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Is he under the bed? Where did he go?

came with that choice.

- You need to get out from under the bed. - Hmm.

Come on. We're gonna start your routine.

I don't even care if you brushed your teeth this morning.

Listen, mommy has her Tuesday meeting,

which means you've got to get up because I've got to get to work.

Okay, I don't have time to play.

Nick's not going to cooperate games.

Nicholas, this isn't funny anymore.

All right?

You need to come out.

What's the matter, babe?

- I can't do. - Listen. Come here. Come here.

Can you at least come here and talk to me?

- I'm not the enemy. - Nope.

I constantly feel like I'm barely holding my life together.

It's really frustrating me right now what's going on.

And I really need you to get up.

Nick, come on.

Nick just started the third grade.

He got diagnosed with ADHD in January.

Nick, come on.

Getting ready for school is totally impossible

because he's just rolling around on the floor

and decided that he doesn't want to listen to me.

What... what can I do? What can I do to make this easier?

We need to get to school.

It's like hyperactive and stubborn, and defiant.

Totally defiant.

We have got to get out of here by like 8:15.

I mean, nobody tells you how to parent to begin with.

And then they don't tell you how to parent a kid

that has any kind of need that's outside of the norm.

I felt like I'm constantly yelling at him.

- Oh, jeez, guys, it's 7:45.

7:45?

Um, so, I'm gonna just make some coffee,

and go get myself dressed, and we're gonna need to get out of the door.

We had three meetings with his teachers in, like, the first two weeks.

I had multiple emails because he was acting out

and he was not following directions.

- Got it, Nick? - Mm-hmm.

So, looks like you need to brush your hair.

His teacher is clearly frustrated.

He must be getting reprimanded constantly.

...on there. Over there.

And he'd come home saying he hated school and he was stupid.

It's heartbreaking.

Ignition, three, two, one!

In two months,

Scott Kelly will begin a year-long stay in space.

- So, good luck, Captain. We're proud of you.

I remember in the second grade my mother took me to my grandmother's

to help me learn how to read.

I remember after the second session,

my grandmother saying to my mom...

..."You know, this kid is stupid.

"And he will never learn how to read.

"And I'm not doing this anymore."

Oh, you know, we had six nominations and we won three already.

Um, we lost one of them. There's two more to go.

I can't wait to perform.

There was a couple of teachers that were like,

"You need to focus better. You're always dazing off."

Because I had like A's and C's and B's

but I had a lot of U's because of my hyperactivity.

Fitness guru, Jillian Michaels. Jillian, great to have you here.

My whole life I just thought, "Oh, well, I can't learn it. Or I'm no good at it."

I mean, I must have been in summer school

every single year from 12 to 18.

"Is she just stupid?" "Is she not trying hard enough?"

"Is she not applying herself?"

I got to the airport a little bit late,

and I thought I was going to miss the plane, right?

So, I was trying to catch it.

But that's so hard because those things go, like, 600 miles an hour.

I never went to a therapist. Nobody ever talked about it.

I was just as quirky, out of control kid

with, uh, very few friends and social skills.

But now I know why.

When's the last time you saw the head of an airline

show up on one of his flights

and not only talk to his passengers,

but treat them like people?

Do you like to have a chocolate chip cookie?

When I took the ACT, I got so low on the English portion

that my counselor said,

"Had you just answered C on every question,

"you would have scored higher."

Carter saved her best till last.

There is a new queen of the shot put.

You're slow. You're stupid. You're lazy.

How come you just can't get it? I showed you ten times.

What's wrong with you?

You see a whole display of your own shoes.

Are you used to that already?

No, I'm not... I'm not used to it.

- So, how do you feel? - It feels great.

Because you're falling behind in class

your self-esteem goes down because you think you're dumb.

- Let's go, Joe? - What's wrong with me?

Why can't I focus? Why can't I learn?

The word that kept coming out from this, as I look back, was he's a hyper boy.

It just grinds you down into thinking you're stupid.

I'm stupid. I'm stupid. I'm stupid.

Can't sit still, disorganized,

- can't focus, lazy, stupid... - Annoying, disorganized...

- Complacent. - Crazy.

- You can't make it. - You never listen.

- You don't clean your room. - Disorganized.

It's a super skill set.

And fuck what people think.

You know, by cleaning that up that means

- putting too much pressure. - No.

- I emptied the dishwasher. It's all clean. - Dad already did the first part.

- You're gonna put that in the dishwasher. - All of it?

- Yes. It's so good. - Even this... - Yeah. No. All of it.

Yeah.

It's all nice and empty for you, ready to go.

It's all nice and empty. Thanks, Dad.

You're welcome. I do what I can.

When we were getting in the process of adoption,

like, I hoped for a little boy, like, Hogan.

I didn't know it would be so hard to raise a Hogan.

- I know I could have... - Can I just?

No, you can get it. All right.

I'm just gonna get this little bit out.

Okay. Well, then why don't you just do the dishes?

No, I don't want to do the dishes.

I... No, you're welcome to do. I really... I'm really fine with it.

- Really. - I just want you to do them correctly.

When we used to take him hiking it used to drive Troy crazy

because we would hike together

and just, like, we're going from here to here.

We're going to hike to see this waterfall.

But with Hogan, it was like we're gonna stop

and look at every single leaf on the ground.

Or here's a little pile of things that I've got to play in for a while.

Whoo!

I think first grade was the first time a teacher ever mentioned ADHD.

I'm sure I was super offended at the time

because I just was not...

Really wasn't on my radar at that time

like, he was very energetic but he's also so fun.

I definitely think that it comes easier to other people.

Or to maybe comes easier to other people

to, like, stop and think before they do something.

It feels, like, I'm always, like, changing...

In my mind, I'm always changing subjects.

And it's almost like spinning in my head.

It really did start to affect everything, his grades.

We were noticing it at home.

It was affecting his friendships.

He just was struggling.

This week's been really hard week for me.

I almost got out of test.

I got in an argument with my teacher.

I got almost in an argument with the assistant principal.

Uh... It's been really tough.

- Hogan? - Yeah.

- It's time to go. - Okay.

It makes me emotional just in terms of...

It helps explain some things.

It doesn't change anything about how he's gonna have to navigate in this world.

We got to go.

It's fascinating, but when I started to research my book,

I was stunned to see that ADHD was the number one most searched term on the internet.

And, I mean, who would have figured that.

I mean, I'm thinking you got to be kidding, right?

Where did that come from?

Probably the easiest way to understand ADHD

is to look at what it stands for.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

So, you have a deficit in attention and hyperactivity.

Oh, God, the name is awful, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

It's a terrible name.

You got a deficit. You've got a disorder.

Man, you are... You're sick, you got problems.

The very name trivializes the nature of the disorder

by selecting one of its most superficial symptoms

as the name for the disorder.

I think that the public believes that ADHD is a made-up disorder

for people who are lazy and trying to cover up.

Skeptics would say ADHD is just an excuse for forgetting your keys.

We all forget our keys.

I think part of the reason is because if you look at the symptoms of ADHD,

all of them are things that are typical in everybody to some extent.

You get distracted, your mind wanders.

- Losing things. - Impulsivity.

They miss deadlines. They're always running behind.

Not sitting still.

Exquisitely sensitive to rejection.

- Problems focusing. - Daydream.

Difficulties with inhibition.

