Debunking Four Common ADHD Parenting Myths

Introduction to Bullspend

0:00Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard, but not the pipeline? That's bullspend, and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions. My boss asked for results, so I opened my dashboard for the only positive-sounding metric I had. Impressions. Cut the bullspend. See revenue, not just reach. LinkedIn delivers the highest return on ad spend of major ad networks. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

Episode Overview

0:30In today's episode, we are going to clear up four myths about ADHD. We decided to do this because these are things that many people think are factual, and they're not. And, you know, Mike, I see these things spread in Facebook ADHD parent groups all the time and other places. So I think this episode will be really helpful to people. Welcome to the ADHD Parenting Podcast with Mike McLeod of Grow Now ADHD and Ryan Wetzelblatt of ADHD Dude. Learn about parenting kids with ADHD from a licensed clinical social worker and speech-language pathologist who specializes in ADHD.

1:05No fluffy parenting advice. Only practical information that will equip you to help your child with ADHD effectively.

New Book Announcement

1:12Before we get started, you have some exciting news to announce. So why don't you, why don't we start off by you sharing that? Yeah, so we talked about this on the last episode on January 13th, 2026. Both of my books are coming out. It was a very long, arduous process getting these books together, getting all the research, all the information, making them as practical as possible for parents and teachers and professionals. So I have the main book, the Executive Functioning Playbook, and then the Executive Functioning Playbook in Action Workbook that corresponds with it and goes along with it.

1:46So the launch of these two books together that I put so much blood, sweat, and tears into really, so much work, I'm very, very excited for people to read it, implement it in their lives, and get the feedback from it. And we are going to do a whole episode about the book, but as I told Mike, I wanted to wait until I have the books in my hand, but I'm excited to do that episode because I think the books are really going to help a lot of families. So stay tuned for that. Thank you. All right. And what do you have in your life, Ryan? Oh, I guess, yeah. So my big thing is for 2026, I am going to be creating a certification program for coaches and clinicians, and it's going to be called the Confident Parents Capable Kids Method, because really what I want is for people to take the courses from my membership site and be able to run with it and use the material with families, which they're doing already.

2:34And I'm very fortunate, you know, I really appreciate, I have, you know, people reach out to me every week and say, is it okay if I use it with the families I work with? And I always say absolutely yes, and I give them some tips, and people say, you know, do you have a training program? And I say, not yet. So that's going to be my big thing this upcoming year, because I know for a lot of families, you know, they would prefer to work one-on-one with somebody, and that's absolutely fine. If that's what works best for them, I want them to have access to the material and have somebody facilitating it, you know, who has been trained, and there's some quality control there.

3:06So looking forward to putting that together this upcoming year. That's going to be very exciting. I already know a lot of people that are going to be signing up for that immediately. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right.

Myth One: Seven Types of ADHD

3:19So, Mike, we have to clarify some myths here. Absolutely. So our very first myth that we'll be talking about is that there are seven different types of ADHD. So, Ryan, I'm sure you're in the same boat as me for the vast majority of incredibly extensive and incredibly expensive evaluations that I've seen come across my desk from families that are looking for grown-out services, and they'll give me an old evaluation. And it's listing one of seven different types of ADHD.

3:50It shocks me every time I see it. Wait, Mike, have you really seen this in an evaluation? Oh, absolutely. 100%. I've never seen that. Especially this, the ring of fire ADHD. I've seen that written in evaluations. Wow. Wow. So, just real quick, everyone. What that is based off is it's based off a doctor who, you know, is a very successful, very brilliant marketer, has infomercials on PBS about his different products, and does these very expensive brain scans called SPEC scans, which are not evidence-based for ADHD.

4:25And that's where this is derived from. So, just to clarify for everyone, ADHD, the diagnosis is in, you know, the DSM-5-TR, which is a diagnostic manual, you know, put out by the American Psychiatric Association. ADHD is classified into three presentations. There's primarily an attentive type, primarily hyperactive impulsive type, and combined type. I want to say I think the primarily hyperactive impulsive type is a little silly because, Mike, I've never seen a kid who is hyperactive impulsive but can sustain attention for a good amount of time.

