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What is ADHD?
There are three main types of ADHD- hyperactive ADHD, inattentive ADHD and combined type ADHD (Both hyperactive and inattentive)
But my child was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
It is now called Inattentive ADHD.
➤ Your Hyperactive ADHD child
Hyperactive ADHD children are often bundles of energy that crash into everything around them and similar to energizer bunnies, never seem to run out of energy. They talk non stop, and tend to blurt things out and rarely wait their turn. In fact, it is as if they are always moving. Hyperactive ADHD kids tend to be absolutely exhausting to parent- and trust us, they are exhausted also. Unfortunately, children that are not yet diagnosed with ADHD, or are diagnosed but untreated, have a strong tendency towards low self esteem and high anxiety. Sometimes it is hard to notice the signs of low self esteem, but ADHD kids (especially girls) can be masters of disguising their true feelings. They can often be absolute social butterflies and make friends with no problem- but below the surface, they are a bundle of emotions that are always questioning and second-guessing themselves, which makes sense because they are also often in trouble. Kids with hyperactive ADHD often learn to adapt and hide (we call this masking) and can even be amazing at school and an absolute nightmare at home. Is this your child?
➤ Your Inattentive ADHD child
Inattentive children are always falling behind– in conversations, at school, and at home because their minds are always moving in a million different directions. And, they are often painfully aware of just how unfocused they are. Every day the inattentive children are told to pay attention, to listen, to focus, and they still always seem to get it wrong. Oftentimes, they grow up feeling stupid, worthless and insecure, and develop low self esteem, high anxiety and even depression. The good news though, is this is all stoppable. Your inattentive ADHD children might be hard to diagnose because they just look unmotivated, distracted or lazy, but really they are so overstimulated and overwhelmed by the world around them that they literally cannot focus on the tasks at hand. They can be really frustrating to parent, or teach and are often viewed as disrespectful and lazy. In truth, they are probably doing the best they can. Yes they are missing assignments, tuning the teacher out and daydreaming. Then at home they are often moody and exhausted from spending all day just trying to focus well enough to make it through the day. It is hard to imagine what it is like, unless you yourself are also Inattentive ADHD.
But my child focuses when they want to, it can't be ADHD!
➤ The Hyper-focusing ADHD child
These kids can be so hard to spot! If you have been reading the above sections and feel that there is no way your child has ADHD purely because focus is a strength, not an issue (video games are often the example used by parents), then welcome to the world of ‘hyper-focus.’ This occurs when children can fixate and almost obsess on enjoyable things, which also means they are so overstimulated and overwhelmed that they can only focus on what is the most important thing to them at the moment. It is actually not a good thing at all because tasks like homework or what you just requested they do might not be ‘heard’ and thus hyper-focused ADHD children inadvertently ignore requests, often resulting in conflict in many aspects of their lives. In fact, hyper-focused ADHD children can often be angry, and anxious because they spend their time pseudo-medicating by hyper-focusing on exciting, adrenaline inducing things, which also causes them to repeat the pattern of avoiding stressful or ‘boring’ tasks. Thus presents the dilemma for hyper-focused ADHD children. They are always trying to do their best, but they often self-medicate with adrenaline inducing tasks which thus causes them to pay attention to you less, increasing conflict at both home and school.
The Dandelion Difference
We do our best to make the process of therapy exactly what you need.
Teacher Recommendations
Unlimited Calls and Email
Written Accommodations
Yoga and Mindfulness
Weekly Parent Sessions
Due to our intensive parenting support process, in addition to individual weekly child sessions, weekly parenting sessions are expected at the beginning of therapy. The duration of these sessions depends on the level of distress in the family and the level of parenting needs. With meeting weekly, many families meet their goals in 6-8 months!
We specialize in working with and diagnosing ADHD. We will complete a thorough assessment with you and your child before recommending a diagnosis, and will often refer to psychologists we trust for a full diagnostic evaluation.
We are the ADHD specialists in Huntersville. Counseling works because we specialize in ADHD. As we discuss your concerns, we will develop a plan that supports your parenting style as well as your child’s personality. We focus on parenting techniques that actually work with counseling interventions that actually make a difference
We are different because we are actually trained in ADHD. Did you know many therapists claim to work with ADHD that don’t actually have specialized training in working with ADHD? We believe that true behavioral changes occur when parents are involved in treatment. When treating ADHD we focus on the stages of brain development and why your individual child is struggling. We focus on developing and growing skills that enable your child to achieve goals while also ensuring that your goals are realistic in the therapy process. We won’t claim to be able to ‘fix’ something because we know what counseling actually treats, versus where you may benefit from a referral for other services such as neurofeedback (in our Southpark location), social skills groups (in our Charlotte location) or services that are outside of our offerings!
ADHD Therapists in Huntersville who work with Children & Pre-teens
Below are our therapists who specialize in working with ADHD children and pre-teens.
~ ADHD treatment in Charlotte, NC ~
Dandelion Family Counseling provides ADHD treatment in Huntersville.