Difficulty regulating their emotions.

- Interrupting. - Trouble organizing.

Problem solving. Decision making. The list goes on and on.

We really try to pay attention to

all of their behaviors across different settings.

And we also think about how these behaviors,

if they have them, are affecting them.

So, is it causing them some distress or impairment in their life?

...for a second.

More with fingers.

Fingers like that. Remember? Can you deal with that?

Nick really struggles with transitions.

So, going from being home, having lots of family time,

seeing his mom and dad a lot to go into school threw him for a complete loop.

He was totally out of sorts.

Nothing about that school environment felt right for him.

All right. Nicholas, I love you. Give me a kiss.

I love you, Mom.

There's this misconception that if the child is motivated enough

that they will comply,

they will do the things they need to do.

But the fact is that it's not a matter of willpower.

It's a matter of the dynamics of the chemistry of the brain.

I spend my every waking moment trying to get outside of my own head

because it's a mess in there.

It's very busy.

Your brain is always firing, you're firing at 1000 miles an hour,

your eight cylinders by eight cylinders, 24/7, 365.

It is like I'm juggling 20 balls,

but I don't remember where they were in the air.

I'm just there trying to kind of catch all these balls and I remember nothing.

Imagine somebody sitting on the keys of the computer. That's what your brain is like.

That's ADHD.

So, what's happened in the last 10 or 20 years

is more specific understanding of the neurology behind it.

An area in the brain that is somewhat different

is the connection between the prefrontal cortex and the caudate.

The area for emotional control and impulsivity.

So, the cortex is responsible for thinking and problem solving

and underneath it are these structures

that are part of these complicated loops.

They take information from the cortex,

bring it to the sub-cortex, and bring it back to the cortex.

So, this is a big relay loop where information is processed.

In ADHD, that relay system sort of short circuits,

and so, it's almost chaotic.

Maybe a good way to think about it

is if you were doing a really challenging physics worksheet

and I'm blaring music into your ears.

Plus, I'm making you listen to a lecture,

plus, I'm having you write some things,

plus, somebody is tapping on you.

That's, essentially, what it feels like to the ADHD brain.

They have every desire to just finish the worksheet

but they just cannot focus their attention enough to persist and stay on task.

Yeah, look, almost building it.

See, I'm putting some cheese in there.

Can I put some cheese in there?

Yeah, you can put some cheese in there.

- What? That's your mouth.

That's not the shell.

Whenever someone meets Bear for the first time,

the first thing they always say, "He's such a happy kid."

- Will Bear actually eat all his food?

- Don't bet on it.

Bear started walking, like, at 14 months.

Once he got the groove, heh, he's like, all over the place.

He is having so much fun.

But I never was thinking, like, "Oh, you know, he has ADHD."

I mean, because boys are normally all over the place anyway.

But the tantrums are just so intense.

Just the rolling things.

Screaming, stomping.

Jeez!

Just really, really, really bad tantrums.

And it was really becoming stressful in the household because of it.

Okay, Bear.

No matter how many times I would try to talk to him.

You have to calm down.

It's not a big deal.

Parenting a child with ADHD is exhausting.

Basically, it's more stress. It's a higher stress level.

It's a higher emotional stress level and it's ongoing.

Come on. Come, put your pajamas on.

Bear!

Bear.

We have defiance and refusal and temper tantrums.

And now we have a tornado in the family.

I like to think of the ADHD brain as being hungry for stimulation.

Any kind of sensory input is, essentially, like its food.

And so, when it suddenly gets hungry,

because it's a boring situation or a boring task, it goes in search of food.

And it goes in search of different types of stimulations.

Believe it or not even getting yelled at does activate them a little bit.

And so, if that's the only stimulation they can get, they'll work to get it.

How was school today?

Look.

This is a mountain.

Oh, okay.

So, I actually have ADHD and I was diagnosed last year.

Um...

And there's certain things that Bear would do

that I noticed that I would do quite often.

And so, it just made me wonder if, you know,

maybe he had that and I know it's hereditary.

Have a good day at school today.

I will get a lot of phone calls also from the school

saying he hit a kid or bit someone

or, you know, something like that.

I'll have to pick him, like leave work and pick him up from school.

It got so bad to the point where something happened

where he got in to it with his friend and in class.

The kid like took his glasses and broke them.

So, he took that kid's glasses and... and threw them on the floor.

And then somehow the teacher involved herself and accidentally got scratched.

And then I get this call from the school principal

saying, "Oh, Bear attacked the teacher. She's bleeding profusely."

And I'm like, "What! What are you talking about?" So, I get to the school.

And I see the teacher has a tiny scratch,

just not bleeding profusely, just a little Band-Aid.

And, at that point, they wanted Bear to be expelled from school...

which means he'll miss graduating.

I will never have the experience of watching my son graduate from kindergarten.

And I'm still very, you know, upset about that that he didn't get that experience.

As many as 5% of American children suffer from ADHD...

Over the past decade or two,

we've seen ADHD, uh, diagnoses increase.

ADHD diagnoses in the United States for school kids

has increased by 43% in less than ten years.

That number continues to rise every year.

And chances are you probably know someone who has it.

Is this an epidemic that we're talking about here?

It, well, certainly, feels like that.

ADHD is found in around 9% of American schoolchildren.

And that makes it one of the most common diagnoses in childhood.

We believe that ADHD,

when we look at surveys across the world, universally,

it seems like about 5% of the population has clinically relevant ADHD symptoms.

In other parts of the world, they're about 2 to 3% or even less.

In America, that number is higher.

It could be that clinicians are becoming better at diagnosing ADHD.

They have better tools for diagnosing it,

the definition has become clearer.

There's better education for clinicians.

We can actually identify these children

and really course correct some of the trajectory

that they would have been on if they didn't get the diagnosis.

If we're looking at a disorder that affects 10% of the population,

is that really a disorder?

Or is that a variant of normal?

People interpret a rise in diagnosis and treatment

as somehow, we must be getting it wrong,

and we're over-diagnosing and we just don't have evidence of that.

Take a standpoint of public health.

We want to be reaching as many people as possible.

If there was a rise in diagnosis of breast cancer,

we'd be celebrating that because we'd be saying

"Yes, more women are doing self-exams

"and getting their... their examinations."

And so, a rise in the identification and treatment of people is actually good news.

Hi, my name is Rece Miller and I have ADHD.

When Rece was born,

across the river was a baseball game

- and fireworks were going off.

That's probably the first thing he saw as a child,

were the fireworks flying up in the sky.

- And out came the firework himself right there. - He was like...

- He was like the explosion. - It was.

- That's when it all started.

We knew fairly soon after he was born,

that there was something totally challenging about him.

- Holly, what's the name of the cartoon ? - Shut up!

The energy level was unbelievable.

The more he would go, the more he would go.

You know, he was like, you know they talk about the Energizer Bunny.

Well, that was... that was Rece.

- His battery never died. - Never died. - Never died.

And, literally, if he got tired, he got more active.

- He got faster. - Faster.

And when you're old...

- You're older parents... - Here we go.

...we were, like, "I just want a nap.

Please just let... a little sleep."

I'm definitely misunderstood.

But, I also like being a troublemaker.

It's fun. It's really fun.

I was looking at the picture and I was playing and go,

"Whoa, I... I'm actually seeing stores like in the cartoons."