5:00So, I always tell people it's really, you know, you have an inattentive presentation or you have, you know, the combined type. But, yeah, there's really not anybody who, you know, has good executive functioning except for, you know, the hyperactivity and impulsivity. Exactly. And one thing I always try to educate parents about because, you know, in today's world of parenting, we've gotten a little too label focused and label happy, basically. First of all, so many young kids and teens are labeled as predominantly hyperactive impulsive presentation.

5:35And by the time they become a young adult, it transitions into inattentive. So, a very high percentage, you don't see too many hyperactive ADHD adults, it transitions, it changes. Nothing here is set in stone. These are labels for insurance purposes, billing purposes, label purposes. At the end of the day, there's no two hyperactive people that are the same, no two inattentive people that are the same, no two people with ADHD that are the same. So, these are just labels to try to best describe this individual's behaviors, but in no way, shape, or form tells the whole story.

6:11Because as we know, ADHD is all about executive functioning. Yeah. And, you know, Mike, I can only speak to this really with boys because, you know, to be honest, most of my work has been with boys over the years. But I often see by eighth grade, so like, you know, between eighth and ninth grade, 14, 15, is when sometimes we see that presentation shift. When, you know, some of the hyperactivity and impulsivity starts to quiet down a bit, you know, and that's not, you know, a general rule. That's just kind of what I've seen, you know, over the years, that that tends to be the age range, you know, in many cases. So, so to clarify for everybody, there is no diagnostic manual or consensus, you know, research papers or evidence that recognizes more than three ADHD presentations.

6:52This seven types of ADHD framework does not appear in the DSM or in any peer-reviewed classification research. Exactly. There are these three presentations with which we listed. Anything beyond that is an explanatory model, not a diagnosis.

Myth Two: Genetic Panel Testing

7:09Yeah.

Myth Two: Genetic Panel Testing

7:09So, Mike, for number two, this is one that I find parents love to debate about when I present them with the evidence about this. Not parents who are members of my membership site, but if I've ever answered a question, you know, in a group or something, or even, Mike, I've had therapists try to fight me off this one. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So why don't you read myth number two? So myth number two is that genetic panel testing can tell you which stimulant will work best for your child. So that's the myth.

7:39The fact is that genetic testing cannot reliably predict which ADHD medication will be the most effective. It is simply not evidence-based. There is not enough research behind it. And at the end of the day, let's be honest, ADHD parents are burnt out. They're tired. They're frustrated. They were probably sent to a bunch of ineffective therapies and approaches that aren't moving the needle. And we live in a world of pseudoscience information and quick social media-based information.

8:09So we had previous episodes about what's actually evidence-based for ADHD and what isn't, which in many ways has been one of our more controversial episodes because people will sort of die on the sword of things that are not evidence-based sort of things. But this is really one of those things that people have such an emotional connection to, but at the end of the day, simply does not have the data to support it. And so everyone knows the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry put out a policy statement in 2020 stating pharma genetic testing.

8:40That's actually what it's called. We tend to call it genetic panel testing, but it's actually called pharma genetic testing. And the AACAP said pharma genetic testing should not be used to select psychiatric medications for children. And they note the lack of evidence for predicting stimulant response. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends with meds careful titration and monitoring, and they do not recommend genetic testing or pharma genetic testing for medication selection. Yeah, so really what genetic testing can and cannot do, it can flag an unusual metabolism pathway in limited cases.

9:18So that's, you know, there is science to back up. This can flag an unusual metabolism pathway, but that's in very limited cases. It cannot predict which stimulant will work best, replace careful consideration, careful clinical titration, and also eliminate trial and error. So this myth continues to persist because of an overall desire for certainty, because let's be honest, medication scares parents. It scares them, and there's so much nonsense on social media about the negatives of medication and those sorts of things.

9:54So they think that this genetic testing is going to help them have more certainty about what's the right one to choose. It also persists because marketing language outpaces evidence. And there's confusion between metabolism and efficacy. But the bottom line here, medication response is individualized and determined clinically, not genetically. And a research paper on this from 2018 concluded that the evidence is insufficient for clinical decision-making in ADHD meds.

