"ADHD is naughty boy syndrome"

[highten]

My DD has suspected ADHD. I'm fed up with my mum/dad and my MIL/FIL, describing it as 'naughty boy syndrome'. My DD isn't exactly 'naughty'. Is this type of assumption going to continue throughout her whole life?

[lougle]

Tbh, yes, sadly I think that lots of people view it as that. The inattention and lack of concentration (or 'flightiness') and the impulsivity looks like a child just being wild and out of control.

DD1 has never had an ADHD dx, but has MLD and goes to SS. She has all the ADHD markers, I just think that once a child's collected a few labels they don't bother giving out new ones

[Thefitfatty]

I was never called naughty at all growing up. A daydreamer, off in my own world, distracted, impulsive....sure. Naughty, never.

It's actually the very false assumption that girls can't get ADHD that led to the fact that I wasn't diagnosed till I was 35.

[ILostItInTheEarlyNineties]

Boys with undiagnosed ADHD used to be labelled as naughty because we were ignorant but I would hope most people nowadays have moved with the times.
I think you need to correct your family every time they label your dd in this way.

[RedHareWithBlondeHair]

Did your diagnosis change anything considering at 35 you'd lived quite a bit without it?

[Msqueen33]

It seems it's a more common label that people throw around and attach to any slightly lively kids. My dd is six and has asd, spd and also ADHD. She's not naughty at all but impulsive and very bouncy.

[Sparklesilverglitter]

I don't have children yet baby due in August so I have no first hand experience of ADHD.

I think some people ( hopefully only a very small group) do still think it's a label for "naughty kids" I have friends who child has it and she has unfortunately been told her child is just naughty

[Thefitfatty]

Did your diagnosis change anything considering at 35 you'd lived quite a bit without it?

Yes absolutely. Starting the medication is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

[DeloresJaneUmbridge]

Adult diagnosis CAN help RedHare. Medication exists for a start. My friend is a solicitor and was diagnosed in his,late 20s. Medication has made a massive improvements to his life and work.

OP I wpuld correct them every time. My son has ADHD as well as Autism. He is very placid with ADHD and is more inattentive than active.

[Iamthegreatest1]

Thefitfatty What you describe though sounds like the Inattentive type? is that what you meant? it will explain why you were never called 'naughty' and a 'day dreamer'. Just a thought, ds has ADHD.

[Sighing]

I've seen a mother of three (one with sn of their own) bawl out another mother at the school gate for being "shittest sort of parent" over her ADHD DD. Fucking appalling attitude. But I saw a few people nodding

[Thefitfatty]

Iamthegreatest1 I was also fidgety, anxious and impatient.

ADHD can manifest in slightly different ways in girls and women:

www.webmd.com/add-adhd/features/adhd-in-women

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/adhd-is-different-for-women/381158/

[BeyondVulvaResistance]

YA umm N (?) BU
I'm not sure as it wasn't exactly a question!

But the arseholes are gonna come out in force to this thread (oh look, there's one here already!) :(

[Samcro]

wow its that time again

[BeyondVulvaResistance]

Sam, seems the referendum pandemonia has passed...

[MrsKoala]

My DS has ASD and is 'self led', which means he basically can't control his impulses yet and does things which are considered naughty (running around, climbing on furniture, going thru bags, not doing as he is told, etc). When i saw the paed last time she said 'in less enlightened times he would probably just be described as a little shit or a naughty boy, but now things are different...' Er yeah.

People can be very unpleasant about things like this that they do not understand and cannot 'see' a cause for.

[Iamthegreatest1]

Thefitfatty Just read the first link. Very good. May I ask if you are now on medication or have you just learned to cope?

I'm also keen to find out from posters generally here what type of jobs/careers your ADHD sufferer now has as an adult. I'm just looking at DS and wondering where he might fit from a career point, he really wants to go to University and I can see him achieving that but worry if he'll be able to cope in an office job. The Internet hasn't been of much help before anyone suggests

[sleeponeday]

Unfortunately it will continue, yes. Sadly one of the biggest problems you face, as the parent of a disabled child, is the attitude of the public in general, and often relatives in particular.

