I wanted to help my son thrive with ADHD... so I wrote the book on it

When my son was aged around three, I wondered if he was an ADHDer. He was chatty, impulsive and found it hard to sit down at mealtimes. I’d looked up signs of ADHD and he ticked pretty much every box, but then don’t all kids, particularly boys, at age three? And he could sit still and draw for 20 minutes or longer. How many ADHDers can do that, I thought. Many, it turned out. Over time I realised I had misunderstood what hyperactivity – and ADHD – is.

It doesn’t mean you never pay attention or sit still, it’s inconsistent. Then it dawned on me a lack of knowledge had led to me wrongly discounting it countless times. Then as the frequency of phone calls from the deputy headteacher increased, I reconsidered. “Do you think,” I said, “we should rule out ADHD first, so we know whether he’s able to control this?” The deputy head agreed, and a request for a referral was made.

Two years later, at age eight, my son got his diagnosis. This should have meant things would get easier, only they didn’t. Despite the teachers doing their best, his difficulties grew. So much so that, a few months afterhis diagnosis, he stopped being able to goto school. His rising anxiety and decreasing self-esteem swamped him and, for the past 15 months, he hasn’t spent a full day in school.I took unpaid leave so I could spend more time with him and piece him back together.

I funded this by writing a book, ADHD, How to Raise a Happy ADHD Child. I felt an urgent need to help people understand ADHD better and more precisely because I hadn’t. I felt it was my son, who is now nine, soon to be 10, who had paid the price. I also wanted to look at why ADHD was so poorly understood. And then it hit me: it’s the name. It does such a terrible job of describing what ADHD is that a lot of people don’t spot it early.

ADHD is not about having an absence of attention, it’s unreliable focus. It can either be too much (hyperfocus, which may lead you to struggle to prise yourself away from the thing you are focusing on) or you are fighting with your brain trying to allow you to focus. This is because of the neurotransmitter dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain, that sends signals to different parts of the body and is necessary for focus.

ADHDers are thought to have too many dopamine transporters, which flush away the dopamine before it has done its job. ADHD drugs such as methylphenidate, perhaps more famous for its brand name, Ritalin, work by blocking the transporters.

Not having enough leads ADHDers to spend a lot of time trying to cajole their brains to do whatever their teacher or boss is asking. And what makes the negotiation easier is if the task is interesting or urgent. If it’s interesting or funny, this floods the brain with the happy drug serotonin, which also helps with focus.

Meanwhile if it’s urgent, you summon cortisol, which does the same job. By leaving a task to the last minute or only doing the bit that interests you, ADHDers are in effect self-medicating. This brain type is also not as much about physical hyperactivity as it is mental. Data from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says one in three ADHDers aren’t physically hyperactive, but what every ADHDer has in common is a very busy brain.

The best way I can describe mental hyperactivity is having one thought that rapidly leads to another that leads to another and you’re not always given the time to think through any of these individual thoughts. The people I interviewed often said they wished their brain came with an off button, particularly when trying to go to sleep.

And it’s definitely not a disorder. As the neurodiversity movement has done an excellent job of arguing, there is no right brain, in the same way there is no right sexuality or right ethnicity. All the different brain types come with different strengths and challenges.

At the same time the name ADHD misses out so much: it doesn’t cover the executive function difficulties that make basic organisational tasks weirdly heavy, if not impossible. Starting a task, staying on it, stopping yourself from interrupting a lesson or meeting, and being able to retain short- term information are all hard when you have difficulties in this area.

I discovered that is why ADHDers interrupt people. It is not because we’re rude, or uncaring, it’s because our thoughts quickly disappear from our brain, so we’re anxious that if we don’t say something this minute it’s going to disappear. (Obviously combined with impulsivity and an excitable nature – particularly if you are engaged with a topic – which can lead you to thinking you are about to make the best point ever).

Also absent from the official definition is the rejection sensitivity many feel is a core feature of ADHD life. This sensitivity can lead to what appears to be overreactions with friends or colleagues if rejection, or even perceived rejection, happens. Even a sigh or a certain tone of voice can trigger an unbearable feeling that you’ve mucked up yet again and disappointed someone.

Writing my book in some ways felt like an act of penance – I was trying to make amends to my son as I felt like I’d failed him. He said I didn’t understand him, and then when the diagnoses came rolling in and the school difficulties began, I was forced to face up to the fact he was right.

But it also led to me understanding myself better as writing the book made me realise I too was likely an ADHDer. I got an official diagnosis last year.

Before the book I had no idea someone like me can have ADHD too. I feel guilty that my son’s challenges weren’t identified sooner, and also aware that my life would have been easier had I had this information about how my brain works before the age of 48. But more than this, I feel angry. Because it wasn’t just my lack of understanding about ADHD, or the bad name that stopped me speaking to the school or GP when we first started wondering.

It was because I didn’t want to be “that” parent. The neurotic one who, at the first stage of difficulties, sends their child off to be assessed. I let people who didn’t know about ADHD get into my head, and I was fearful of being judged.