Our specialty is working with children who display a verity of challenging behaviors and who are ‘popularly’ diagnose with ADHD. Because the definition of this diagnostic is not necessarily accurate and there are ranges of different circumstances, I will attempt to clarify:
There are good students and even excellent students who usually get bored in the classroom, at which point they stop participating in the learning. However, those are the same students that when something capture their attention and are given the right motivation, they perform above average.
A classic example is a morning routine with 10 years old boy. To begin with, the boy doesn’t like to get ready, and he tends to be late coming downstairs for breakfast. He finally does get ready and does come for breakfast, but only after the mother has to go and help him (or has yelled and threatened to punish him). Later on, he barely gets his school bag ready and he forgets to fill up his water bottle. The morning routine struggle does not end here. He starts arguing with his brothers and he does not listen when his mother calls for him. She begins to wonder, if he is incapable of getting ready on time and focusing on his tasks. But then, she recalls that last week, when he was invited to a fun birthday party, he got dressed, eat and packed his belonging without any of her ‘nagging’, yelling or even reminders. He was focused and ready to go all by himself, ever earlier than her. So now she wonders if he is truly incapable or is it that he does not want to. It seems that when he is interested, he is capable and when he is not interested, he is incapable. Indeed, his behavior does not make much sense, but this is the reality of his actions.