In this interview‑style YouTube episode, host Jane Slack‑Smith talks with ADHD expert Debbie Thompson to debunk ten common myths about attention‑deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The conversation opens with the observation that ADHD diagnoses are rising, especially among adults and women, and then systematically addresses misconceptions: that ADHD isn’t a real disorder; that everyone has a little ADHD; that children outgrow it; that kids are over‑medicated and that medication causes later substance abuse; that girls are less affected; that boys only present with hyperactivity; that ADHD stems from bad parenting; that an ability to play video games for hours rules out ADHD and that hyperfocus is a strength; that people with ADHD are lazy or unintelligent; that school accommodations give an unfair advantage; and finally that ADHD is a modern pharmaceutical invention. For each myth, Thompson provides data (e.g., >10,000 scientific papers since 1902, CDC 2022 medication rates, 70% persistence into adulthood, 20,000 negative messages by age 10) and contextual explanations (genetic links, gender‑biased diagnostic practices, the role of hyperfocus, historical descriptions of the condition). The episode closes with a call to action for educators, parents, and clinicians to seek accurate information, use evidence‑based strategies, and reduce the negative messaging that harms children with ADHD.
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Hello, it's Jane again from Exit the Matrix Stories of Success podcast. Now, I was just speaking to Debbie Thompson, and Debbie, she's had an amazing journey. So I hope that you have listened to that episode. But what really struck me was there's so many people who are being diagnosed with ADHD. It seems to be, let's just say, a trending topic at the moment. Late diagnosis, as was for Debbie herself and for her children. And there seems to be a lot of women around a certain age of 50 are also being diagnosed. And I just wanted to know, you know, Deb, it, it's, it seems to me that there's a lot of myths out there of what ADHD is, and for people who are not being diagnosed because those myths are, you know, perpetuating in society. So could you share with me just some of the myths that we want to bust today about ADHD?
Sure, Jane Slack-Smith. There are numerous myths, and I've just chosen 10 that we can, we can look at. And the first one that people hear quite a lot is ADHD is not a real disorder, um, and everyone's got a little bit of ADHD. Those two kind of come together. And ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that's been described in medical journals since 1902. And since then there have been over 10,000 clinical and scientific papers published about ADHD. So ADHD is a real disorder.
Okay, moving on.
Is everyone has a little ADHD? And while everyone may occasionally experience attention, inattention, or impulsivity, and particularly with the lifestyle that we live today, you know, our concentration spans been shortened somewhat. Individuals with ADHD face these challenges consistently and severely. It's not just a momentary thing, I'm in a, you know, I can't pay attention because you might be sleep deprived or whatever it is. So equating common behaviors like I can't pay attention to what ADHD actually is really minimizes the genuine struggles that those with ADHD are diagnosed with. And so everyone needs to be be quite careful when they say, oh, I might have, or I've got ADHD, because ADHD has some really, um, you know, difficult challenges for many people.
Okay, good, good to know.
Yeah.
Okay, busted. Give me another one.
Okay, so another one is that, um, children with ADHD will eventually outgrow their condition. Um, more and more research is being done on adults with ADHD, and more than 70% of individuals with AD, who have had ADHD in childhood, will have the conditions in adolescence and into adulthood. Now the conditions will change, the impulsivity will become less, so will the hyperactivity, and it tends to turn into inattention. But also, as you get older, you learn to use strategies to cope with it, so it might change and look a little bit different.
Okay, okay, so you don't outgrow it.
You don't have growth. It's how your brain is wired. It's a biological condition. You can't, you can't change that. Busted.
Busted.
Okay, the brain is what the brain is. The brain is what the brain is. Um, and the other one is children with ADHD are overmedicated. Um, and according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, in 2022 Approximately 62% of children between under 17 who have a current diagnosis of ADHD actually take ADHD medication. So, you know, that's just over half who are diagnosed take the medication, right?
Okay, so not everyone.
No.
Interesting. Okay, busted. Give me another one.
