Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
Parents with one affected child often ask what they might do differently before the next one. Answer honestly: there are lists of suggestions in circulation, the evidence behind most of them is thin, and the question underneath is usually about blame.
Take the question seriously and take the guilt seriously alongside it. Give what is genuinely known, say plainly where recommendations run ahead of the evidence, and be open about who has an interest in the advice you are passing on, including any programme or summit you have worked with yourself. Parents can hold uncertainty. What they cannot hold is finding out later that you oversold something.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes' (Quran 2:286). A prayer made for exactly the parent who is going back over everything they did.
لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا وُسۡعَهَاۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَيۡهَا مَا ٱكۡتَسَبَتۡۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوۡ أَخۡطَأۡنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَيۡنَآ إِصۡرࣰ ا كَمَا حَمَلۡتَهُۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآۚ أَنتَ مَوۡلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرۡنَا عَلَى ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلۡكَٰفِرِينَ
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear: each gains whatever good it has done, and suffers its bad- ‘ Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes. Lord, do not burden us as You burdened those before us. Lord, do not burden us with more than we have strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Protector, so help us against the disbelievers.’
Qur’an 2:286read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Public understanding here is patchy. A nationally representative United States survey found uneven recognition of children's mental health problems and uneven beliefs about where to get help, which is the information landscape parents are shopping in. It says nothing about preventing anything, and nothing in front of me shows that a list of behaviours before conception prevents ADHD or autism, so that is not a claim to pass on.
Pescosolido BA, Jensen PS, Martin JK, Perry BL, Olafsdottir S, Fettes D. (2008). Public knowledge and assessment of child mental health problems: findings from the National Stigma Study-Children.. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A parent told the truth about what is uncertain can stop hunting for a guarantee that does not exist.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Run a short anxiety and depression screener alongside the ADHD measure at every intake, not only when someone mentions their mood.
Ask for the old school reports every time. Some people arrive with a folder of every one they ever had, and you cannot tell in advance which people those are.
Ask about the family properly: parents, brothers and sisters, children, then aunts, uncles and grandparents. Include drinking and drug use, in them as well as in the person sitting with you.