As parents, and in particular as mums, we are encouraged to trust our instincts.  

Becoming a mum doesn’t come with a manual and we pretty much rely on common sense and instinct to bring up our children into what we hope are kind, compassionate and most importantly happy little people.  

So why, when it comes to their development, do we often not trust or even listen to our instincts?  We become too easily persuaded by comments such as ‘all kids are like that’, ‘oh, they will grow out of it’ and ‘they are just full of life’.  

I am the very proud (and often tired!) mum to the most incredible 9-year-old daughter.  She is loving, intelligent, fun, sassy and determined.  She is also, relentless, infuriating and to be honest, hard work at times.  I love her beyond words and this is never going to change, but have I struggled to be her mum sometimes?  Yes!

Throughout her early development I always had a ‘niggle’ that she was a little bit different, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  This is the instinct that I think most of us have when it comes to our children.  The only thing that made sense to me was ADHD – Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.  

But… she was only little; she was advanced with her language and wasn’t your ‘textbook’ child with ADHD.  Or at least she wasn’t the same as the children that often feature in programmes on TV who think it is helpful to only show the extreme cases of ADHD.  She slept well, she wasn’t a massive fan of a long day time nap (much to my annoyance!), but she had short sharp cat naps, she wasn’t a ‘runner’, she didn’t climb, jump or hurl herself off high platforms and she wasn’t badly behaved.  So surely, she couldn’t have ADHD…?

However, she was active, ALL-THE-TIME!  She couldn’t sit and watch a short programme on TV, she would flit between play activities, a part of her body was always in motion, she would hyper focus on certain things and struggled to switch her attention between different activities, she noticed things that I simply didn’t (smells, noises, details).  She was also bossy and a bit rude (blunt and honest!)  She loved playing with other children at nursery but struggled to take turns, or let other children have their say, she would dominate interactions with other children but was incredibly socially motivated.

When she started school, every report was glowing in terms of her progress and ability but phrases such as ‘struggles to sit still for carpet time’, ‘calls out in class’, ‘speaks over other people/interrupts’, ‘struggles with friendships’ and ‘fidgets/fiddles with things, which can be distracting to others’ featured every time.

At home, we were struggling to manage her relentless demands for things, her repetitive questioning, her need to know NOW, her impulsive emotional reactions, her emotional regulation and her refusal to engage with tasks such as homework, or really anything she deemed not worthy of her efforts!  Home-schooling during COVID was…interesting!  

I knew there was ‘something’ going on and by age 7 she hadn’t grown out of it; she wasn’t just like every other child and I decided to trust my instinct.  Then, as if she had read my mind, my daughter also started to question who she was. Unfortunately, in a heartbreaking way. She came home from school one day and asked ‘why am I weird?’.  

My heart literally ached for her.  She was aware that she was different to her friends and they were also beginning to notice and comment on some of her differences.  As we all do, she assumed SHE was the problem and she needed to be fixed.  

So, I pulled on my big mum pants and I spoke to her about her brain!  I explained that everyone’s brains are unique and because of this we process and react to the world and things around us differently.  Sometimes, people have brains that work really quickly and this means their brains are busy all the time.  So, they might find it difficult to think before doing or saying things and their brains need to keep active so their bodies need to be active too.  As I was speaking, I could see that she was recognising a lot of what I was saying.  She then said ‘sometimes my brain does things and then I regret it’.  

I said we could arrange to see a special type of doctor who could help us explore this and see if there might be a reason behind her busy brain.  My daughter enthusiastically agreed.

Five weeks later* my daughter (age 8 by then) was diagnosed with ADHD – combined subtype(1), with features of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria(2).  She trialled medication and for her it has worked well.

She was a mixture of worried about what this would mean but excited to finally find out who she was!  I am so incredibly proud of how she has engaged with the process and taken everything in her stride.

She is who she has always been but she now knows why she’s different in some ways and has learnt that different does not equal weird.

So, my final thought, TRUST YOUR INSTINCT!  

The system is not always on your side and the journey can feel like an uphill struggle but the sense of relief to finally understand your child and to find reasons why your parenting journey has perhaps not been exactly how you expected it to be, is huge.

More importantly, to see your child accept and love themselves for who they truly are, is priceless.

Footnote: This is a reflection of our personal journey, which hopefully is helpful in full or in part to those who read it.  I acknowledge that every journey with a child with ADHD is different.

Hayley Quinn

Mum, Speech and Language Therapist and first-time blogger!

*We were in the fortunate position to pay privately for our daughter’s assessment (NHS assessment times vary hugely in different locations)

(1) https://www.additudemag.com/3-types-of-adhd/

(2) https://adhdinchildrensupport.com/adhd-and-rsd-in-children/

This page has some lovely resources for parents: https://uk.jkp.com/collections/adhd-neurodiversity-pid-801