I don't know the school usual attitude to ADHD, but with autism, even with a diagnosis the usual form is to assume the parents are to blame. Badly behaved in school? Parents are managing the autism badly and the kids take it out there. Badly behaved at home but masking in school? The parents can't manage the child as the school can. It's bullshit according to all the research, and I'm lucky enough to have a new SENDCO who totally gets what we are dealing with, but the described response is the norm.

My MIL is convinced DS is fine. She was so angry when we had him assessed and diagnosed, against her vehemently expressed advice, that she refused to speak to DH for a few months after. Admittedly, this was a relief to him more than anything else. I just let her idiocy go - we have bigger issues than a smug, ignorant relative.

[Iamthegreatest1]

Beyond and Vulva Are you on the wrong thread [comfused]

[Thefitfatty]

May I ask if you are now on medication or have you just learned to cope?

I'm on meds now (absolutely life changing) because the methods I'd developed to cope simply couldn't hold up to the task of working full time, being a wife and mother, adult in general. Believe it or not my DH actually expects me to understand what he says rather than just acknowledging that he, in fact, is speaking. And kids require food and clean clothes! LOL. :)

I have an office job. I'm a journalist by training and doing public relations now. I like it because I'm up and about a lot, meeting people and asking questions, I have a tape recorder so I can actually listen to and focus on what they said later, and writing is really short bursts and energy. It's hard though, especially when there are distractions. But meds have really really helped that.

[Lostmyemailaddress]

My ds2 has adhd he's 11 now and dd1 who's 7 has just been taken on by camhs for suspected adhd. We have had a few comments about just being naughty and a few about its just bad parenting, it used to upset me and not so much ds2 but ds1 took comments very badly. I learnt a few come backs if you will it tends to make people back off. If theyou refer to the dc as just naughty I offer to allow them to take the child in question for a couple of nights to sort said baf behaviour and warn them of usual sleeping patterns such as up to bed at 8 and reading until tired which could be any time up until 2am then up again at 6 but if they wake up say after half an hour then be ready for an all nighter. They usually look at me in horror and make an excuse to leave lol

[sleeponeday]

arf you once commented to me when things were really, really hard (DS is NT-passing in school, but his sensory problems and literal thinking are as severe as it gets so without support school is a terrifying maze of over-stimulation and utter confusion - school at the time were useless; things are infinitely better now) and you made me cry, you were so fantastic. I was feeling like I had no right to complain and you said that in some ways, at least people don't think you are just a shit mother who needs toi get her act together, because your DS can't mask. You kind of gave me permission to feel pissed off and upset about it all at a time when I needed to - and then I got the energy to be that parent and get the support in place for DS, even though at the time school thought he wasn't that bad and I was just coping badly (he's doing so much better with the support, astonishingly enough )Thank you, thank you. You and Zzzzzz have at separate times got me through some really horrible days.

And naming no names, if you don't have personal experience of dealing with neurodevelopmental challenges in a kid, then you are pronouncing from total ignorance. As a result, judgemental pronouncements just make you look stupid. And a cunt. But mainly stupid.

[VestalVirgin]

I think boys get away with way more, and that a big part of how ADHD presents has to do with socialisation.

I was a daydreamer as child, and no one thought of diagnosing me with some of those conditions and giving me a free pass for my not at all disruptive, unusual behaviour.

But people are expected to put up with boys doing real, actual harm, just because those boys are diagnosed with ADHS.

Oh, by the way, I am unemployed because I cannot stay focused on a task that bores me.
Perhaps I am bitter, but I think my life would have been way different had I been disruptive and "naughty" in class instead of silently reading a book under the table.

[BeyondVulvaResistance]

Greatest - Ummm....no?