This pattern of working hard to hide ADHD struggles is especially true for gifted females. These children often do well in elementary school, where their intelligence more than compensates for the challenges posed by ADD (ADHD).
Can someone with ADHD do well in school? Yes! ADHDers are more than capable of academic success. They may need to work harder than others in order to achieve a good outcome, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.
The high school years are among the most challenging years of life for an individual with ADHD, and especially for girls with ADHD. To bridge the challenges of high school, they need support from peers, parents, and schools, combined with appropriate medical treatment, depending on their particular needs and issues.
Women with ADHD face the same feelings of being overwhelmed and exhausted as men with ADHD commonly feel. Psychological distress, feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem, and chronic stress are common. Often, women with ADHD feel that their lives are out of control or in chaos, and daily tasks may seem impossibly huge.
Girls with ADHD sometimes struggle to make and keep friends. Many also experience low self-esteem, depression or anxiety. They also have higher rates of self-harm, substance abuse, and suicide attempts than other girls.
A girl with ADHD may have impulsivity and be hyper-talkative. She may be verbally impulsive, interrupt others, talk excessively, or change topics repeatedly during conversations. She might even blurt out words without thinking about their impact on others. Girls with ADHD can also be overly sensitive.
At what age are symptoms of ADHD the worst? The symptoms of hyperactivity are typically most severe at age 7 to 8, gradually declining thereafter. Peak severity of impulsive behaviour is usually at age 7 or 8. There is no specific age of peak severity for inattentive behaviour.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is often thought of as a "boys' disorder" because it's nearly twice as common in boys as girls. But it's important to note that ADHD can look different in girls. That's because of the different ways girls' and boys' brains develop and where their focuses lie.
Many girls with ADHD tend to be hyper-talkative, hyper-social, and hyper-emotional, rather than hyperactive. Physical restlessness often manifests in fidgeting with hair or nails, rather than leaving their seats.
The CDC reports that boys between the ages of 4 and 17 were more than two times as likely to have been diagnosed with ADHD as girls (13.3% compared with 5.6%). However, in adulthood, the number of men and women with ADHD is much more similar (5.4% for males compared with 3.2% for females).
Girls are also less likely to be diagnosed earlier because they often display more symptoms of anxiety. Medical providers may only treat a female patient's anxiety or depression without evaluating for ADHD. Hormones, which affect the symptoms of both ADHD and anxiety, can complicate things.
Girls with ADHD often have a type called ADHD-inattentive (ADHD-I). That means they have a hard time paying attention, staying organized, and managing their time. But they are not hyper. They don't fit into the picture most people have of ADHD: A young boy who can't sit still and is bouncing off the walls.
Girls are diagnosed with ADHD on average five years later than boys — boys at age 7 and girls at age 12. Many girls never get diagnosed.
Yes! Students who have ADHD can get good grades and achieve their goals. Even if you've been diagnosed with ADHD, you can be a great student with great grades.
Sometimes it may feel that way, but raising a child with ADHD to be a well-behaved child is not impossible. You just need to develop strategies for developing positive behaviors, while curbing negative ones.
The child may be both gifted and have ADHD, which presents as an inconsistent (or even average) performance across school subjects. It can be difficult to correctly address a common situation like this even for experienced teachers.
Individuals with ADHD often experience social difficulties, social rejection, and interpersonal relationship problems as a result of their inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. Such negative interpersonal outcomes cause emotional pain and suffering.
Children with ADHD possess many notable characteristics. They tend to act impulsively, get bored easily, and become quickly distracted. One of the side effects of the combination of many of these symptoms can result in a lack of empathy.
They typically report feeling overwhelmed, inadequate, misunderstood, and distressed at a time in their lives when they often have the greatest demands on their time and energy.
Girls are more likely than their peers to develop inattentive ADHD. When girls develop combination ADHD, they usually do not have hyperactive symptoms.
✦ Firstly, anxiety symptoms may mask ADHD symptoms as anxiety can lower impulsivity. However, anxiety may also inhibit impulsivity but make inattention worse, which can complicate diagnosis (Pliszka et al., 1999).
With ADHD, a child or teen may have rapid or impulsive speech, physical restlessness, trouble focusing, irritability, and, sometimes, defiant or oppositional behavior.
During teen years, especially as the hormonal changes of adolescence are going on and the demands of school and extracurricular activities are increasing, ADHD symptoms may get worse.
It is not unusual for children who manifest ADHD symptoms of hyperactivity and/or impulsivity to outgrow those symptoms during early adolescence, but for 70%-80% of those with ADHD symptoms in childhood, impairments of executive functions related to attention tend to persist into adulthood.