Girls Exhibit ADHD in a Different Way

Daydreamers Rather than Troublemakers

Lack of Attention Affects Education

An impatient kid running around all the time, one who cannot stop talking while the class is going on, a kid who never completes any of his/her assignments on time or one who keeps daydreaming always are typical pictures of kids with ADHD. If you notice, these symptoms are predominantly found across the male population compared to the female population.
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A cheerful, energetic and smart girl who works hard to excel in academics is dismissed as over enthused but never diagnosed as having ADHD. ADHD can remain undiagnosed in girls for a long time such that these girls might even succumb to risky affairs such as unprotected sex, substance use, poor academic performance and low self-esteem in the long run.

Boys Vs Girls
ADHD manifests itself as three groups of symptoms-hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention. Superficial knowledge might make us believe that more number of boys are affected greatly by ADHD compared to girls during childhood but diagnostic rates as adults seem to equally divide the disorder between males and females. This is a clear indication that girls are not less affected, but their diagnosis goes undetected during childhood.

ADHD brings out different symptoms and reactions in boys and girls. Almost 50-75% of ADHD cases in girls are missed during childhood due to the peculiar way in which the disorder crops up in girls. Boys with ADHD tend to display a variety of behavioral problems whereas, in girls it is more about how the disorder affects them.
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1. A hyperactive boy has trouble sitting down in one position inside the classroom and might sit with one knee on the seat and the other one on the floor. Due to his constant shifting movement he is likelier to fall. A hyperactive girl too has trouble sitting and might get out of the seat, but her actions are different. To avoid sitting she might assume the role of the classroom assistant shifting between places completing various chores. A teacher is unlikely to complain against such a girl as her behavior does not seem abnormal to the people around.
2. Boys tend to be more hyperactive and impulsive than girls which can lead to unrest and disruption in the classroom. This angers the teachers who report a problem with the student and refers him for attention changes.
3. Parents and the society have different expectations of girls and boys. Girls are expected to be tidy, organized, achieve good grades and be polite. Girl children struggle hard to meet these expectations. They stay late nights to complete homework and take pain to keep their room neat and tidy. When these girls with ADHD don’t comply with the general guidelines, they are dismissed as being ‘dramatic’, ‘artsy’ or ‘bubbleheaded’.
4. More than troublemakers (which most boys with ADHD are), girls with ADHD are daydreamers. They try completing the allotted chore or activity, but have trouble focusing and paying attention to the work at hand.
5. Crying is frequently noticed in female children even when they are faced with a small disappointment.
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How to Confirm if My Baby Girl has ADHD?

1. Time taken to finish something, homework, assignment or studying for exams, is quite longer than what a normal student takes. That’s because these children get distracted easily, start surfing the net, chatting with friends and end up staying awake late through the night to complete their chores.
2. Although the child studies for long durations her performance and results don’t match the efforts taken.
3. Reading and following a task is doable but the child is unable to link between the ideas she reads. This makes her commit errors and miss instructions while doing assignments and homework.
4. Stays isolated or is always ignored by friends as she is unable to follow peer conversations and stay in pace with her friends.
5. She talks endlessly but has extreme mood swings.
6. The child might come up with great ideas and start working on them instantly, but she will never complete the chore and mostly leaves it halfway through.
7. Daydreaming, chatterbox nature and slow-paced work might leave her chores incomplete, but she never learns from these consequences and repeats the same next time too.
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Diagnosis
If you doubt that your daughter might have ADHD, it is wise to meet a physician who is a pro in diagnosing and treating this disease. Few parents diagnose themselves and start giving their own treatment in the form of cutting down food additives or keeping the child gluten-free which is wrong. A physician is the right person to tell you what to do and what not to do. Does going gluten-free or being food additive-free decrease the intensity of ADHD? Get your answers from the website www.firsteatright.com. The physician interacts with your child, observes her response and involvement in different activities, talks to her teachers and gets a detailed history from the child’s pediatrician firstly. Some parents put off the notion that their child might be affected with ADHD as the kid is perfectly normal when she chats with her friends, goes out or plays video games. We need to remember that a child is judged based on her attention and involvement doing activities that bore her or require extra efforts and not based on those tasks that attract her.

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