10:25And that has not changed since 2018. I just went to, you know, the National ADHD Conference in November, and this came up several times. And I'm sure when I go to the Medical ADHD Conference in January, it'll come up again, as it has every year I've been there. So to wrap it up, you know, as we mentioned, multiple medical organizations explicitly state that genetic testing, pharma genetic testing, does not determine which ADHD stimulant will work. So medication choice is still based on clinical response, not these DNA panels.

10:56All right. So myth number three is a big one.

Myth Three: Odd ADHD Diagnosis

10:59Yeah, this is.

Myth Three: Odd ADHD Diagnosis

10:59This is a, this is, this is, this is might, might be one of the, one of the most common ones Ryan and I see is that odd ADHD, which is A-U-D-H-D. So basically an autism, ADHD diagnosis together combined is not a diagnosis. So the myth is that it is a diagnosis. And the fact is that no formal diagnosis is called odd ADHD. I think Ryan and I see this just about every single day. We'll post a video about ADHD and we'll get about 10 comments saying, does this still apply to odd ADHD?

11:36So, so Ryan, what does the evidence say about this? Yeah. So in the DSM, ADHD and autism spectrum disorder are separate diagnoses. There is co-occurrence, but it does not combine them into a single diagnosis. So approximately, I believe it's 60% of people with autism also meet diagnostic criteria for ADHD. But again, there is no combined diagnosis. Okay. In a 2014 study about the co-occurrence of autism and ADHD, again, like I said, it supports high comorbidity rates without proposing a Unipi diagnosis.

12:15So bottom line is, AUDHD is not recognized in the DSM or the ICD, which is the medical, you know, guide for making diagnoses. Clinically, ADHD and autism are diagnosed separately, even when they co-occur. AUDHD is a community shorthand, not a medical term. And Mike, as I think we've seen, it's become an identity for people as well. Correct. Yeah. And it's almost become its own separate thing when, at the end of the day, it truly is not.

12:46You know, I don't know the exact percentage, I don't know if you do, of individuals with autism that also basically have ADHD. It's sort of... 60%. Yeah, 60%. You know, autism tends to be more global and ADHD is very misunderstood, as we said. And we also have a previous episode that talks about how autism is often misdiagnosed for ADHD. And at the end of the day, you know, we have a firm understanding of how autism is a spectrum disorder, where you have an individual who is going to need support for the rest of their lives.

13:19You know they may never be fully employable and are going to need a lot of support to individuals that are incredibly successful and live independently and do great things and all these sorts of things. So it's a very, very wide spectrum for autism. And it's the exact same thing with ADHD. So putting these two diagnoses together, the question really is, is that who is it really benefiting when you're putting these two things together and creating sort of your own little world of odd ADHD? It's not really defining who this person is.

13:52Mike, I recently had a post where I explained the difference between a neurodevelopmental diagnosis, such as ADHD and autism, or a label like AUDHD. So AUDHD gives people a common language to use. You know, it can help them, you know, understand, you know, certain traits. But we want to be really clear. It is not a diagnosis. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder. I call it a difference. Autism, neurodevelopmental disorder. AUDHD is a label that people use that's become popular because of social media.

14:24Correct. Yes. And without social media, that concept of odd ADHD probably wouldn't even exist. So, Mike, for myth number four, this is one that, you know, I think we've seen spread on social media like crazy to the extent that people believe it's true. And this, Mike, is what I call a speculative narrative, meaning parents often speculate by creating a narrative to explain their kid's behavior. And I want to explain that is very understandable people do that. People want to know a clear-cut reason for their child's behavior.

14:55They want to be able to attach it to a label or a diagnosis. They want to understand, am I doing anything to cause this, you know? So, it's very natural for parents and even therapists to create speculative narratives to explain a child's behavior. It just so happens that this one in particular has become pervasive. And I think part of the reason it's become pervasive is because the term masking has become very popular. And the meaning of it has become incredibly distorted as well.

15:25So, myth number four is, you know, my child masks all day at school and then, you know, takes it out on me at home. So, that means, you know, that they're masking at school. And the truth is, there's no evidence of that. So, what the research shows us, Dr. Barkley, you know, mentioned this in 2015. He described ADHD symptoms as being context-dependent, meaning, you know, the structure, novelty, external supports, that all has, you know, an impact on, you know, how the ADHD presents itself.