All right, um, children who take ADHD medication are more likely to abuse drugs when they become teenagers and adults. Okay, so it's quite the opposite. Having untreated ADHD actually increases the risk that individuals will abuse drugs and alcohol to deal with their symptoms of ADHD. So the medications used to treat ADHD have been proven safe and effective for more than 50 years.
Okay, so it's not a new trending topic.
Okay, but people— I, I guess people are worried about addiction. If you are taking a drug, you know, every day from when you're a child, um, you're going to become addicted. Now, the thing with ADHD medication, it works when it's in your system, right? Thank you. Um, okay, the other myth is that girls have lower rates and less severe ADHD than boys.
Is that true?
And yes. And ADHD in girls and women has only really been recognized in the last few decades. Prior to that, all the research was done on boys, and boys are diagnosed 3 to 4 times more than girls, even though research is showing that girls are just as likely to have it. And that's because one of the reasons is because girls have the inner— tend to have the inner tent of ADHD and seem more kind of daydreamy and you know, inattentive. And as a result, they're often just overlooked or remain undiagnosed.
Okay, so girls can have it too?
Oh, as likely as boys, but boys are 3 to 4 times more likely to be diagnosed.
And are they diagnosed at the same time?
No, boys are diagnosed usually earlier. Um, well Yeah, not— it's more the, it's more the hyperactive ADHD that's diagnosed earlier, right? Um, and which seems to be more with boys than girls. And so that is seen earlier, it's really obvious, and so diagnosed when they start school because they basically find it really difficult to sit down and concentrate. Whereas with girls, it's found later on when life becomes a bit more challenging, and that's when, you know, they're dealing with ADHD becomes more obvious, and that's when, uh, the diagnosis— so things like going to high school, leaving school, going to university, uh, leaving university, getting a job— those are often times when a lot is expected of you. It's quite stressful. You haven't got the support of the school, and so that's when it becomes— all your coping strategies, you can cope till you can't cope, right? Right.
So does that mean— there's another myth which is boys have— don't get the inattentive ADHD. Is it possible for boys to have that?
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, you know, many people have the combined ADHD, which is a combination of the hyperactive ADHD as well as the inattentive ADHD. Wow.
Okay, well, that's a myth that's busted in my mind now.
Yeah, yeah. So it's not like boys— boys are hyperactive and girls are not.
No, no, no.
It's a combination.
Wow. Okay, right. No wonder. And I mean, I guess the obviousness is it's often the teachers that diagnose or have an inkling that something's going on. And looking after 30 kids in the class, the ones that are the most obvious who are demanding the most attention and disrupting the class the most are the ones that get, you're unruly or you're noisy or you're disruptive. Go to the principal's office or go to the counselor and there's a diagnosis. The other ones who are sitting there people pleasing and being the diligent child, uh, are just totally overlooked.
That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Give me another myth.
I'm— okay, so ADHD is a result of bad parenting. Oh, and, and, and, you know, if, if you were stricter on them and sorted them out, they would, you know, they wouldn't be behaving like this. So ADHD is rooted in brain chemistry. It is not about discipline, okay? Um, in fact, overly strict parenting, uh, which may involve punishing a child for something he can't or she can't control, can actually make ADHD symptoms worse. Okay, all right, not the parent's fault.
Good to know.
Oh well, it's not your fault, but it's highly genetic. So, uh, it is a very strong chance if you have a child with ADHD that one of the two parents will have or had ADHD. But, you know, many times it just wasn't diagnosed unless it was a very, very obvious hyperactive, uh, ADHD.
Interesting. Okay, give me another one.
Okay, so a, a child who can play video games for hours can't have ADHD. So ADHD does not mean no attention, but a dysregulation of attention. So environments or activities that are highly stimulating to that person can lead to something called hyperfocus. So it's more the mundane and less stimulating strategies where you see the destructibility and inability to focus and stay, um, you know, stay, keep attention.
So I mean, does that mean that you would be more likely to find people who have ADHD in certain careers where there is that kind of scientific or research or, you know, that kind of depth of focus?
Oh, absolutely. I don't know the stats on that, but when people who have ADHD are interested in something, if they become experts, they can often become experts in that field because they're hyper— I mean, hyperfocus is one of the superpowers of ADHD, right?
