Video 2: How Does ADHD Affect Children?

Hi! My name is Courtney Zulauf, and I am a clinical psychology intern as well as part of the PASS Study at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. My research and clinical work has been focused on promoting relationships between families, schools, and communities. Today, I am going to walk you through Video 2 of our PASS series.

In Video 2, we’ll focus on how ADHD affects children. To begin with, I want to present a case to begin thinking about what ADHD looks like. So for example, a child fails to follow through on school projects, makes careless mistakes on schools, doesn’t seem to listen to her teacher, avoids tasks, is easily distracted at school, and has a very disorganized desk. At home, however, she easily follows parental direction, keeps her room clean, and participates well in soccer. What do you think about this child?

It appears that this child is showing inattentive symptoms at school, but for this child, the symptoms are not appearing at home. For children with ADHD, they usually show signs of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity in both home and school.

As a review from Video 1, ADHD is a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development, and we discussed in Video 1 how children may demonstrate symptoms of inattention, such as failing to give close attention or holding attention, as well as symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity, such as trouble waiting their turn or blurting out an answer. 

But for a child to be diagnosed with ADHD, the following conditions must be met: symptoms have to be present in two or more settings, such as home and school, and symptoms have to interfere with or reduce the quality of social, school, or work functioning. For this video, we are going to focus on how symptoms interfere with children’s functioning.

Our activity for today is to think about how ADHD gets in the way of your child’s life. So, I’d like you to take out a piece of paper and pencil and pause this video to spend a few seconds writing down what are some of the ways ADHD has gotten in the way for your child. I’d like you to think about how it affects your child in different domains, such as: school, home and family, and friends and peers. 

Great job working on that list! So what we are going to do now is look at each of these domains and list common ways that ADHD affects children’s functioning. 

In terms of school, children with ADHD may have difficulty in their ability to learn, their motivation or enjoyment may be impacted, they may have difficulty completing tasks or homework, they may be seen as defiant, and they may gain negative attention from teachers.

In terms of at home and with family, children with ADHD may have difficulty following tasks, such as cleaning their room. They may have difficulty completing their homework, sitting still for dinner, or you may notice increased arguments between you and your child.

In terms of with friends and peers, children with ADHD may have difficulty playing alone, difficulty following rules, they may be seen as inflexible or argumentative, and they are more likely to be rejected by peers. Now look at your list, are there things you listed that we didn’t discuss?

For the key takeaways of Video 2: as you can see, ADHD can cause significant difficulties for children in all areas of their lives. I want to note that ADHD not only affects children, but it may also affect you and your relationship with your child. In addition, ADHD seems to affect children’s relationships with school, which is important for academic growth. In the future videos, we are going to discuss how you can build a strong relationship with your child’s school to promote functioning and development in that domain.