It's a real thing.

Diagnosed ADHD in our family, obviously, Rece,

my son, Dylan...

my daughter, Haley, Bart, and me.

If you have one ADHD child,

then the risk to the other children is 35%.

That is seven times higher than the general population.

Did you hear your alarm?

- What's that? - Did you hear your alarm?

- Yeah. I turned it off. - Okay.

Most of the things that go wrong in the mornings

and everywhere often are tied in transitioning.

You know, he... he's so slow to react.

Like, if we're in a big hurry, I think he goes slower.

Yeah.

As I always say, when he hears the word "hurry" and he goes...

- He's like... He's just... - He slows down.

The reminders are huge because it's...

it's almost like every day is a clean slate, you know, for him.

I have a lot of notes around the house.

And, keep in mind, this is just to get...

This is just to get me out of the house and go to school.

Let me show you one of them.

Like, one of them is "Do you have everything for a great day?"

I was like, "Mom, what the heck's wrong with you? I don't need all these notes."

She was, like, "Yes, you do."

Then one day I didn't look at the notes and I forgot stuff.

So, need to run back home to get stuff.

And then we need to go to school.

So, turns out that notes actually work.

- No, I'm gonna check the outside to see if there is a hole. - No, I'll find it

Daddy will do it. You just please relax.

- What?

Some mornings it's, you know, all of a sudden,

I can't take anymore and I'm... I'm yelling at him.

And I'm like, "Rece, what is wrong with you? Why are you...?"

You know, and he... he'll come back with something, like, "Everything, Dad."

And then I immediately feel awful.

- What? You're behind. - Right.

Let's go. Shoes. Coat.

- Love you, Dad. - Love you.

See you after school.

- Are you good? - Yep.

See you in a couple of hours. Okay.

I love you. I wish I could take you to school,

you and Carson would get along great.

- Rece. Seriously. - I'm talking.

Go, go, go.

Okay.

So, if it's been a horrifying morning, often,

um, I've gone back to school and written a quick note,

and asked the Secretary to give it to him...

because I could be very ugly.

Um, and I want him to know that it's okay and I love him.

Good.

We diagnose ADHD more in boys than in girls,

because boys tend to be disruptive.

One at a time. Not bad, not bad. Switch your partners, please.

Hyperactivity is the hallmark of the diagnosis in many school systems.

So, girls don't do that.

More than likely, as a girl,

you're not going to get diagnosed and often you get misdiagnosed.

Girls fidget a lot, they may bite their nails,

they may twist their hair, they may tap their toe, but nobody sees it.

They're the daydreamer.

They're the girl that sits in the back of the class

staring out the window lost in her thoughts.

Usually, they are pretty smart, so that they can use their intellect to compensate.

And it's only if you can get a window into their inner life

that you're going to find out that they're struggling.

Hi, this is Zara and I've been having a really hard week.

It hasn't been going too well. I've been worrying a lot.

And because I've been worrying I feel I've been slacking a lot in my homework.

That's been giving me a lot of stress.

My life is a mess.

- Hey, how are you, cutie? - I'm good. How are you?

- Good. Good to see you. - It's good to see you.

- What did you bring? - I brought my writing with me.

So, since I saw you I guess like a month ago,

you were going to work on a schedule.

- Which I did. Check. - And bring your writing...

Zara was referred to me by a colleague of mine.

She said, "This will be a wasted brain..."

were her quotes, "...if we do not help her."

I know you told me in our first meeting

that a big concern and issue is the time.

- Like, how you manage the time? - Yeah.

- Right? - Yeah, that's true.

Would you say, it's probably the biggest source of friction and frustration?

Yes, because I fail to manage my time

I noticed that has put a lot of tension in my family.

Okay. So...

Every morning my was like living hell.

My mom... I would do something, it would tick my mother off

and then, like, a bomb, she would explode.

And when I mean explode she'd start lecturing me and telling me do this do that.

No? Okay.

- So, I think that if we can master this this summer... - Mm-hmm.

...and really get our ADLs that means activities of daily living,

brushing teeth, eating, things like that down pat,

that you will be in a better way going to the school.

- The new school. - Okay.

- Are you so excited? - Yeah.

- About the new school? - Yeah. In fact...

I love the family. There are a great case.

But this is one of my most challenging cases.

Okay, so, Khuda Hafiz, have a good day.

- Okay. Hafiz. - Be good. - I will.

Savera wants nothing more than for her daughter

to be happy and have a well-adjusted life.

However, the impacts and coming to terms with

this diagnosis of ADHD has caused Savera great distress.

Have a good day at work.

Sixth grade was a tough year for us.

There are certain basic general traits, expectations,

that are associated with a 13-year-old child.

And a certain set of skills should be attained by that age.

And when your child is not matching up with that,

you know that there's something wrong.

Do you want to still...? You can do it, but just keep it from the leash.

You know, parents often recognize earlier than anybody else

that something's wrong, something's different.

That can start to lead to tension in that relationship.

Maybe I just have to step up my discipline and apply it more quickly,

and become more commanding, and controlling, and then this child will get it.

And so, the level of conflict starts to go up

because the child starts to react to that in a negative way.

- Ahem, okay, I brought my stuff for later. - Okay.

- What's the password? - Let me type the password in.

Come here.

ADHD wasn't even on our radar

because we didn't really believe in it.

A big part of me thought it was a bogus diagnosis.

I, frankly, thought that ADHD was about hyperactive children,

particularly boys who were literally bouncing off the walls.

As the year went on, there were just more and more issues.

Every day there was either a phone call from the school

or an email from the teachers.

If it's not regarding her late turning in homework,

or forgetting her homework or not following the morning routine,

seven months into sixth grade,

it was then about the social side of the school.

Around this time we were seeing issues with impulsivity

and seeing things that you shouldn't,

and sometimes to the point of being hurtful,

and... and, you know, like of hurting others.

And I told her that when you behave this way,

you are making us as a family, you're making us look bad.

You're sending very negative vibes out there

about us as a family and about yourself.

It has a toll on your entire house, everyone's relationship...

because the overall tone is constant frustration, anger, and anxiety, basically.

Have a great day. Take time to do your test. Okay?

Why are you acting like that?

Why?

The danger in missing this diagnosis in girls

is... is a lifetime of underachievement, depression, anxiety.

And I see it all the time.

You are well on your way to a cooperation point tonight.

- So, if you want you can... - Mm-hmm.

Do you wanna mark it on your thing?

So, when my son was diagnosed, the psychologist,

and she's running through what was the results of nine hours of testing that he had,

and I was like, some large percent

of what you just read to me resonates very deeply with me.

But, you were talking about my son.

It's the distractibility and the impulsivity,

interrupting or saying the wrong thing.

I have to say what I'm thinking when I'm thinking it,

and I have a really hard time not saying it

and then I go, "Oh, that was not a good decision."

Let's go play basketball right now.

All right. Let me just look at these work text messages.

How long is it gonna take?

My kids get really frustrated because I'm not a great listener.

Um, so, like, they'll talk to me and then I'll interrupt.

You always look at your call.

I know, I just want to respond to the... I know, honey.

And my memory is just terrible.

I mean, I wonder if I have like early Alzheimer's.

I mean, I've literally had these thoughts.

Do I... Am I in dementia? Like, what is going on?

I... I drank in the morning.