Yeah, of course. That's great. Okay, do we have any other myths?
Yes, we do. We have a couple more. Um, so people with ADHD are stupid or lazy and will never amount to anything.
Wow.
Okay, well, yeah, many well-known high-achieving individuals have ADHD. Uh, some of the ones who are not with us anymore are Mozart and Abraham Lincoln. We're not definitely there, but looking at how they live their lives. Um, and many successful business and sports and creative people, um, and for them they wouldn't change the ADHD. It's, it's given them huge hyperfocus, um, it's given them ability to think creatively out of the box, huge amounts of energy. Um, so people like Richard Branson, you know, Michael Phelps the swimmer, uh, Justin Timberlake, Um, Ryan Gosling, Michael Jordan, Will Smith, Emma Watson. You know, these are highly, highly successful people because of their ability to focus in and do something phenomenally well. Wow.
Okay, that was my mind blown. Yeah.
Um, another one which is quite interesting is children who are given special accommodations because of their ADHD are getting an unfair advantage.
Oh, okay, tell me through that.
Okay, so, um, actually children with ADHD are at a distinct disadvantage, and school policies—
so do we have a final one that we can bust?
Yes. So ADHD is a modern farce created by drug companies.
Ooh, okay, talk me through that.
Okay, um, so a century ago, the specific diagnosis of ADHD didn't exist, but physicians have described children who are hyperactive, impulsive, inattentive, right? Which, if we put those all together now, they would probably have a diagnosis of ADHD. So some of the earliest reports from doctors date back to the early 1700s. They just didn't have a diagnosis, right? They just— ADHD is not purely a Western phenomenon, and the rates of ADHD around the world are fairly consistent. Um, so that— and they'd be, you know, so they've probably been around forever. We just now have better ways of diagnosing, and there's more education out there, not just the diagnosis.
Now we actually have lifestyle controls that you talk about in your courses, but also the medication. And we have the, I guess, the awareness in schools and families, you know, telling your grandmother that, you know, Johnny's not just a bad kid. Johnny actually has a different way that his brain processes things, and that's why this happens, you know, to the grandparent going, oh, back in my day, you know, we would have just given him the strap. You know, it's about having that understanding of, you know, it's actually back in your day there were kids like this and probably getting the strap, and probably they've been traumatized for life for that. In actual fact, you know, they could have been medicated or had some strategies to help them.
And, and that goes to the— in all the inattentive, uh, girls and boys and, you know, males and females who were never diagnosed because they weren't the hyperactive, you know, um, naughty child, or somebody who, who couldn't keep a job down. They were just silently struggling.
So Deb, there, there's some horrifying statistics, isn't there, for kids that have ADHD as well?
There are. And some of the ADHD experts like William Dodson, MD, estimated that children with ADHD receive 20,000 more negative messages by the age of 10 on average than those without ADHD. That's 20,000 more negative messages.
And, and what's interesting about that is we know that, you know, from the ages from, you know, 0 to 7, you know, 70% of your neurotransmitters in your brain have been formed. And the stories that then become your beliefs— not enough, not worthy, not capable, not competent you know, no power actually propagate into your life. To think that this is the messages, you know, sit down, Tommy, you're being noisy. There's Jane, she's a daydreamer. You know, there's Jo, she's, she's always out there and, you know, never actually participating but always the people pleaser. All of these things are judgments that children hear, right?
And they take that on.
So that 20,000 more negative comments. Like, this is why we need to bust these myths and make ADHD, I guess, a not just a trending term, but something that people can understand, not be scared of. And, you know, I really welcome people to, you know, engage with Advantage, with Deb Thompson, you know, go and seek out her courses and information. She's got information for teachers, she's got information for doctors. It's based on the standards that, um, you know, have, have come out with the understanding about ADHD. And I really, you know, I really appreciate your time today, Debbie, because I know that this is really important to you. But if we can actually, you know, bust these myths and get more information out there in the hands of people who can make the changes so kids aren't going through life with these negative comments and waiting till they're 50-odd to be diagnosed, then, you know, what a better world we're going to have. So I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so very much.
