We are the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, or ACAMH for short. And this is ACAMH Learn. Hi, I'm Erin Schoenfelder Gonzalez. I'm a clinical psychologist, and I'm going to talk right now about what it means if someone tells you you have ADHD. That can be a little bit of an overwhelming thing to hear, especially if you're not quite sure what they mean by that. So the way I think of it is that everybody's brain has things that it's really good at. For you, that could be something creative, could be artistic. You could be great with building or designing things. You could be really strong at certain subjects in school, or at solving problems, or at coordination and athletic things. And at the same time, everybody's brain has things that are more of a challenge. So if some of the challenges that you have are things like having trouble staying focused and listening carefully in the classroom or when parents are talking, or keeping track of all the things you need to bring with you, losing things a lot and remembering what you're supposed to have with you, or maybe having a lot of energy, feeling restless, and having trouble staying in your seat, we have a name for that. When people struggle with those things more than is normal for someone their age, we call that Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. There are a couple different kinds of ADHD. For many people, they have all those kinds of challenges at once. So they have trouble with being distractible, trouble staying focused or finishing things that they've started. And they also have a lot of energy. So they move around a lot. They might get out of their seat more often or talk a lot more or louder than other people. And we call that combined type ADHD-- when you have both types of symptoms. But for about 40% of people, they're not hyperactive. They don't have that high energy piece. They just struggle with focusing, and organising, and avoiding distractions. And if that's you, that's called inattentive subtype of ADHD. If you have inattentive subtype, you might only not be hyperactive. But sometimes, you might be even a little bit more low energy or a little bit more chill than other kids your age. So ADHD can affect you in a lot of different situations in your life. One of the big struggles can be in the classroom, and that's often the reason that families go and talk to their doctor about ADHD in the first place. Our classrooms expect kids to sit in a chair, and be really still, and just listen and work on one thing at a time, and be quiet for long periods of time. And that's something that doesn't feel natural to a lot of kids. But if you have ADHD, that's going to be much, much harder for you than for your classmates. So you might find that your teacher has to be giving you more reminders than your teachers giving anyone else. Or you are supposed to sit in a special area that has less distractions. Or you keep getting out of your seat to talk to people or do things that are exciting and get corrected for that. Sometimes it can get in the way of following what the teacher is explaining and learning certain subjects. And that can start to get really frustrating. ADHD certainly can affect you at home. For example, you have routines. In the morning, there's a lot of steps you have to remember to get ready for school. Same with homework time. You got to stay organised, remember what to do, when, and break things down into steps. And then bedtime, you got to get all prepared for the next day. Those routines are pretty tough for people with ADHD because they don't find them to be very exciting or interesting, and they tend to get distracted a lot. That means your parents or caregivers might get frustrated and give you a lot of corrections or reminders. ADHD, believe it or not, can also affect you socially, or when you're with other kids, or doing social activities, like going to a birthday party or playing on a sports team. All of those activities require that you listen to other people carefully, that you avoid interrupting them, that you go back and forth and take turns. And when you have ADHD, your brain is often so excited. You just want to get to the next thing, and you want to share more. And that can make it tough for the person you're with to follow where your train of thought is going. On a sports team, also, you have to follow the group. And if you're getting distracted, or you want to talk to people, or there's something that's pulling your attention away, you might miss plays or you might not be in the right place when you're supposed to be. And sometimes, your coach might call you out for that. ADHD can also affect us personally. Sometimes it gets stressful. We feel like, oh, what if I mess up? What if my teacher's frustrated? We can feel anxious or on edge, or it can make us feel sad or down about ourselves. That's really tough because people with ADHD are just as smart and often smarter than other people. It's just that their brain is struggling to organise things and avoid getting distracted. So you may also wonder, why do I have ADHD? Probably people have mentioned you, you just need to try harder. Or why don't you just get more energy and get focused on this thing, or behave yourself-- just force yourself to listen? And it's definitely not that easy. ADHD is not caused by effort, or by laziness, or by not learning how to focus the right way. Believe it or not, ADHD is mostly genetic. So most of ADHD comes from one of your parents or somebody else in your extended family. You might think about people in your family and know that there's an adult in there somewhere who has similar struggles with attention and focus, even if they haven't been diagnosed with ADHD. So ADHD is nobody's fault. It's something usually that we're born with. It's a trait, like anything else. Unfortunately, it means you're going to have to do some extra things so that ADHD can be a strength for you and not something that gets in the way. So the good news about ADHD is that we've been studying it now and doing research for almost 100 years on how to help people with their focus and their organisation. So if you're kid, especially in elementary school, most of the help that will be a benefit right now is going to be for your parents, not for you. So we now know ways to help parents set things up in advance for their kids so their kids can be really successful, rather than waiting for things to get off track and then having to correct it. So your parents may do something called parent management training, and that's going to teach them how to give you a lot of positive feedback, and keep that relationship with you really strong, and set up systems that guide you through the boring or tough parts of your day. If you're in middle school or you're getting toward being a teenager, then there are some skills that you can start to learn to keep your belongings organised, to help yourself remember things, and stay on track. You're going to learn skills that you'll use even as an adult, like using digital phone reminders, making lists, writing things down, or having a system in your house so that you keep everything you need in the right place, like your car keys or your phone. You may also, at some point, end up talking to your doctor about medicines for ADHD. We think of medicines for ADHD like eyeglasses for your brain. When you're taking them, they make things a little bit more sharp, and easy to focus on, and more interesting, and that can help you stay motivated and stay on track. So if that's something that you might need, it'd be a conversation to have with your family, and then with your doctor. This may sound pretty overwhelming and a lot of things to keep track of and need to do, but the good news is that there are benefits that come with ADHD. Often, thinking outside the box, being creative. Many people with ADHD are great performers and they have really exciting, magnetic personalities. And so there are some things that are really going to be a gift with ADHD. But at the same time, there are going to be things you need to do so that it doesn't get in the way of your life. [VIDEO LOGO]