Book Nook - How Not to Damage Your ADHD Adolescent

Sarah templeton, a renowned ADHD expert and advocate, is on a mission to help parents and educators understand and support their ADHD teens. Her latest book, how not to damage your ADHD adolescent, offers practical advice and strategies to navigate the challenges of raising an ADHD teen.

With her extensive experience as a counselor and her own personal journey with ADHD, sarah provides invaluable insights into the minds of ADHD teens. She empowers parents to build strong, supportive relationships, foster resilience, and help their teens thrive.

The book discusses a variety of key points around ADHD, including the importance of early intervention, building relationships, practical daily advice, and more. As the parent of a teen who wasn't diagnosed until middle school, I can definitely say that we would have saved a lot of struggles had we known earlier!

I had a chance to learn more in this interview.

Why did you write this book?

Because I am absolutely passionate about ADHD teenagers. I have worked in four prisons including two young offender institutes and found so much undiagnosed or ‘diagnosed but not medicated’ ADHD in there. It’s outrageous and I’m trying to change the school-to -prison pipe line. 

That starts by understanding ADHD kids, especially teenagers, not excluding them from school, understanding how their brains work and how to get the very best out of them. 

I’ve seen this work in my therapy room with numerous early teens who have been arrested and after working with them for usually a year and sometimes longer I have helped them completely understand their ADHD brain, that they are not ‘naughty’ but just wired differently and supported and focused they can achieve great things.

I am massively passionate about ADHD teenagers because it can so easily go wrong for them. Either teachers or parents or both haven’t understood and supported their ADHD traits and ways of thinking. Things can go rapidly wrong especially when puberty hits from around the age of 9 to 13

Why is early diagnosis so important for kids with ADHD?

So many reasons! How long have you got?!  Firstly self-esteem. ADHD kids are known to have low self-esteem because it is estimated they receive up to 20,000 negative messages by the age of 10. 

Using my own experience I was told to sit still, stop fiddling, stop doodling, stop sucking my hair, stop biting my nails, stop interrupting, stop trying to take over everything people were doing, asked, “why do you think you always know best about everything” constantly told “everything doesn’t have to be your own way”. I was also told to “stop doing everything in a tearing hurry” when I thought I was doing things at normal speed and to “focus and concentrate” when my mind wandered.  

There are literally hundreds of ways ADHD kids are told off constantly for their natural ADHD brain ways. 

Then look at education. An ADHD child who is not medicated or even diagnosed will struggle to retain information. This is because an ADHD brain will only remember something that has stimulated it. Anything that is boring or routine will not be retained unless they are medicated. So they will not do as well as they could in exams and will struggle to get into college and university. Their whole life trajectory will be changed because their ADHD hasn’t been medicated

Then we look at addiction. An unmedicated ADHD brain will be compulsive and will be seeking pleasure due to the lack of dopamine. I was lucky in one way because I found my dopamine in food and buying things. Others very often find it in less healthy ways and that includes drugs, alcohol, gambling and other damaging activities

When it gets really serious is when kids are emotionally dysregulated due to not being diagnosed or on the right medication. This can lead to self-harm and suicidal thoughts and is very dangerous. Dysregulated emotions can also mean kids lashing out physically and before they know it they’ve been arrested for criminal damage, affray or more serious crimes.  

I’ve worked with these arrested kids in therapy and all of them are shocked and appalled at their behaviour and terrified of the consequences. If they had been diagnosed and medicated it is highly likely they wouldn’t have found themselves in this situation. 

What are some of the psychological aspects of undiagnosed ADHD?

This is what a lot of people don’t understand. ADHD is a condition that has to be diagnosed by a paediatrician or a psychologist who specialises in ADHD. And also an ADHD psychiatrist can diagnose. It is a serious psychiatric condition but so many people still see it as a ‘behavioural disorder’ and that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Psychologically ADHD impacts everyone who has it. It can mean very up and down moods, low self-esteem, frustration at not being able to do things as easily as other people. 

Depression and anxiety feature in pretty much every child and adult with ADHD and can go from the mild to the severe

ADHD people have a lower life expectancy of anything from 15 to 25 years. This is thought to be connected to our propensity to addiction, risk taking and thrill seeking when it goes very wrong and we have a five times higher risk of suicide. ADHD is the only condition with a reduced life expectancy and a five times higher likelihood of suicide. 

How can inclusive learning environments benefit all learners, not just those with ADHD?

This is so easy to do and I cover in my book for teachers. ADHD kids get bored very easily so for example in an hour lesson if a teacher breaks it up into 3 chunks of 20 minutes every child will be more interested and alert knowing that in 20 minutes something different is coming. 

I often suggest 20 minutes of learning followed by a 20 minute video on the subject followed by a 20 minute quiz with a small prize for the winner. ADHD kids love to win so this will stimulate their brains if they know that the previous 40 minutes is important and if they try hard to take in the information 

They might win something. 

That prize doesn’t have to cost anything. It could literally be the winning child being let out two minutes early to get to the front of the lunch queue.

Also getting outside. If the weather is good, take the kids outside, sit under a tree and have the class there. This will allow the ADHD child to pick the grass and fiddle with daisies without getting told off. Allowing them movement and to shift their way of sitting will allow them to concentrate on the teacher and what they are saying. 

Sitting still is torture for an ADHD child so allowing them some movement will help them concentrate.