| It is difficult for girls with inattentive ADHD to be recognized because they daydream rather than cause disruption. These girls depend on exhausting perfection and masking to get through their school days, which results in extreme after-school meltdowns and a misdiagnosis of anxiety by the time girls reach middle school. |
If your daughter has been spending countless hours gazing up at the ceiling while you should be helping her pack her school bag, or if you feel like you are always carrying the burden on your own for both of you, please do know that you are not failing and that you are not alone. Witnessing how hard it is for your incredibly gifted, creative daughter to battle her way through a world that moves at a pace of conformity can be exhausting, heavy and extremely lonely. You may have been spending years asking yourself whether these daily outbursts are merely just phases, part of growing up, or perhaps a result of not being a good enough parent.
Key Takeaways:
- The reason why girls who have the inattentive subtype tend to be ignored by teachers and doctors relative to hyperactive boys.
- The way in which coping skills such as perfectionism make children experience extreme emotional exhaustion by the end of the day.
- Specific strategies that would ensure that an early comprehensive evaluation helps your daughter gain self-respect.
The Hidden Struggle of the Inattentive ADHD Daughter
While the boy who has issues with focus is bouncing off the walls and distracting other children in class, the girl is silently drowning in herself and disappearing in her daydreams while others around her continue moving on. Recognizing the early signs of ADHD in girls is critical, yet boys are diagnosed more frequently simply because their symptoms cannot be ignored. Based on the statistics provided by the CDC about the diagnosis rates among different sexes, boys are diagnosed more frequently simply because their symptoms cannot be ignored. Your girl may appear to be a perpetual daydreamer, a scatterbrain, or just “unfocused.”
Reasons why Educators Overlook Warning Signs
- Silent Disconnect: She does not tend to create behavioral problems, which allows her to stay unnoticed by distracted educators.
- The “Ditzy” Stigma: Her forgetfulness and misplaced things are usually attributed to negligence rather than her neurodevelopmental differences.
The Price of Flying Under the Radar
Due to her not being a hyperactive student, teachers do not refer her for diagnosis in those important years of elementary school. Research into sexual differences in referrals for problems like the work done by Dr. Stephen Hinshaw on females with ADHD proves that ADHD in girls is often overlooked until secondary school age. By then, the constant struggle has had devastating consequences on her psychological wellbeing.
Masking and After-School Meltdowns
If your daughter seems to have her act together in school and completely falls apart as soon as she steps foot inside your home, then you are seeing the enormous toll that masking takes on your daughter. Masking is the exhausting tactic that your daughter uses each day to hide her symptoms and pretend to be normal. Your daughter spends eight hours making sure she keeps the right posture, makes eye contact, hides her movements, and catches herself from missing instructions, leaving her with no emotional energy left by the time dismissal rolls around.
The Tiring Daily Routine
- Hyper-vigilance: Your daughter observes others around her to see how to behave, using up cognitive energy even before academic lessons can start.
- The Safe Container: Your home is the only place where your daughter feels safe to relax and allow all the stored tension to come out.
- Meltdown Trigger: Small things like a shoe in the wrong spot or homework questions become the cause of huge meltdowns.
The Reason Her Explosions Happen at Home
It is likely you are concerned that her explosions at home suggest she is angry at you; however, the truth is her outbursts are a sign of how much trust she has in you and how exhausted she is. She has had an entire day of struggling to do what others think she should, and now she can be who she really is – with you. It will be a whole new world once you understand this part of her.
Is It ADHD or Anxiety? Or Is It the Anxiety CAUSED by ADHD?
By the time girls reach middle school age, their protective mask cracks and anxiety or depression are often used as reasons for their problems. Girls are diagnosed with general anxiety disorder for many years before doctors understand the real issue – their attention deficits. Constant fear of being late, not doing your work right or speaking all day long results in anxiety becoming an endless state of exhaustion.
Trapped in Perfectionism
- The Overachiever’s Shield: A few girls resort to perfectionism, where they spend several hours poring over homework assignments until they are perfect, even at the expense of their physical and mental wellbeing.
- Overwhelming Paralysis: With the increasing workload in middle school, her strategies to cope with perfectionism fail, resulting in academic paralysis.
Unraveling the Symptoms
According to CHADD, girls and women often have their symptoms covered by emotional dysregulation and anxiety, which means that her treatment with breathing techniques or therapy won’t help if the cause of her panic – her executive dysfunction – is not addressed. Only when the cause of her being overwhelmed is targeted does her body get permission to finally calm down.
How Early Testing Preserves Self-Esteem
The risk of waiting until she outgrows her difficulties lies in her slow but steady depreciation of herself during these crucial years. Getting evaluated at the earliest possible moment becomes crucial in protecting her developing self-image. Instead of feeling like she is lazy, broken, or inadequate, she will learn that her brain works differently and that it is wonderful.
The Strength of Understanding Oneself
- The New Perspective: She is no longer interpreting her problems as shortcomings but sees them as part of her neurological makeup that she can learn to cope with.
- The Correct Approach: Proper diagnosis gives way to useful accommodation, which will teach her how to deal with concentration and procrastination without feeling ashamed.
- Sense of Community: Her diagnosis makes her feel part of a community of other talented, intelligent girls who think exactly like her.
The Generational Echo: Spotting It in Yourself
Reading through the list of your daughter’s signs of exhaustion and mask, you may be quietly hit by an unexpected revelation. Mothers tend to discover their own lifelong struggle when sitting on the couch reading the signs of their daughters’. You might be struck with nostalgia as you reflect on your school years—the missing homework assignments, the intense anxiety, the sense of having to work twice as hard for half as much—and come to understand that you too were never really “lazy” or “spacey”.
Living this awareness in a hectic state such as Nevada can prove to be daunting. It is okay to not live up to the generational expectation, and discovering how to help your daughter may also be an opportunity to heal your inner child.
“If this article felt like reading a description of your daughter — or of yourself at her age — trust that instinct. Evaluations for girls take a careful eye, and it’s exactly the kind of thorough, whole-person assessment our team was recognized for.”
Moving One Step Further
Helping your daughter with inattention involves lots of patience and validation. By being supportive of her unique way of seeing the world from an early age, you allow her the freedom to stop living up to false expectations about what she needs to be in this world. Recognize her wild imagination and respect her need for rest after school.
“If this article felt like reading a description of your daughter — or of yourself at her age — trust that instinct. Evaluations for girls take a careful eye, and it’s exactly the kind of thorough, whole-person assessment our team was recognized for.”
Reach out to our team today to schedule a confidential consultation.
Sources:
https://www.cdc.gov/adhd/data/index.html
https://chadd.org/attention-article/why-adhd-is-more-challenging-for-women/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3543865/
https://childmind.org/bio/stephen-hinshaw-phd/
https://childmind.org/article/how-girls-with-adhd-are-different/
https://www.additudemag.com/adhd-in-women-girls-symptoms-diagnosis-recommendations/?srsltid
https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/anxiety-adhd-link https://www.understood.org/en/podcasts/hyperfocus/the-devastating-findings-of-a-decades-long-adhd-study
https://psychology.berkeley.edu/people/stephen-hinshaw
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24741-adhd-in-women
