Are all children ADHD/ADD

[GameOverBoys]

I have just completed a bunch of those checklist things for my DS as I’m curious if he might be ADD/ADHD. He scored highly and I’m wondering if any children don’t score.
Are there children who you don’t have to remind everyday to brush their teeth? Or tidy their room? Isn’t it normal for children to fidget and not want to do homework?
Amongst my friends kids DS seems completely normal in most regards. The only big difference is he really struggles to occupy himself unless he has a screen. He doesn’t play and never has. His favourite activity is following me around and talking a lot.
So has anyone filled in an ADHD checklist and had it say your child isn’t ADHD/ADD?

Yes, many kids need reminding to brush their teeth. It's likely that a child with inattentive ADHD would need reminding again, even when they're in the bathroom with the toothbrush in their hand or they many need verbal or written prompts and timers to get through the task of tooth cleaning to a satisfactory standard.

My child has this and the other day needed reminding because he was standing at the sink and couldn’t remember whether I’d asked him to brush his teeth or wash his hands.

My son is in year 6 and there are two boys in his class with ADHD and my son says this manifests as constantly interrupting and talking for one, and fiddling and fidgeting for the other. I try to explain it to my son like; if you had to sit through maths for 3 hours instead of 1, you’d feel like fidgeting probably after an hour or so, but you can keep still and concentrate for that first hour. So Bob feels like you do, but after maybe 20 minutes instead.
And when you feel like talking, you can hold it in, control that impulse, but Joe finds it really hard to control that same impulse for as long as you.

But as to your question, yes I think most children need to be reminded to do some things, but it changes. So my 10 year old needs to be reminded to do homework and my 13 year old doesn’t. My 10 year old might need one reminder to clean teeth, but when he was 4, I would have to stand there and help. I guess a child with ADHD would need more reminders, for longer.

Saying that, my son doesn’t have ADHD but I have reminded him eleventy billion times not to kick a football in the house and yet I’ve JUST had to tell him again.

I think the difference between normal childhood traits, like having to remind them to do things, tidy up etc, and those things for children with ADHD is that generally for those with ADHD rewards and punishments don't seem to work in the same way. For most kids if you take away something or promise you'll do/buy them something unless/if they keep their room tidy for week, they will do it. A child with ADHD won't be able to, certainly not autonomously, however much they want the reward or don't want the punishment.

How old is your ds (apologies if I’ve missed this)? Speaking colloquially it isn’t a stretch to say that most toddlers would seem to present with adhd, which is why the age for diagnosing it is usually over 6.

But many parents would describe their adhd toddlers as “a bit more-“ , so there are differences.

On the side note, I feel that I am adhd. If I just had it I’d leave it somewhere but it affects every part of my life experience. If the grammar doesn’t fit, that’s an issue with how it’s named (and very few disorders are a cherry picked list of symptoms)

I agree those questions are a load of...

Check out QB tests which is how my child was tested, it compares their results to the rest of their cohort (age, gender, etc). Most adhd kids are in the 90th percentiles for attention, focus, distractability.

Therefore they can't all be adhd because they have to be significant outliers compared to other kids.

No not all kids would meet the criteria on an ADHD screener. I complete screens on a fairly regular basis as part of my job.

As mentioned above the pattern of frequency and intensity is important.

So yes all/almost all kids will e.g. forget their homework occasionally but that is not a regular occurrence therefore not part of a strong pattern of traits.

Is seems like your son might actually have ADHD and needs more support

I have 2 DDs, one is going to be assessed for inattentive ADHD, the other doesn't have the same issues at all. DD1 mostly does what is asked of her, is incredibly diligent and attentive at school, managed not to lose her stuff most of the time. DD2 is like fate's revenge for having DD1. If you ask her to do something there's a very good chance she won't have heard you (despite no issues with her hearing), to the extent that she will swear you never asked her to do anything. You have to check you've got her attention and she's understood the instruction. Even then, she may just forget to do it or stop half way through. That goes for pretty much anything. She will stop taking her pjs off with one arm in and one out and completely forget to get dressed. She will pick up any object near her and fiddle with it instead of doing homework. She loses stuff all the time, she lost 2 pairs of swimming goggles in 4 days of summer camp. She's lost many pe hoodies - stick in labels aren't enough to get them back to us, I think they get pinched by other parents. In class she's described as "being away with the fairies". She's a lovely girl, but there's a wide gulf between her attention and DD1's or even the average child. So I don't think all children have ADHD.

Hmmm, I wonder? Where do you think your two kids might have got it from? Just asking because I am going through an assessment now and son diagnosed 12 years ago.

The school aren’t interested so I’m not sure how I could have him assessed. He has a fiddle toy and a wobble cushion thing but it doesn’t help. The schools attitude isn’t great. The teachers take it personally that he doesn’t show that he’s actively listening. I think they get extra annoyed because he’s bright and has such a spiky profile, they think he’s just lazy. He also has terrible handwriting and poor motor skills despite being really strong.
My older DD is the same in a lot of ways but she’s dyslexic so I always put her attention and listening issues down to that. He’s definitely not dyslexic, his spelling and reading are really good.

Go through the GP.
Some schools are worse than useless (as in they can be unhelpful to obstructive) DS's teacher was surprised that he's autistic: she was the bloody SENCO when he was diagnosed so we'd exchanged correspondence about it two years earlier when she recieved the NHS headed paperwork
There may be another condition like dyspraxia involved. A lot of neuro-diversities affect executive function and have overlapping traits so it will take referral to professionals to identify what the situation is.

The intensity of it varies with ND children.
I had difficulty brushing DS's teeth when he was 8... as in 90 minutes of screaming meltdown and missing the first hour of his brother's birthday party level of difficulty. That's considerably more intense than reminding a NT child, and well beyond the normal range for age.