I do not drink in the morning.

I do not drink in the morning.

I drink a lot of coffee in the morning.

I would drink probably eight espressos a day.

And then I come home and I drank at night.

- No, , Mom. - Wanna play horse?

Yeah, I want to go first.

And it got to the point where I was struggling

to get through a week without drinking every night.

Make it seem...

If you have ADHD, it is pretty common

for you to also have some element of depression and some element of anxiety.

Every aspect of life can be negatively affected by undiagnosed ADHD, everything.

I never feel like I have it all together and I feel like...

I've put on a really good show. Um...

Marriage, divorce rate is way higher.

Uh, achievement at work, typically underachieved.

Substance use, big problem, way more common in people with ADHD.

I drank myself to slow down.

I was just self-medicating and I didn't know why.

I used to watch the way people would navigate socially.

And I would think like, "Wow, how did they do that?"

Um, and you know, for me, alcohol was a good way to manage it.

If your mind is going a million miles an hour,

and you take something that slows you down and relaxes you,

you know, why wouldn't you want to do that all the time?

People do think of it as a deficit.

I... I would really question whether that's really a correct model.

There are some very amazing things about the ADHD brain.

You know, this is kind of first time that

our modules have been cross utilized...

Coming up with connections between things that other people would not see.

Why don't we do marketing?

You know, stepping back, and like, envisioning

why things aren't working and how you can do it better.

And then executing that at a big picture scale.

Really good at that.

Some of the most creative innovators of our time

in the sciences, in music, in art, in business

turned out to have many of the symptoms of ADHD.

And we benefit today from their discoveries,

from their productions,

and it's made us a richer, richer society.

The core triad of symptoms

are distractibility, impulsivity, and hyperactivity.

But if you turn each one of those on its head, you get a positive.

The flipside of distractibility is curiosity.

What's that? What's that? What's that?

If you didn't care, you wouldn't get distracted.

But you want to, so, we're driven by curiosity.

It just started snowing.

Sometimes it gets us into trouble because we're too nosy,

but sometimes we discover penicillin.

I just decided that I was going to put some bowls just like that.

And I wanted to collect a bunch of snow

because I'm trying to make this like ice cream stuff that you make a snowman.

It never snows in Texas.

The flipside of impulsivity, what is creativity?

But impulsivity gone right?

You don't plan to have a creative thought.

You don't say. "It's 2:00, time for my creative idea." And lay it like an egg? No.

New ideas, brilliant new insights,

come unbidden spontaneously, impulsively.

"I'm from rough Mongolian mountaintops to soft Silk Roads

"ancestors who kill not knowing better.

"I'm Zara from Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Mongolia and Norway. I'm..."

Zara is a brilliant writer.

Her poems, her writings are that

they're more superb than students I've seen in graduate school.

No exaggeration.

And then the third, hyperactivity,

you get to be my age, I'm 70 years old, it's called energy.

You know I'm really glad to have this little turbo pack on my back.

So, you know, again, in keeping with the way I see it

it's a mixture of positives and negatives.

Yes, distractibility, impulsivity, hyperactivity,

can be disruptive, can be an impediment.

But, their flipside are tremendous, inborn assets.

I think my ADD superpower

is the ability to look at very complex situations

and find simple solutions to it.

Things that others have just said it's just too difficult.

It... it's just not easy.

And they will test you and they will provoke you and they will break rules.

You've now become this big businesswoman, aren't you? 17 product lines.

You're going to start a hotel chain.

- Not a Hilton chain, your one. - Yes.

This is big business.

I think it's made me the businesswoman I am today.

I'm a risk taker. I'm creative.

My mind is always moving.

I'm always thinking of new ways to do business.

And I think it really just gives me this drive and this edge.

And you just want to get them through it alive

with their self-esteem intact, with their... with their liking themselves.

One, two, one, two, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

The fact that I have all these things going on inside my head

I have an advantage that other people don't.

Sometimes I describe the superpower

of having like five computers hooked up to one monitor.

And so your brain is just constantly taking in information,

processing data, spitting out things like ready to go.

So that's a huge superpower.

And processing what's happening with the camera,

and all of these screens in front of me,

plus, the teleprompter.

And, uh, the only reason why I can do it is because of ADHD.

And the more intense it gets, the better I am.

- Hi. - How are you? I'm Lisa.

- Tommy, Tommy Gunn. - Nice to meet you. - My pleasure.

They are the ones who are willing to really push

and take a chance and see it all the way through.

That was by far the most insane thing I've ever done in my life.

Entrepreneurship is a natural pathway for someone with ADHD

because what people with ADHD crave more than anything else is freedom.

They think outside the box.

They don't need to follow all the rules the way the rest of us do to get to the answer.

We change the way campaigns were run

- and I think we're gonna win tomorrow.

They have resilience, grit, big heartedness.

I'll teach you the bridge after this interview.

- Please do. - Okay.

Because I can't figure it out.

No, it's not that hard, I'll teach it to you.

Their sweet spot is inflexible, creative, energetic.

Let's go, baby!

Multitasking types of settings.

And so oftentimes,

I see adults with ADHD are in really creative fields.

Look what she's doing a back flip, back flip.

Double, double! There it is. That's the Biles!

That's what we've been waiting for.

Hyper focus is probably the best aspect of ADHD, the greatest strike.

What's important to understand is

that when something is interesting, or exciting,

or absorbing to the kid with ADHD,

their switch is not only turned on, it is on overdrive on.

And what does that mean?

It means that they can hyper-focus.

Something that actually the rest of us who want to focus on might have difficulty doing.

We're reaching 125 million consumers, today.

We're on 21 TV networks, we're in 170, out of home locations.

When I'm hyper-focused,

it doesn't matter if a nuclear bomb is going off, my house is on fire.

I... I won the lottery.

It would not matter. There's nothing you can do to get my brain...

I can take one subject matter

and I will be oblivious to everything else happening in the world.

Around ADHD there's tremendous ignorance.

Most people are not aware of the positives that go with it.

We have a many more tools in our toolbox.

What we need is to educate more professionals.

And particularly, in the strength-based approach instead of a deficit disorder.

You need to look and see whether the person with ADHD

has anything that we could capitalize on,

and then do what Michael Phelps' mother did, and get those resources

that turn that from an aptitude into a talent

that sets you apart from other people.

But you have to be careful not to extrapolate

because by saying that it's an advantage,

it reduces the pressure on people to help them.

So, tomorrow, um,

Bear has a prescription for a medication called Concerta.

- Bear. - What?

Come on.

This pediatrician recommended maybe starting him on half a pill

um, just to see, um, how he does.

Um, since like, this will be like his first time ever taking,

you know, a medicine of this type.

So, um, I think tomorrow

I'll probably go ahead and do half a pill and see how that goes.

I am hesitant about it because he's just a little baby.

Because he's... he's gone through so much

that it just might be good for him to have it.

I want him to be able to live his best life.

Oh! Oh, you're really good.

My main concern was that the side effects would be an issue.

And I wouldn't know because he's a kid

and I'm... I'm not sure if he's gonna tell me or if he will be able to explain it.

You need a break? Okay.

And for myself, I know when I started taking medication,

I had really bad side effects and I didn't like how it made me feel.

So, I have this medicine here, it's Concerta.

I hope this works.

Is that a medicine?