15:55So, you know, Mike, let's talk about the fact, you know, school is structured. School is predictable. And here's the biggest thing, Mike, I think parents, you know, don't understand, is that there are social ramifications at school for your behavior. So, many kids with ADHD, if not most, are very socially motivated. They would not act the way at school they work at home because they don't want the other kids to have negative thoughts about them. They know that their behavior would be polarizing to other kids. Okay? That's not masking. That's called behaving appropriately because that's what you're supposed to be doing in the context of the situation.

16:30Okay? So, when kids get home, you know, people might say, well, you know, it's restraint collapse and, you know, they're taking on everything from their day. Okay, there could be validity to that. But let's look at the difference between home and school. School, structured, highly predictable. There's social ramifications. Home, not always as structured, naturally. You know, not always as predictable depending on the day and, you know, how our siblings' moods are, how our parents' moods are. And most importantly, there are no social ramifications at home for, you know, behaving, you know, poorly towards family members.

17:04So, the narrative that, the speculative narrative that, you know, my child is masking all day in school and then, you know, their behavior is horrible at home because they were masking, there's just no evidence to support that. Exactly. And at the end of the day, we have to look at the two different relationships. At the end of the day, human beings are relationship-based animals, social animals. You may think your child or your teen with ADHD is not socially driven or socially motivated. It's how our brains are wired. Our brains are wired towards relationships and interactions.

17:36As Ryan described, school is structured with conditional relationships, and those are the social ramifications. If you get in trouble, if you flop on the floor, if you, basically, if you act the way you do at home at school, people are going to see that. It's going to be embarrassing, and they're not going to want to be your friend or even be associated with you. And school is also very structured, where it's very clear black and white rules of what's right, what's wrong, what's acceptable, unacceptable. And let's be honest, the ADHD brain responds best to that when things are predictable, black and white, and clear, and structured with a hierarchy of relationships and very clear standards and boundaries and rules.

18:19And then home is unstructured with unconditional relationships, where it's not clear. There isn't boundaries. It's very easy to get attention through negative behaviors. It's very easy to be successful with learned helplessness, noise, complaining, provoking their sibling, and to gain emotional control over the home. And as we talked about earlier, and we talk about it quite often, things tend to be long-lasting secrets of the home, where your behavior at home, no one else finds out about it.

18:51And one of the things that really drives me nuts about masking is this concept of, you know, he's doing well at school, but he's just holding in all his ADHD behaviors, and then he comes home, and that's his true self. He can't hold them in anymore. First of all, that takes all the praise away from the child. How about we congratulate that child for doing amazing at school? And they're not holding it in and exhausting themselves. They're responding well to the structure and the conditional relationships and the social ramifications.

19:23They're performing well, and they deserve praise for that. You know, this whole concept of masking really came about really during COVID and homeschool and all these different things when we all went a little crazy on the internet. And it was a great way for parents to sort of rationalize the difference in behaviors, all these parents calling the teacher, describing their kid at home, and the teacher's like, are we talking about the same kid? He's amazing here. He's an angel here. And it makes the parents feel bad. Why do I see this horrible version of my child?

19:56And out from that came this concept of masking. And I don't like it because, number one, it's not true. Number two, it's not science or evidence-based, and it takes all the praise away from the child. And it also sort of rationalizes the parent of, I don't have to make changes. I don't have to be the bad guy. I don't have to be structured like school is. It's just the effects of masking. So, Mike, I want to just make two points to finish this up. You know, one of the things is that teachers, you know, tend to be authoritative with kids because they have the training to do that.

20:30They have classroom management training. You know, and let's face it, Mike, and this is not a judgment. I'm not saying anything negative. But a lot of parents in general, and particularly parents of children with ADHD, struggle with stepping into their parental authority. They struggle with being authoritative at home. So what happens as a result? They tend to not take an authoritative approach like the teacher does at school. So sometimes, you know, kids realize they can control their parents or control the house to an extent through their behaviors. And I think that's something that a lot of people are not comfortable talking about because they feel like, oh, I'm blaming parents.

