is doing well and give reward points whenever you can. For example, it is important to tell your child the value of accuracy over speed and point out   their efforts rather than what they haven’t yet completed. These comments will motivate the child to continue to do try to more.

Some Additional ADHD Homework Help Strategies

• Allow your child to stand if sitting makes him/her jittery. Moving around may help your child to concentrate. Use a square of tape on the floor to make a box for his/her feet if he wanders too much.
• Provide textures to aid in productivity. Attach some adhesive velcro strips (soft side) to the desk for the child to rub his/her hand on, or make some stress balls of balloons filled with flour, rice, or sugar for the child to play with while they are thinking.
• Studies have shown that certain scents may aid in concentration. Try to experiment with basil, pine, peppermint, or citrus scents to see if any of these help.
• Keep your child’s mouth busy. For some children, chewing gum, or snacking on something crunchy like an apple or a cracker can help productivity. [3]

Mom’s Take:

ADHD and homework doesn’t have to cause anxiety and stress in either child or parent anymore. An ADHD child can be successful and productive during homework time with the homework help that their parents can provide. When you teach your child organizational skills, and combine that with teacher input and cooperation – and of course a positive and routine homework environment — successful homework help can produce enormous results both at home and at school.

[1]Homework success for children with ADHD: a family-school intervention program, by Thomas J. Power, James L. Karustis, Dina F. Habboushe

[2] Andries, Darcy, Homework Help for ADD, Suite101.com, August 27, 2008.

[3] Wilson, Laura, Homework Help for a Child with ADD, Suite 101.com, Feb. 22, 1010.

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