Why do ADHD children have a hard time in school?

Children with ADHD don’t need fixing. They need understanding, structure that excites, and opportunities to use their curiosity as the bridge to their potential.

Knowing I Was “Different”

At five years old, I already knew I had ADHD. I could explain my diagnosis clearly—I understood that I was different, that I made people frustrated, that I took up “too much space.”

What I didn’t know was that in addition to all the things the school saw as wrong with me, I was also gifted.

When I was tested, it wasn’t to uncover strengths; it was to identify deficits. Later, as a teenager, I found the report. One line changed how I saw everything:

“Lindsay’s IQ is far above average and disqualifies her from an IEP.”

It was right there in black and white—the evidence that my brain worked differently, but brilliantly. Yet no one told me. Instead, I grew up believing I wasn’t smart enough to succeed.

The Paradox of Being Gifted and Struggling

Children who are both gifted and neurodivergent—known as twice-exceptional (2e)—often have their gifts overshadowed by the challenges adults focus on.

When a child can build complex ideas in their mind but can’t sit still long enough to write them neatly on paper, educators may only see the struggle.

In my case, I could solve logic puzzles and spot patterns others missed, but I failed at simple classroom tasks. My brain thrived on novelty, challenge, and meaning—things the standard classroom rarely offered.

For the ADHD brain, interest is the ignition key for attention. Without it, neural engagement drops. But when you introduce novelty, curiosity, or personal relevance, the brain releases dopamine, unlocking pathways that make learning not just possible, but joyful.

How the ADHD Brain Learns: Dopamine, Novelty, and Engagement

ADHD is not a disorder of attention—it’s a difference in attention regulation.

The ADHD brain doesn’t decide what to focus on based on importance or consequence; it decides based on stimulation and meaning.

This means a child can focus for hours on a preferred topic yet struggle to finish a worksheet. When learning feels interesting, dopamine flows. When it feels repetitive, the brain slips into a state of paralysis.

By weaving preferred interests into essential tasks—like using a child’s love of sports to teach math or their fascination with animals to build reading fluency—we help the brain connect emotionally to learning. That emotional link opens neural networks, deepening retention and motivation.

This isn’t coddling. It’s neuroscience.

Children don’t need to “try harder” to learn; adults need to teach in ways that help their brains engage.

The Emotional Cost of Misunderstanding

By the time a child with ADHD turns ten, they have received over 20,000 more negative feedback statements than their neurotypical peers.

Much of this feedback isn’t direct punishment—it’s the accumulation of small corrections, sighs, and rhetorical questions like:

“Why did you do it that way?” 

“What were you thinking?” 

“Why can’t you just listen?”

Questions that were never meant to be answered.

Over time, these experiences teach children that their instincts are wrong, their energy is unwanted, and their natural way of thinking is something to be fixed.

Many internalize these messages so deeply that it manifests as rejection sensitivity, chronic shame, or even trauma symptoms later in life.

We learn to mask—using all of our mental energy to perform neurotypical behavior—or we shut down and hide. Neither is healthy. Neither is sustainable.

When adults dismiss the need for additional stimuli as laziness or entitlement, they reinforce a system that confuses neural difference with moral failure.

The Power of Seeing the Spark

Everything changed for me when I met my high school math teacher, Mrs. Conroy.

I was retaking Algebra after failing it once. I told her, “I’m just bad at math.” She stopped me mid-sentence.

“You solve problems most of those ‘smart’ kids couldn’t do,” she said.

That moment reframed everything. I wasn’t “bad at math.” I just thought differently.

Mrs. Conroy taught through curiosity and problem-solving, not rote memorization. For the first time, my brain lit up. I finally understood that it wasn’t my intelligence that was lacking—it was the system’s flexibility.

Reframing Learning: From Compliance to Curiosity

When we help children use their passions as gateways to learning, we transform education from a chore into a discovery process.

This type of learning doesn’t just make school enjoyable; it opens up the brain’s learning centers.

Gamified and interest-driven learning increases dopamine production and strengthens connections across multiple brain regions. These overlapping networks make it easier for children to retrieve and apply knowledge later on.

If we truly want our children to reach their full potential, we must abandon the myth that needing stimulation is a weakness. It’s a biological reality—and when we honor it, we unlock growth that standardized systems could never measure.

In order to help our children thrive, we must break the notion that the need for additional stimuli makes them spoiled, ungrateful, or lazy. It makes them human. It makes them learners.

From Deficit to Design

ADHD was never my flaw—it was my framework. My brain needed movement, novelty, and meaning, and once I learned to honor that, everything changed.

Children with ADHD don’t need fixing. They need understanding, structure that excites, and opportunities to use their curiosity as the bridge to their potential.

When we stop labeling stimulation as indulgence and start recognizing it as a learning necessity, we stop teaching children to bury their spark—and begin teaching them to use it to light the world.

References

1. Dodson, W. (2019). What You Need to Know About ADHD and the Interest-Based Nervous System. ADDitude Magazine.

   
   

2. Barkley, R. A. (2020). Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Handbook for Diagnosis and Treatment. Guilford Press.

   
   

3. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). Self-Determination Theory and Intrinsic Motivation. American Psychologist.

   
   

4. Lumsden, J., et al. (2016). Gamification of Cognitive Tasks: A Review of Neuropsychological Evidence. Frontiers in Psychology.
   

5. Baum, S. M., Schader, R. M., & Owen, S. V. (2017). To Be Gifted and Learning Disabled: Strength-Based Strategies for Helping Twice-Exceptional Students with LD, ADHD, ASD, and More.