If you eat this, I'll get you a toy, whatever toy you want.

Just swallow it down, don't chew it.

Just do.

If you feel weird, you tell me, right away.

- Okay, mom. - Pinky promise.

Okay, poopy.

Muah.

It was the most horrendous experience.

And he was doing like these weird movements with his mouth.

Do you feel okay?

Yes or no?

You feel weird or anything?

Very quiet, not really talking.

He was focused on drawing this one thing for a really long time.

And every time I would try to pull him away from it, he couldn't.

It was almost like he was like in another world.

Hey, Bear!

So, now I'm thinking maybe this medication is not... is not right for him.

Everyone talks about how quiet he is

and, you know, he's not really that engaging.

And that's not like Bear at all.

I just called his, um, doctor

to see if, um, I can get an emergency appointment this week, um, right away.

Side effects were just not... it's not worth it.

Unfortunately, the state of the science is trial and error.

We don't know in advance which medication will work for what person.

With my patients if they say I'm not fun anymore, I want to tinker with it

uh, tweak it to get target symptom relief with no negative side effects.

Of course, like all medicines,

I mean, stimulant medications come with side effects.

To be honest, I feel a little jittery.

Like, my heart feels a little racy.

They have appetite suppression.

So, they don't eat as much.

Insomnia, so they... they stay up later than they ordinarily would have.

I don't feel like myself or it hurts my personality.

But 80% of the time, it's positive without side effects.

If you see a doctor, who knows how to manage it.

Where we are rock solid, affirmative on, with no exception,

is that by staying on these medications,

we are not predisposing you to becoming a drug user.

There is one fix students are turning to

at an alarming rate to get ahead.

Personally, in my social circle, it's literally everyone.

We know they're being abused by college students,

who feel that they're smart pills or focus pills.

For individuals, who do not have ADHD, they'll feel that high.

And so, we find that there's some abuse,

especially among college age students who are not ADHD.

But for the ADHD child, it sort of calms them.

There is more research on the medicines we use for treating ADHD

than there is on any other medicine you or anybody else will ever take.

And the reason that there're so many studies on it is we use them with kids.

But it gets turned into a passionate debate

and people attacking other people and...

Maybe there are too many kids on Ritalin,

- maybe electric shock-- - How many kids on Ritalin, Matt?

I'm just saying, but... but aren't there examples where it works?

Matt, Matt, Matt, you don't even...

You're glim, you don't even know what Ritalin is.

You know you're a bad person because you take medication

or you're a bad doctor because you prescribe medication.

There has been a rush to prescribe

for conditions which may or may not be ADHD.

It seems to be sloppy medicine.

That's just... It's wrong and it's hurtful and it's born out of ignorance.

These drugs are nowhere near as harmful as the media have made them out to be.

So, you've been scared unnecessarily

by overly sensationalized stories about the hazards of these medications.

I think it's a very personal choice.

But it's important to know the evidence.

And the evidence says medication can be incredibly helpful.

It can help with educational outcomes.

It can help with avoiding substance use problems.

It can help with social function.

- Did you take your Adderall? - Yeah, I took my Adderall.

I don't want to medicate a child because it's easier for me,

or easier for the school or easier for the teacher.

I think in sixth grade he... he was starting to notice.

I'm trying to have friends and I'm trying to not get up in people's space

and, um, I'm not able to not do that.

He wanted the medicine and he was the one that said, "I think, if I have it, my..."

He said, "I think my friends and my teachers will like me better."

Dopamine is a brain chemical and dopamine has two functions.

It has the function of concentration,

but also, it has the function of euphoria.

We don't have the dopamine that other people have.

We don't have the pleasure that other people have in ordinary life.

But it's this... this basic feeling

of I need to change how I feel inside

that drives it, and you can't get rid of that. That's the way we're wired.

Dopamine governs the reward system.

And if dopamine isn't working right,

that'll make it hard for the reward system to work right.

What the brain imaging research has shown

is that children's brains respond differently to reward when they have ADHD.

Medication allows there to be more circulating free dopamine.

By either blocking the pumps that suck up the dopamine

in the ADHD brain or by increasing production.

And what they saw was that children who had been taking medication

for their ADHD symptoms,

had better reward processing

than the children who had ADHD and were not taking medication.

And this was true,

even though, they were not on their medication at the time of the brain scan.

We now have 35 studies

showing that stimulant medications

used over several years of time help the brain to become normal.

Help these areas of the brain that are less developed,

less wired, less functional, to literally grow.

Now, in no way am I saying medication is the end all and be all, no way.

Therapy, structure, coaching, all of that very important.

The therapy that used to be so effective,

has fallen by the wayside with respect to this diagnosis.

So, family therapy works, individual therapy works.

And, unfortunately, those are being prescribed less and less.

- You are getting your allowance. - Mm-hmm.

So, you buying stuff for your game?

I'm also saving up. I'm saving up for a PC...

- Oh, yeah. - ...and monitor. - Yeah, you've told me that.

So, when I say we're going to do everything without medication,

this is what we're going to... this is what I'm talking about.

I want you to take a couple. So, because... Smell that.

- Just bubble gum. - Mm.

And so, when you write with that, and when you erase,

it smells like bubble gum, and it stimulates your dopamine.

Oh, I love the scent of bubblegum.

So, you're gonna take this one and practice.

- Okay. - And I want you to write your...

Zara is currently not taking any medication for ADHD.

I believe that we should exhaust all other venues and options and strategies

that are out there before we can actually resort to medication.

That would be our last resort.

I personally feel that it is always better

to be doing behavioral work with a child teaching, workarounds and coping tools,

at the same time that you are using medication

because those things will last forever.

Those are things that a child can incorporate

and continue to use long after they've stopped medication.

Heh, you're so silly.

And when I took Bear off the Concerta,

he didn't have any medication for maybe about a week or two.

And, um, his teacher was very shocked

at how different he was off the medication.

Is it opening? Here we go.

And she said it was a little bit more difficult to, uh, follow instructions

and I guess participate in the class.

Okay.

I contacted the children's psychiatrist department

to see if I could possibly, uh, meet with a child psych

who can really help with the medication management,

um, figuring out the right medicine for him,

'cause my doctor that Bear has been seeing does not specialize in children.

So, I think that may have also been a challenge but they're full.

We have good treatments to... to help people all over the world.

And far too few people get them.

Far too few people get the information they need.

Far too few people have access to treatment.

Far too few people have access to affordable treatment,

or can afford it, uh, for long enough for it to be effective.

Good afternoon. - Please get out your Pro/ - Con Self-Driving Car article.

I would get to sit on the hallway a lot.

Welcome, Rece!

Because I would do certain things

that the teacher would think would be bad.

All right, ladies and gentlemen,

you need your blue article from last night and yesterday.

I would blur it out a lot.

A lot of times it was from talking.

My butt was like imprinted on the seat in the principal's office as well. So...

Who says, no? Rece, why did you say no?

Um, I said because it's computer.

Somebody might be able to hack into it

and drive you somewhere else or like maybe drive you off a cliff.

Drive you off a cliff? You know I don't know, maybe. Okay, so...

Elementary school was definitely a challenge.

He would be outside like the teacher forgot him a few times outside.

So, he would be missing instruction.

Right, missing instructions and then he'd be behind.

When evidently there was comments being made

about, you know, Rece is in the hall again.

