Three times ADHD isn't ADHD
People diagnosed with ADHD often need to work with a psychiatrist and a behavioural therapist to manage the condition. On the other hand, feeling distracted isn’t the same as ADHD. Here are three times ADHD isn’t ADHD and what could be done about it.
When its creativity.
Focusing on one thing means the same as ignoring everything else. Creative people can always think outside of the box precisely because they do not ignore everything else. Creative people cannot stay focused or interested in a topic long enough to master it. As kids, they’re daydreamers. As adults, they become entrepreneurs bringing new ideas to market. Creative kids see themselves as in need of difficult problems. Teachers see them as intelligent kids that struggle in school. Psychologists see these kids’ as high in Openness and Intelligence.
People deemed to be truly creative tended to have nearly genius level of IQ. Think: Elon, Einstein, or this girl. Of course there are varying degrees of creativity and intelligence. However, statistically speaking, the chances that distractions are the result of a genius level IQ are 1 in 100. What’s also true is that the correlation between grades and creativity is nearly zero. This lack of a relationship says more about problems with grades than it does about kids. Besides, it would be nearly impossible to measure creativity with grades. A school that uses a structured evaluation system (i.e. A-F, 1-8, Attitudes scores, etc.) measures a student’s ability to do well under the confines of their structured system. In other words, creativity has everything to do with intelligence and nothing to do with grades.
When it’s a strategy
To make any emotions, a brain uses its past experiences with similar situations and makes predictions about what to expect this time. This includes feelings about school work. So when schoolwork has typically resulted in emotional suffering, criticism or punishment, the brain predicts that it might happen again. As a form of avoidance, distractions begin to serve an important function. Distractions become a safety-seeking strategy.
This means that sometimes the kids are not victims of a disorder but rather active participants in feeling distracted. Feeling and acting distracted helps kids distance themselves from their fear of making a mistake that would possibly lead them to feeling awful permanently. When kids begin to anticipate more emotional suffering, (self) criticism or punishment, they frantically try to escape these feelings using the same strategy: distracting themselves and avoiding the risk they’ve attached to the work.
Avoidant kids don’t realise that protecting themselves from their feelings of anxiety, boredom, etc. actually makes them feel threatened by these feelings. In other words, avoidant kids do not realise that the benefits of staying distracted in the short-term comes at the expense of difficulties in the long run. Showing a kid that their distractions and avoidance function as strategies to protect themselves is a useful first step because it gives the kids a choice to try new strategies. It is just as important to help them recognise that if they don’t do anything to avoid the feared emotion, eventually it passes on its own.
Kids might also need help learning what outcomes they are anticipating and fearing. Connecting the triggers and feelings highlights connections school work has to feared outcomes that the teen believes could happen. For a teen who might think: Would it make them feel ashamed forever if they did terribly this school year? What if, when they were distracted, they couldn’t keep up with school and doomed to feeling regretful forever now. They need to know that even this fear passes, eventually; that the fear is there because they care about school and not because they don’t; and that there is nothing wrong with wanting to feel in control of how they feel. Then, they likely need to learn how to act differently. And that may take skills.
When it’s a lack of skills
Some teens will hyper focus on mastering their skills at gaming for hours a day. Their motivation, in other words, relates more to their skill than their will. The idea of mastery itself matters to developing teens as much as it did when they were toddlers. As they fail and try again, games reward them and reinforce their efforts. There is nothing inherently fun about the games just as maths homework doesn’t contain anything that’s frustrating. Both ‘fun’ and ‘frustrating’ are concepts that help make sense of our ability and willingness to navigate problems. After all, some kids find games frustrating and maths fun. The point here is that motivation moves together tightly with skills; challenges help kids master previous skills acquire new ones.
In case its not obvious: medication cannot teach kids skills. Medication can only increase alertness. Unfortunately, an increase in alertness are not the same as increases in focus. Consider, for example how tightly mental focus correlates with visual focus; a teenager’s brain thinks about what it’s looking at. As such, mental focus almost always improves when visual distractions are reduced. Putting a timer in the field of vision or playing intermittent alarm bell, a kid can practice re-focusing on a topic. Focusing requires alertness, but they are not the same thing. Its no surprise that teens taking medications for ADHD more-often report feeling increased confidence about their work, despite the fact that their outcomes and grades do not tend to change.
Rewards also cannot teach skills. In one study, researchers rewarded some child artists with gold stars and others with a simple nod. Then, after several weeks, they stopped giving children the stars. Those children quit drawing entirely. The children who drew for their own love of drawing continued to do so.
Punishment doesn’t teach skills. In a study on dogs’ reactions to small shocks, researchers proved that dogs either learned to jump off of the mat or hold still until the experiment was over. Initially the researchers thought that the dogs and learned to be helpless but after may follow up studies, they realised that the dogs who did not jump off of the shocked-floor mat had simply learned that if they held still long enough, the shocks would end. As this translates to a distracted kid, it’s the skills -and not the shocks- that they need to stay on task.
Teens commonly lack skills from multiple domains, including: executive functioning skills, cognitive flexibility skills, social skills, language processing skills, and emotion regulation skills. Picture your teen and consider how well they seem to demonstrate these 10 examples of skills:
Does your teen know how to:
See “shades of gray” rather than thinking only in “black-and-white”?
Think hypothetically, or envision different possibilities?
Handles transitions, shifts easily from one task to another
Prepare for work that requires sustained attention?
Keep track of time; correctly assess how much time a task will take?
Ignore irrelevant noises, people, or electronics?
Express concerns, needs, or thoughts- especially when they’re bothered- in words?
Starts conversations with peers, enters groups of peers appropriately
Seek attention in appropriate ways?
Understand how their behaviours affect other people?
In my experience, most teens can demonstrate some of these skills, sometimes. So what can you do about it? First, by identifying which skills brought on success in the past, teens can begin to identify areas where they can improve. As they do, so does their focus and interest in a just about any subject. Encourage them relentlessly. Skill building happens with in attuned, affirming relationships. These relationships, like all skills, take practice and patience to master.
