I think my child might have ADHD. What do I do?

Since I started on this journey, I've had this conversation with a lot of mums. It usually starts a bit tentatively, because there's always that background noise: "everyone's got ADHD these days." (Which, honestly? Who would make this up.) But when you dig a little deeper, there's almost always the same thing underneath: they've been quietly worried for a while. Something feels harder for their child than it seems to be for other children. Not dramatically harder, just... harder.

If you have older children, you might have started to notice the difference when your younger one came along. If this is your eldest, or only child, it can take longer to see it, because you don't have another child to compare to, and you assume that what you're experiencing is just normal.

It's often not.

Parents notice things first. Long before any professional confirms it, before any box gets ticked on a questionnaire, before any letter comes home from school. You live with your child. You see the things that happen behind closed doors that never make it into a ten-minute appointment. That instinct you're carrying around? It matters. Trust it.

What ADHD actually looks like

Here's what trips a lot of parents up: ADHD looks nothing like the stereotype.

The stereotype is a small boy bouncing off walls, unable to sit still for two seconds, getting told off in every lesson. And yes, that does happen. But it's only one version of a very varied condition.

ADHD can also look like:

• A child who is dreamy and distant, always miles away, who loses track of conversations mid-sentence
• A child who is extremely bright but can't get their work done, not because they're lazy, but because starting feels impossible
• A child who is funny, creative, and totally magnetic with friends, but falls apart at homework time
• A child who is desperate to please and works incredibly hard, but is always just a little behind
• A child who has massive emotional reactions that seem out of proportion to what happened
• A child who forgets things constantly — PE kit, homework, what you said thirty seconds ago
• A child who is absolutely fine in some subjects and completely lost in others
• A child who has always been called "sensitive" or "dramatic" or "so emotional"

None of these are character flaws. None of them are about parenting. They're just a brain that works differently.

It can get complicated

I want to be clear: I'm not here to assess or diagnose, and I'm not pretending to be. What I can do is help you make sense of what you're seeing and support you in getting the right help.

One thing that makes ADHD genuinely tricky to spot is that it rarely travels alone. Many children with ADHD also have other things going on: anxiety, sleep disorders, learning differences like dyslexia or dyscalculia, or conditions like ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder). These often show up first, or more loudly, and the ADHD sits quietly in the background getting missed.

A child who is anxious, or who struggles to sleep, or who pushes back hard against every request, isn't necessarily "just" anxious or oppositional. Sometimes those things are downstream of an ADHD brain that has been struggling undetected for years. It's worth keeping an open mind, and finding professionals who will too.

Autism is one to keep particularly in mind. The overlap between ADHD and autism is large, and more common than most people realise. Sometimes what looks like ADHD is actually autism, or both together (often called AuDHD). If your child needs the same routines, struggles with transitions, has very specific sensory preferences, or finds change itself hard, it's worth holding autism in mind alongside ADHD, not instead of it. A good assessment conversation with your GP or a specialist can help you work out what you're actually looking at.

Why so many children get missed

This is important, and it gets missed constantly.

There's a version of ADHD that is loud. The child is physically restless, acts out, disrupts, gets sent to the head teacher. These children are hard to miss. They get noticed, assessed, and often diagnosed earlier.

Then there's the quieter version. The child who internalises. Who works out, very young, that something about them isn't quite fitting in, and puts enormous effort into hiding it. The expert people-pleaser. The child who is quiet, compliant, and holds it together all day at school.

And then comes home and falls apart.

This is masking. The school sees the performance. You see the cost of it. If your child is angelic at school but you are the one dealing with meltdowns, emotional exhaustion, and what feels like a completely different person behind the front door, that is not bad parenting. That is a child who has spent every ounce of energy holding themselves together while you weren't looking.

Masking is not a just girl thing. It gets talked about as if it were, and girls are often over-represented in the missed group because of how they are socialised to be quiet, helpful, and to manage other people's feelings. But boys mask too. Sensitive, bright, people-pleasing boys who care deeply about what others think of them are often completely missed at school, because they look like "one of the good ones." The ones who work hard, put their hand up, earn team points, and never cause trouble. Until they get home.

Some signs that a child may be masking, regardless of gender:

• Perfectionism that isn't about confidence, it's about fear of getting it wrong
• Friendships that require them to do all the emotional labour
• Intense interests that dominate everything for a while, then suddenly drop
• Anxiety that doesn't seem to have an obvious cause
• Explosive emotional release at home after a calm day at school
• A strong sense of justice or over-worrying about what others think of them
• Hating their own brain, feeling stupid, feeling broken

Hyperactivity isn't always what you think

This one surprises a lot of people. When we hear "hyperactive" we picture physical restlessness: fidgeting, running, talking too fast. And that is part of it for some children.

But hyperactivity can be entirely internal.

A child can sit perfectly still at a desk while their brain is going at a hundred miles an hour. Racing thoughts. Jumping between ideas. Songs playing on a loop. Three conversations happening internally at the same time. The daydreamer who looks zoned out but whose mind is absolutely full. The child who can't fall asleep because their brain simply will not stop.

This is why so many children, especially girls, are missed for years. They don't look hyperactive. But inside, it's chaos. And holding all of that together while also trying to learn, socialise, and get through a school day is exhausting.

What to do next

If you're reading this and thinking yes, this is my child, here are some practical first steps.

Keep a log for two weeks. Before you go anywhere official, write things down. What happens, when, what triggered it, what helped. This isn't to prove anything, it's to help you see patterns, and it will be useful in every meeting you have from here on.

Talk to the school SENCO. You don't need a diagnosis to do this. SENCOs (Special Educational Needs Coordinators) are there to support children who are struggling, whatever the reason. Tell them what you're seeing at home. Ask what they're seeing. Ask if they can put anything in place to help. Schools can flag concerns that support a referral later.

Go to your GP. Ask for a referral for an ADHD assessment. The NHS waiting list is long, sometimes two to three years, but starting the clock matters. Ask specifically about Right to Choose, which allows you to be assessed by an approved private provider on NHS funding. The waits are much shorter.

A note on labels. I know that for a lot of parents, this is where it gets complicated. The worry about giving your child a label that will follow them through school, through job applications, through life, is real. I was that parent. When my son was assessed, I was terrified. I didn't want him defined by a diagnosis.

But here's what I've come to believe: knowledge is power. Once we had an answer, we could actually do something with it. The school could support him properly. He could understand himself better. We stopped fighting against something we couldn't name, and started working with it instead. The label didn't limit him nearly as much as the lack of one had.

And then, a few years later, I was diagnosed myself. At 55. Which tells you everything you need to know about what happens when ADHD goes unrecognised for a long time.

The stigma is genuinely less than it was. More people understand what ADHD actually is, and fewer are assuming it just means badly-behaved or badly-parented. That shift matters.

But if you're not ready to go down that road yet, that's OK too. There's no hurry. Understanding what you're dealing with, and finding support, can start long before anyone officially signs anything off.

You don't need to wait for a diagnosis to get support. Strategies that help ADHD brains work for a lot of brains. Things like visual schedules, breaking tasks into smaller pieces, reducing friction around transitions, and understanding what their brain needs rather than what a neurotypical approach assumes. A lot of families start making progress long before any paperwork arrives.

You're not imagining it

And you're not failing.

The guilt that comes with watching your child struggle, especially when you don't have answers yet, is one of the hardest parts. It fills in the gaps with the worst possible explanations. But struggling doesn't mean broken, and needing support doesn't mean you've done something wrong.

You are the expert on your child. The professionals confirm things. They don't discover them.

If you want to talk any of this through, I'm here.