The kids picked up on it, they didn't want to be near him.

So, then they're bullying him.

And they would try to get him in trouble.

They like, here, let's see Rece the handle.

I was called all kinds of things

from idiot to class clown to moron.

And you get used to that.

But a lot of times,

you will find, uh, most teachers just don't have the patience to deal with you.

And so, I spent a lot of time in the hallway,

uh, just sitting, listening to everybody learn,

um, which makes you start to feel like you've, uh...

Well, you're not normal.

For kids with ADHD,

the impact of the distractibility and impulsivity is emotional.

It is the feeling that they are different.

Like they're bad kids with bad minds.

And that impact on their self-esteem has a huge emotional toll.

It is silent.

There's no sign that says, "I have ADHD and right now I can't concentrate. Help me!"

Like, I've one teacher who I ain't gotta say any names.

I got in trouble for tapping a pencil or stuff like that.

How many principal calls did we get last year?

Oh, my God, sorry.

I... I'm tired of apologizing for him.

Can I get a phone call that says, "Hey, he had a great day, today."

- We don't get those. - We got one.

We did. We got a postcard.

I think one of the hardest things with ADHD

is how every time they hear "no" or "stop",

or you got to, you know, whatever the issue is,

it holds away at their self-esteem.

I mean, Rece says it, he's so used to being in trouble

it doesn't really bother him anymore.

You shouldn't be used to that.

Right?

I'm not trying to be rude. I'm not trying to be mean.

I'm just trying to have fun, try to make you laugh.

And... Yeah, it's all I can say.

One of the things I did in... in school was, I called, uh,

through the Yellow Pages, and I called a construction company.

And I said... And I used my name and everything

because I don't think of the ramifications.

I'd like you to come over and measure for an addition onto the library,

and I'm at 3 o'clock and I made this appointment.

I thought that was really funny. I didn't have a friend in the world.

I mean, it was fun because when I was in math class,

I see this guy out on the field measuring.

And then, I see the... the vice principal go out

and ask him what he's doing.

Then I hear, "Well, Howard Mandel, please come to the office."

And I go to the office, and he very sternly looks down at me.

And he goes, "Did you hire a contractor to put an addition onto the library?"

And I just said, "Yes."

And he said, "Well, that... You can't do that."

And I said, "Wait, I'm getting... I'm gonna get three bids."

He said, "Just sit down! Just sit down!"

I sat down. They called my parents.

I don't know what he expected my parents to do.

We told them never to hire construction firms.

And they asked me to leave the school eventually,

and I was thrown out of... I don't have a GED. And that really was bothersome.

But my parents always laughed where it was funny.

Always hugged me when I needed it.

And, you know, that was enough.

That was really enough to get me to where I am today.

I just felt they were my safety net.

- Two. - Three.

- Four. - Five.

- Six. - Seven.

- Eight. - Nine. - Ten.

- One. - Two.

- Three. - Four.

- Five. - Six.

- Seven. - Eight.

- Nine. - Ten. - Awesome.

Rece really loves to make people happy and to make them laugh.

- Shot. - Elena!

- Stop making everything... - Shot! Go.

But he's so competitive.

- You know what? - No, we have... we have two.

I made two baskets.

- Yes. - So, it's two-two. Two-two.

- Yes, I did. Stop cheating. - Two-two.

You know he has a very hard time...

- Go get it! - ...distinguishing between a place

where he should be competitive and a place where he should just be having fun.

- Next point wins. - Yeah.

- No, you guys have four right now. - Next point wins.

No!

As a parent, the thing that bothers me the most are the friend issues.

Rylie, you're out. Mekhela got you out.

Socially in middle school is a particular challenge.

And one of the challenges with ADHD children

is they don't really get the nuances of relationships

and so they tend to not have a lot of friends.

- Winners rotate! - No! You...

Do you need a partner?

Those with points just go onto the next fence.

- We won but whatever. - Ken, are you fine?

Come on, hon!

You guys cheated three times.

It has always been a problem for me, my friends,

because I'll always come out with a bad first impression.

She'd be like, "Wow, he's really annoying or something like that."

To see Rece struggle getting along, you know, it kind of breaks my heart

because I want him to... I want him to have good relationships.

I want him to have meaningful friendships.

They can be obnoxious without meaning to be. So, the friend walks away.

They can think they're being funny.

They can think they're being enthusiastic.

When, in fact, they're dominating,

they're butting in, they're controlling.

You better not miss, Elena. Oh, go get it. Go get it.

They're having it their way, they're not cooperating they're not empathizing,

simply because they're oblivious to it.

But the number one thing that kids with ADHD are gonna have trouble with is,

schoolwork, plain and simple.

Guys, you're all gonna get your journal, get your pencil, get your calculator. Let's go.

Hi! Hello!

In most schools, it's pretty lockstep prescribed curriculum.

Memorize, repeat, hand back to me what I told you to.

It's... it's deadening for people with ADD.

We've moved to a sort of industrial assembly line approach to education.

And we fail to respect the individuality of our children

and where they are in this ready... in this to learn.

And how much they know or don't know,

and how much assistance they might need in acquiring that information.

The ADHD brain is known to be a more creative,

more out of the box, problem-solving, imaginative, curious brain,

which doesn't always coincide with a traditional school setting.

You know, the teachers kept on saying that,

"You know, it's hard to handle him in the classroom.

"Always bouncing off the wall."

It was my teacher, Mr. Ray, really encouraged me to accept my hyperactivity,

accept my unique way of looking at the world, and creative problem solving.

I was always better in school when it was an activity, P.E.,

demonstrations, I love that, geometry.

All zeros.

I didn't understand.

Why doesn't this picture become clear to me? Like, it does to other kids.

I remember like it was yesterday. Having the right intention,

wanting to do well and just knowing it was absolutely impossible.

I would literally just miss entire days.

I would sleep in the back of my car in the morning

and miss the first couple of... of hours of school.

Eh, you know if I didn't like the class, I just wouldn't go.

Kids with ADHD are much more likely to miss classes.

They're much more likely to be truant.

They're much more likely to drop out of school.

They're much more likely to fail academically.

Unfortunately, those children tend to be segwayed into other pathways,

special education,

before there's been any real treatment.

Um, they might also end up, unfortunately, in the Juvenile Justice System.

This week I got suspended from school for some stuff that I did.

I was just kind of messing around in class, um...

I got a call from a police officer Friday afternoon, 3:30.

What happened was that he was walking down the hall playing with a friend.

They were kind of pushing each other, horse play.

And that kid like pushes Hogan against the wall.

And, um, Hogan comes back, and pushes him because it hurt.

And then that kid just popped him in the face.

And Hogan is about to start crying.

He's in the middle of the hallway. And he's embarrassed.

Like, his thought is, I'm gonna go to the bathroom and cool off,

and then I'm going to go to class.

But the teacher says, "No, you can't go."

He keeps walking in with his head down. And then she blocks the door.

Yeah, kind of holds that with her hand and he just keeps going.

- Kept walking through. - Yeah. Right.

- Um, and she pressed charges on him. - Mm-hmm.

He certainly didn't want anyone to get hurt, wasn't trying to push an adult.

I think for him, it was more just like, "How did this happen?

"I got punched in the face.

"The next thing I know, I'm in Juvenile Detention."