I do sometimes wonder about DS2 and inattentive ADHD, and he's certainly ditzy like me. With both children at 12 and 10, it still feels like a shock every school day that I've asked them to brush their teeth, and yes, they can need reminding what they're doing while they're halfway through doing it. TBH, I forget to do mine very easily if something's gone slightly off routine. I have a few toothbrushes around the house for a visual prompt and so that I can do it when the thought is fresh before I get interrupted by another random thought before I get to the bathroom.

Back to age appropriate, I've just had a phone memory of the photo I took of the mindmap about DS1 that I took to the GP from 5 years ago. There has been zero progress on his cutlery manipulation skills in that time. He still falls off chairs while eating and that's after I've reminded him to sit before eating.

We don't diagnose ADHD under 6 by the way, but in the over 6s I am sure they would all tick some boxes!

It's a common joke in healthcare (but it's true) that we are ALL somewhere in the DSM-5

That being said, if you are genuinely concerned speak to school. If they are also concerned they'll let you know. No harm in being assessed if you are genuinely concerned.

For what it's worth - the examples you gave are typical of a lot of neurotypical children too.

Honestly? We do tend to run in packs... If your son has ADHD then either you or his father likely have ADHD, if you have ADHD or are attracted to people who have ADHD then, again, your friends are likely to be neurodivergent. It's not really a "magic ADHD detector" more like things like - people with ADHD tend to be a bit "alternative" and on the sidelines rather than having been part of the popular crowd at school, if you're the kind of person who is a stickler for time and sees being late as a personal affront then you're not likely to be friends with many people with ADHD (but the people who are all always late and disorganised and don't mind it in each other might well all have ADHD). If not diagnosable then certainly traits. People with ADHD traits tend to annoy non-ADHD people but not so much each other.

I'm not going to diagnose him on an internet forum because that would be silly, but I do think that you have to think a bit critically about the forms, you can't just say "Oh yes I have to remind him to do his teeth" (if you're thinking duh, every child would skip that given half a chance) - it says how often do you have to remind them to do stuff that they do all the time, ie, something you'd think they couldn't literally forget, but they do. And TBH, with the teeth issue, it's not really forgetting that's the issue most of the time, is it? Most children would skip brushing their teeth on purpose, because it's boring and it doesn't have any kind of instant effect so they don't see the point in it. They wouldn't literally forget, even if that was their excuse when you prompt them to do it. If you think he is literally forgetting (and not just saying "Oops I forgot!" because he didn't want to) then that is unusual, most children know/remember the steps in their bedtime routine.

How often does your child avoid, dislike, or are reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort or thought?

I do dislike this one because I think it's too subjectively worded. Most people dislike tasks like that, and might even go to the extend of avoiding them if they had the option. But I think that the difference is clear if you observe the behaviour of someone with ADHD compared to the behaviour of someone without ADHD, child or adult. It's just not really made very clear on the diagnosis criteria/screener which is why it's not very well worded IMO.

With a child it will be that trying to get them to do the task that the child thinks is going to be hard or boring is like (if mild) leading the proverbial horse to water and then watching it die of thirst. If severe, it's more like trying to lead a horse to water when it's scared of water and galloping full speed in the opposite direction. Basically having to expend SO MUCH energy on trying to get them to do tasks that they don't want to do. Most parents have to remind their DC to do homework, cajole them off the console, establish a routine, offer support/bribery/threats etc but they will basically do it without you having to breathe down their neck every second, especially past secondary school age. If you're having to breathe down DC's neck and they are old enough to wonder if they have ADHD themselves and want to know (over ten?) - that's probably qualifying as avoiding/being reluctant to engage with tasks that require sustained effort.

With adults the most common thing people report is internally wrestling with themselves saying "Just go and do the washing up/write the essay, it won't take long, come on, it needs to be done, you can't sit here all night" and somehow not actually being able to activate the muscles to make yourself stand up and haul your own arse off the couch.

If you play around with the screener you can often see how many symptoms it needs to return a "yes you likely have a chance of ADHD" result - some of them are overly sensitive but some of them are quite stringent and TBH if you're ticking "often" or higher on the majority of these lists or even if you're reading down the list kind of laughing and saying "That is SO him" "Have they put cameras in my house?" then... the screener is probably doing what it's supposed to do.

I think you can seek referral through the GP. If DS wants to know then it makes sense to push for a referral IMO. The functional impairment rating scale on this site might be useful to work out whether there is impairment and if so, where it is, which would help with both a decision on whether to push and if you did want to, explanations of why/what areas it's causing problems. https://www.caddra.ca/public-information/children/forms/

Write up a comprehensive list of your concerns and request a meeting with school - have you ever said you want him assessed?

Also go to the GP.

DS has ADHD. As a previous poster has says, it's not just that he forgets to do routine tasks and I have to remind him. My other child is NT and I have to remind her too. DS will need 5 reminders over the course of 10 minutes and he will actually have gone to the bathroom during that time and then just wandered out in a daze having done something else in there. He's a teenager. Is your child like that? And how old are they?

He’s 9. Yes he’s like your son. You need to actually go with him to insure he does it.

As already noted, your a neurodiverse family and are more likely to attract ND people as your friends, partners etc. it isn’t surprising you know a lot of people who are like your son.

Well that's nonsense.

Check lists are only the first guide. You then need to look at the severity. The book "Driven to Distraction" has a series of case studies in there and they are incredibly helpful.

This is the bit that isn't 'normal'. My NT child will need to be reminded, and will also lie she's brushed her teeth, but she's not wandering around in a daze. It just isn't something she can be bothered to do.

DH has ADHD and he describes sitting for an hour in prep (boarding school), in silence, and just not being able to get his work done despite there being nothing else to do.