Brain health · Sanctum

Chatty and full-on, or dreamy

She is either very talkative, bouncy and full-on, which is more accepted in a girl and so waved through, or quiet and away with the fairies, drifting and dreamy. Either way it does not look like the textbook picture, so no one thinks to ask.

In girls, ADHD often wears one of these two faces. The hyperactivity turns into chattiness and big energy rather than climbing the furniture; the inattention turns into daydreaming rather than disruption. Both are easy to accommodate and easy to miss, because neither causes trouble for anyone but her.

Because she is not a problem in class, she does not get referred, and the effort, the drifting, the trying to keep up, stays invisible. Girls are missed for exactly this reason, again and again.

We look past whether a child is causing trouble to whether she is struggling underneath, because that is where girls in particular get overlooked. None of this is a diagnosis. It is what we explore with you.

Written by Dr Asad RaffiConsultant Psychiatrist · Founder & Medical Director