How to Handle ADHD Medications

For Parents and Children Ages 11-14

This lesson about handling ADHD medication is meant for you and your child to read together. Plan for a time when you won’t be interrupted, so that you can go through the discussion questions that are part of the material.

You didn’t choose to have ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), and dealing with it isn’t easy. Some people may think that you’re lazy, not very smart, or that you can “snap out of it” at any time. That’s not what happens for most people with ADHD. Here are the facts:

• ADHD is real. It’s not just a set of initials that people say when they think that you can’t sit still, or pay attention.
• Experts feel that the brains of people with ADHD work differently from the brains of people who don’t have ADHD. ADHD affects the way that messages are sent from one part of your brain to another.
• Researchers feel that ADHD can run in families.
• Many people with ADHD are really very smart.

This lesson has one goal: To give information about ADHD and the medicine you’re taking, so that you can make smart and safe choices about your own health and the ways that you act.

This lesson has 9 screens.