Struggling with impostor syndrome as an adult? Get actionable tips for overcoming it and boosting your success. Learn to identify signs and think positively.

Struggling with impostor syndrome as an adult? Get actionable tips for overcoming it and boosting your success. Learn to identify signs and think positively.

Trauma alters the developing brain, triggering behavioral and mental health issues. Under prolonged exposure to stress, resources are diverted from the “thinking” part of the brain to its survival centers. Here, learn how to best support stressed children and teens who have been exposed to traumatic events.

This post contains affiliate links. My friends at The Inclusive Class posted the following visual on Facebook: It resonated, but I found myself thinking much more about stereotypes than disabilities. You’ve done it, haven’t you? Referred to girls as “chatty”, categorized their behavior as “drama” or blamed the way she is acting on “hormones”? I certainly have. And there may well be truth to each of those descriptions. But we do our children a disservice when we simply use stereotypes to explain away their behavior. That’s why this list really gave me pause. In looking at it closely, many are the sort of behaviors one might explain away as “girl stuff”. And while there are genuine differences in the way that boys and girls may demonstrate attention deficits, far more concerning to me is the way that adults tolerate (or don’t!) these behaviors. According to this article from Understood.org, “Teachers tend to have a different tolerance level for the behavior girls with ADHD exhibit than they do for the behavior of boys with ADHD.” Is this leading us to misdiagnosing and/or over-diagnosing children based on our own set of expectations or a lack of ability to understand behavior? “If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.” Shouldn’t the same be true of the way we manage behavior? Why do we continue to force children into neat packages that can sit still and attend for hours at a time? I have written about attention issues before. In Are We Giving Our Children ADD? I reflected on an article that asserts we must train our “attention muscle”. My jury is still out on this concept. While I do think there is merit to the idea that we can teach, and thereby improve, the skill of paying attention, I also think we are simply expecting too much of our children when we force them to sit at desks and pay attention throughout an entire school day. What about flexible seating options? Could a standing desk be a solution? So let’s not assume that all of our girls have ADHD just because they like to chat with friends, and we must not discount the real effect that changing hormones can have on both girls and boys. Rather, let's become increasingly mindful about our expectations of behavior and the way in which we both categorize and tolerate those behaviors we consider problematic. Maybe it's just our expectations that are the problem. Read more in Attention Deficits and Gender - Continuing to Make Sense of Behavior Be sure you never miss a post from Removing the Stumbling Block:

Symptoms of sluggish cognitive tempo, or cognitive disengagement syndrome, often overlap with ADHD. Read to learn the differences and SCT/CDS treatments.

In order to be diagnosed with ADHD by a professional, the ADHD symptoms must have persisted for at least six months and have been present before the age of 12 years according to the DSM-5.

Explore the nuances of ADHD including inattentive and hyperactive types, and how mental health professionals diagnose and treat this disorder effectively.

What does ADHD look like in grade school? ADHD or ADD can show up in lots of ways in elementary school, and the signs might not be what you expect. Learn more.

Struggling with impostor syndrome as an adult? Get actionable tips for overcoming it and boosting your success. Learn to identify signs and think positively.

Struggling with impostor syndrome as an adult? Get actionable tips for overcoming it and boosting your success. Learn to identify signs and think positively.

Uncover ADHD's lesser-known traits, from emotional dysregulation to sensory challenges and social anxiety, for a deeper understanding of ADHD's impact.

Struggling with impostor syndrome as an adult? Get actionable tips for overcoming it and boosting your success. Learn to identify signs and think positively.

To-do-lists help us to prioritize and organize tasks. However for those of us with ADHD, using these lists isn’t always straightforward.

Stimming behaviors are common in people Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Learn more about common stimming triggers here.

“Despite my #ADHD, I was labeled “gifted” in school. I was ahead of my peers but got frustrated with the slow pace of the curriculum. It’s often referred to as “twice exceptional child syndrome” and was the reason I never got treated— despite lack of organizational/social skills.”