A person at the Juvenile Detention Center comes out and says,

he'll be here all weekend.

I'm thinking like a kid who's only spent the night at his grandparents' house,

our house, a hotel or two and now he's here.

Just unbelievable.

And you're going, "Gosh, is this... is this the first time

"or is this the last time?"

That's what's worrisome because once you get into that system,

you never get the benefit of the doubt from that point forward.

Whether he did it or not...

he still gets a placement outside of school.

So, he goes to the alternative school,

because he's got a "pending charge".

So, now we're taking him out of this school,

to this alternative school, which is just...

- Oh, it's like a mini prison. - It's a mini... It is a prison. Like it's a mini prison.

So, he's going there every day.

- And I think in our perspective... - Mm-hmm.

- ...I always felt like they're just trying to punish... - Mm-hmm.

- ...punish the ADHD child. - Yeah, punish it out of it.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

If we just punish him enough,

- he will eventually stop or we can send him away. - Mm-hmm.

It's really hard at school

because you can't like talk at all there unless you like have permission to.

So, since I talk a lot, it's really hard for me to focus on that.

And I have to do like a lot of things.

I'm getting ready to do that I don't really want to do,

but I kind of have to do, like, clipping my nails

or cutting my hair to a certain length

and keeping it out of my eyes all day.

And the fact that if I don't do these things, I get punished for it.

It just doesn't feel right.

I can see there's such fine line where he could just fall on either side.

Like, gosh, that's not what you want for your kid.

You don't want them in trouble with the law or in and out of prison.

But, um...

- that... that's my biggest fear for him. - Mm-hmm.

- That he won't make it. - Yeah.

I remember this guy I was hanging around with.

He said, "Let's go, rob this lady's house."

And I went with him to rob the person's house.

Now if we got caught, how much trouble will I've gotten in?

But I didn't have the inhibitors to say,

"Well, yes, it's not a bad idea. Let's go rob the house."

You just... In the moment, you just don't think about consequence.

The fact that 25% of prison populations are saying they have ADHD

it's because we fail as a society on many, many levels

to treat or provide support.

Particularly for, uh, communities that are the most under-resourced

and thus end up only really discovering their ADHD

once they're already incarcerated,

and that's an absolute tragedy for our country.

The stakes are really, really high for Zara,

going into this new school for middle school.

They taste super good.

- They taste better than they smell. - Oh, really?

The way we ended sixth grade was very rough on Zara.

We all needed a break from school.

- What time is it? - It's quarter to nine.

And now she is ready to go back seventh grade, middle school.

Day two comes and I get a call from her mother, which is the 21st.

And mother... mom is very upset. Savera is very upset.

And she says she just received a call from the school,

keep in mind, this is day two at 8:30 in the morning,

that Zara had impulsively said something

on the little tram bus on the way to school

that the bus driver overheard and brought to the administrator's attention.

- Hi! - How's it going?

- I'm good. How are you? - I haven't seen you since school started.

- Yeah. It's been such a... - So, you know, we got quite a lot to talk about.

What happened on day two, I know something happened

- that we need to talk about. - Yeah.

I remember I was on the bus.

I was there with a few of my friends.

Everything was going well

and then everyone was sharing stories of their experiences,

their life, their summer, things like that.

And then I made up this lie just to have a story to tell,

and it was involving, you know, me taking this course online,

and lying about my age, and meeting these random people at Starbucks.

Zara told her new three friends, that she just met yesterday,

that she was meeting someone after school at Starbucks who doesn't know she's 13.

What was your plan with why you were making that up?

Was your plan to make them think you were cool?

It was attention-seeking behavior. Just to have a story to tell.

- To have a story to tell? - Yeah. Yeah.

- So, they would think, you were cool? - Right.

I... I didn't know what to do. I... I was upset.

And I... I think I just, uh, kind of lost it there.

I was like, "Oh, no, it's just second day of school.

And maybe this is just going to kind of lay the foundations of her entire year ahead."

And, uh, she just kind of messed it up for herself.

I knew it was wrong, but thinking that,

"Oh, I could be getting attention

- "and I can have everyone laughing" replaced that. - Okay.

I decided to...

As a mother, I know when to forgive and let go and move on.

But if it becomes day in-day out

and you feel like the child is just not learning from their mistakes,

then, uh... then, yes, that's become a little problematic for me, personally.

Zara will say anything and you never know what's going to come out.

But I want her to get the confidence in herself

to know that she is okay and that she is enough.

What I see now is there's no way except to push Hogan through the school system.

There's no alternatives.

If he could apprentice with somebody, if he had a mentor,

if he could do an on-the-job training now, I think he'd be successful.

Which is the new screen and which is the old?

- This the old one. - That's the old one.

You're taking off the crystal ball.

I just need the home button.

Because he has a lot of skills that in life are great,

like, to ask questions, to be argumentative, to push boundaries.

Those are all really great things.

That is not what teachers want in the classroom though.

That's seen as disrespectful and non-compliant.

Oh, yeah.

We always would call him Mowgli,

- like, the jungle boy. - Yes.

Because he... When he goes outside or when we would go with camping,

it was like, he was in his native land.

All right. I caught a cat fish. I'm gonna let it go.

And I always think, "Gosh, if he had been a hunter or a gatherer,

like, ADHD wouldn't have even...

"It would have been a good thing to have what he has."

Don't hurt me, I'm trying to help you.

I mean, I might look at a stream and think,

I wonder, if I could catch those fish with my hands.

I'm gonna walk out there and do it.

- He does. - Mm-hmm.

Just grab them with his bare hands.

Here he is.

It's that kind of non-filter "That looks cool. I'm gonna do it."

That can get you in a ton of trouble.

But then it can also put you in positions

where you kind of do these really cool thing. So...

- Can you fix my collar? - Mm-hmm.

I see myself as maybe doing some kind of engineering job or like business owner.

Like, one day I could manage that and I could really try,

and I feel like I could do really good things.

Try to get around you. It's the easiest thing ever.

The diagnosis was permission to be the things that I am.

And not call them flawed but call them what they are,

and understand that some of them need to be managed.

And some of them need to be accelerated.

The diagnosis has also just made me a better human to my child.

I can relate as long as I take two seconds to look...

look at what the kid version versus the adult version looks like.

All right. Let's have a seat. Let's see.

Keep her perch.

Keep her... Did we bring a bucket?

- Did we bring a bucket? - No, it's fine. It's fine.

- We can just keep... - Oh, my, God, Nicholas, I knew that might be the...

And I also... I look at him with this intense hope.

- Hi! - How are you?

- I'm good. How are you? - I'm great.

- How is the school you're going? - Good.

I realized that if I wanted things to change, I had to follow a routine.

And I've started taking more initiative of my life

and because of that everything else improved.

So, I think, Zara, I think this is your pile mostly. I did your laundry.

Prior to finding out about her ADHD,

I don't think we... we really had the kind of mother-daughter relationship that I wanted.

Yeah. I always misconstrued her actions.

I thought she was trying to provoke me at one point

that she just enjoyed getting a reaction out of me.

- Look at you. - You guys can sit there, okay?

So, you can bring up the wood from there.

I think we, uh, sometimes were judgmental,

instead of trying to understand...

Smile.

Do you have regrets about how you handled?

Yes.

My regrets are that I... I scolded her.

I, uh, yelled at her.

