parenting

Back To School!

As you prepare to send your child or children back to school, there are many tasks that need to get done as the new school year approaches. If you’re a parent of a child through adoption, your list likely has additional tasks other than just buying school supplies and books for the new year. Each year, children usually have to start over again, with a new teacher and new classmates and when you add adoption into the mix, it complicates the transition even further. Children will likely get questions from new classmates and teachers alike about their family history. If the teacher is not familiar with adoption, it can make things particularly difficult.

Anyone who works in child welfare or has fostered/adopted from the child welfare system knows that an overwhelming percentage of children in foster care are diagnosed with ADHD. In fact, children in foster care are three times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. While it has become a common diagnosis, researchers and clinicians have recently begun to study the relationship between ADHD symptoms and trauma. Lack of resources and time allows children in foster care to slip through the cracks and creates a tradition of overmedicating without getting to the root of the cause. Below is an article originally published in 'The Atlantic' explaining the relationship between trauma and ADHD symptoms, and what clinicians can do to prevent misdiagnosis.