Inattention and ADHD
Inattention is a problem with self regulation where a person may be able focus very well at times and not at all in other instances. The variable nature of inattention is what makes it one of the most unpredictable, and hard to manage, symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
For children with ADHD inattention often is a serious stumbling block in their lives both socially and academically. Socially they have trouble staying engaged in conversation when the topic of discussion fails to grab their attention. They may tend to change friends and love interested often, as they get to know them and find they aren’t quite as intriguing as they first thought.
After all to do well socially or in school you must be able to focus on the topics you are interested in as well as those you could care less about. To make matter worse in a school setting you will be asked to remember that boring information and be tested in an attempt to measure how much of that ridiculously mind-numbing information you were able to remember.
Logically this doesn’t really make much sense. Think about it, if a child doesn’t like a certain flavor of ice cream would you expect them to get excited about having that particular flavor every day for nine months each year for the next twelve or more years. That would be consider cruel and unusual punishment for which parents and teachers alike would be slapped on the hand and be told to try a different flavor for goodness sake but for some reason in school it is looked upon differently. So for a child with inattention driven ADHD it is difficult to see how inattention could prove to be much of a positive but moving into adulthood it may prove to be a different story, especially when the right profession allows them to embrace inattentive ADHD and use it to their advantage.
The inattentive adult generally is able to achieve laser like focus when a subject of interests them and will work night and day to solve problems. Add this laser like focus to their natural creativity and now all of the sudden we may be looking at a very successful business person who has taken the disadvantage of inattentive ADHD and flipped it around in a way that has propelled them to mega success.
Additionally, some adults with attention deficit hyperactivity are highly intuitive possessing the ability to pick up on unexpressed emotions and subtle body language. Can you think of a profession that these tools would be valuable in? If you answers psychology or psychiatry you deserve a gold star. Believe it or not a disproportionate number of psychologists and psychiatrists are inattentive ADHD adults. Not bad a outcome for a child who was likely saddled with a great many social and academic challenges growing up. As for whether inattention and ADHD is a long term positive or negative is a question that is best left up to you to decide.