Shouted at her and, um...

and said mean things to her that I shouldn't have.

Oh, let's go. Oh, oh, oh.

Had I known this earlier on, I could have handled things very differently.

Come here, come here. Fetch.

Tell me, how things are going with mom.

How's that relationship going?

That is going actually really well.

I definitely feel the diagnosis helped her understand me

and why I do what I do much better than before.

And it's also improved our relationship.

Wow, well, that is really powerful.

I, as a parent, have unconditional love for my daughter.

And what I learned was try to show it more often,

to make sure she knows that I'm here to support her,

help her, and make things easier for her.

And that has changed our relationship, too.

She's able to share more with me now.

Through this whole learning I've always told Zara, we're in this together.

She's learning, I'm learning.

I have seen a great deal of resilience in her, too,

how she handles it so strongly, so bravely, so courageously at her age.

Zara has made me a better person and a better parent.

I truly do believe that no matter what

my kid Zara is going to be exceptional

because she... she has a good heart. She's extremely smart.

Just these... these social things

and she's gonna figure them out, right? Like it's part of growing up.

You learn and she will, and she's going to do amazing things.

I have no doubt.

So, right now school has been going pretty well.

I've started to...

Brace yourselves,

I have started to make friends now. Whoa!

Whoo!

Oh! Watch it.

Yeah!

I kind of like the way I am

because I'm not like every other kid

and I like being different.

- Come on, Rece. - Come on, Rece.

I've never really thought of ADHD as something that could hold me back.

- Come on, Rece. Bam. - Oh, yeah.

With maturity, and with,

I think some positive role models, as he gets older.

I think he's just gonna...

I mean, it's endless where he can go.

But he has to keep working at it.

You know, it's not gonna come easy.

Who did you play with at recess today?

Oh.

First, I played with Lucas, then I played with Adrian.

- You did? - Uh-huh.

- Oh, good. - I played with balls.

Good. That's good.

I spoke to the doctor again. She told me about Focalin.

It was very stressful trying to figure out the medication.

And I just felt so bad that I have to keep trying these different medications on him

and I still wasn't quite sure of how he was feeling.

Look!

What?

They are cooking.

This medication has been working awesome.

He does very well with the... He's still himself. He's just more focused.

- Is that what you are trying to do? - No.

- You're trying turn me into a cartoon? - No.

- Are you sure? - No. I am.

Bear loves his new school.

He loves his teacher. He loves the kids in the class. He's doing very well.

I get nothing but praises from the principal,

who says she wants to clone him and have more Bears,

which, you know, at his last school is like the complete opposite.

- I see you.

- Hey, how much you wanna bet?

Taco.

We have an opportunity to understand that this is a hardwired issue.

And like any other medical issue,

there are treatments that can help.

But that there are special strengths

that exist in those people with ADHD.

And we have, I think, a duty and a responsibility to acknowledge that,

to encourage that,

and to make them able to use and flourish those particular strengths.

Not only for themselves and their lives, but for society as a whole.

If the world could understand, if the teachers and the tutors, and the babysitters,

and the parents, and school bus drivers could understand,

this child has these challenge and this strength.

So, here's how you can help them.

We found that by recognizing the strengths in our patients of any age,

they felt a whole lot better.

But fueling the strengths, you crowd out the weaknesses.

And... and they find ways of dealing being on time,

of getting organized because they're motivated. They want to unwrap their gift.

Hey.

You have to give people hope.

And I think that if they can pursue things that they love,

and everyone has things that they love...

they are going to have a happier life.

The way forward for me for families with ADHD

is to don't lose sight of the relationship.

Stop longing for the child you thought you wanted when you were pregnant.

And accept the child you have...

take it as your mission, as your shepherd,

to help them develop those talents, right?

And focus on your relationship with them over everything else.

Because that's what's going to sustain them and sustain you.

My parents were always really strong and behind me

and I think they... they knew that it came in a rough and tumble package.

My mom really sat down with me and poured into me when I struggled.

On the days I didn't want to do my schoolwork,

she will sit there and like, "Hey, Michelle, we have to get this done."

I'd always be sitting in the kitchen table

and my mom would come in and she'd say,

"Look, you know, you... you've got to do two things in life.

"You got to work hard and you got to make sure your spirit never gets broken."

And I think that, like, the phrase "Your spirit will never get broken"

is the only reason I made it through childhood.

Focus less on the way in which they get to their goals

and more on nurturing them as they go along that journey.

It's not easy.

And don't get the idea that if you just take a few pills,

that all of a sudden everything's going to be fixed and wonderful.

But the fact is you've got some impressive strengths.

This is amazing.

They're just really misunderstood; and it breaks my heart.

Because I know that they receive such negative feedback from their world.

And I think, if I could pick one thing

that I would want parents, educators, and the general public

to know about children with ADHD is that

they're little creative, imaginative beings

who just need a little more support, a little more positive feedback,

to kind of put them on the right track.

Your child doesn't have to be the next Einstein,

or the next, you know, incredible CEO, to be a success,

but simply to help your child to feel good about what the strengths that they do have,

to shore up the weaknesses that they do have,

and to be the best version of themselves they can be.

All right. Good job.

I am super excited for his future,

like, it's to a point where I kinda...

I don't want him to grow too quickly

but I kind of do because I just can't wait to see where he's gonna go.

Because he's always talked about being an astronaut.

Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury, Moon, and Sun.

I just wondered like, "Will he actually be an astronaut?"

Hey, Bear.

So, it sounds like, I was a kid just like you when I was growing up.

Um, I struggled in school. I couldn't pay attention.

I couldn't really sit still very well.

But you know what?

I, eventually, after many, many years found inspiration.

And never forget, you can do absolutely anything,

if you work hard enough, and never, ever give up.

- Where are you going? You are going to the Moon? - Yes.

All the systems are there just... just to create order and normality.

But all the greatness is when people break outside the systems like, period.

So, to speak, you know, celebrate that you're outside the system.

I want to tell parents who have kids with ADHD

that it's okay, that your child is going to make it.

They're not less than, actually, they're better than.

I attribute my success in business to my ADD.

There's no question in my mind.

But it's been a tradeoff, you know,

because, like I said, they've been times

where you just want to cry from the frustration.

When I found out a lot of geniuses have ADHD,

I went, "Ah, there you go. I'm a genius."

The gift is that you can see something that others can't see.

You know, sometimes you feel like you can see around walls.

You know, that's something that is a gift.

When you feel good about yourself you can achieve anything you want.

And let's instill that in every, every family,

every person, every... every kid who's watching this right now.

If I didn't have this ADHD brain, I wouldn't be where I am today.

And I'm pretty happy with where I am today.

I don't think I would have been as good at the creative side of my job without the ADHD

because I think sometimes your brain is not afraid to just let those crazy ideas come in.

Because there's so many coming

that, um, you find one that you think is going to work best but you execute it.

There's nothing wrong with you.

Your brain is beautiful.

Your society didn't do a good job telling you that you're creative.

Society didn't tell... do a good job telling you that you have,

you know, the ability to focus on many things at once.

You're freaking awesome.

You know, I said if I can take a magic pill

and cure myself of it I would never do it.

Never in a million years.

If I could rename ADHD,

I would call it "Howie."

And I think that everybody should rename it

with their own names because that's what makes us us.

So my ADHD is Howie.

What's your name?