21:02It's not about blaming parents. It's looking at teachers tend to have an authoritative approach. Many parents find that difficult to do. And it is, you know, what it is. But it's something that parents can learn to do. Last thing, Mike, I just want to, and we probably should have started with this. I want to give a definition of masking, you know, and I'm going to refer to this 2017 article called Camouflaging in Autism Spectrum Conditions. And in this article, they cite masking. It's defined as intentional effort for, I'm sorry, intentional effortful suppression.

21:36Okay. And it's primarily been studied in autism, not as a default explanation for ADHD behavior differences. And I just want to give an example real quick. When the term started to get popular on social media a few years ago, you know, I asked one of my former students who I'm close with, who's, you know, in his 30s now. He didn't, he didn't know the term. And this is a guy who's, you know, was diagnosed with Asperger's, you know, in elementary school. And I said, you know, what do you think about this? Do you do this? And he said, well, I actually do it at work. And here's why. And what he said, Mike, was he, you know, his, his affect tends to be pretty flat.

22:09Like a lot of people with autism, you know, he doesn't have a lot of, what would you call it, Mike? Is it intonation in his voice or? Yeah. Prosity. Yeah. What it's called? Prosity. Yep. Yeah. So, so he said, you know, I, I act more animated in my voice at work because I don't want my coworkers to think I'm depressed. That's a real example of masking. Okay. So, um, and you know, and, and here's the thing, think about why he's doing that. He's doing that because he wants to fit in with his coworkers. Okay. So he didn't, I said, is that difficult for you?

22:39He said, it's not difficult. He said, I just know that that's what I have to do in this work environment because that's what's expected of me. Um, and I think it's, you know, important to mention that. Yeah. And, and let's look at the big picture here. What are some of the core deficits of ADHD? Number one, self-awareness, situational awareness, uh, self-regulation, social executive functioning. So the concept that these kids are intentionally masking sort of requires them to have the very skills that ADHD doesn't have.

23:13You need a higher, you need to be able to be aware of your environment and have situational awareness and stop and read the room and, and comprehend and take in information. You'll still have, have to have a very heightened level of self-awareness to be aware of oneself and how you come across to others, which is very, very difficult in ADHD. So saying that they're deliberately masking is saying they almost as if saying they don't have ADHD at all, because that's the, that's some of the core deficits there. Um, it's, it's just another thing that is one of these myths, uh, just like odd ADHD that, you know, really has to stop because it really isn't helping anybody.

23:50Yeah. So to wrap this up, research shows ADHD symptoms vary by context, meaning they are context dependent structure and external supports, explain many school home differences in kids with ADHD. Whereas masking is a specific intentional process and cannot be assumed based on setting alone. So just keep that in mind. And that's the, and this is the biggest thing is clear information, which, which is exactly, you know, the goal of this podcast, uh, not that fluffy, feel good information, real, clear, practical, science-based information reduces confusion because precision matters.

24:28Uh, and in a world where parents are being sent in wrong directions and are exhausted and tired and burnt out and probably have ADHD themselves. Uh, this is exactly the goal of this podcast, the goal of ADHD dude, the goal of grow now, uh, for us to help these parents, because this is a quite possibly the most difficult time to be a parent and quite possibly the most difficult time to be an adolescent and a child. Uh, so clearing through all of the, uh, non-science based information, the feel good social media information, the pseudoscience, and really focusing on what works so that not only can we improve the quality of life for the child and their outcomes and their future,

25:06but how about the quality of life for the parents as well, for them to get their lives back and then forget, and then for, for them to get their identities back outside of just being a parent. That's a, that's a great point. So just, if you take something away from this episode, here's what we want you to take. You know, ADHD classifications are defined by diagnostic manuals, not by social frameworks created through a SPECT brain scan. So therefore there are no seven types of ADHD. Uh, pharma genetic testing does not guide.

25:36ADHD medication choice. The technology is not there for, for that. And it's not recommended by major organizations. Uh, we know that AUDHD is not a recognized diagnosis. As we said, it's a label. And in regards to masking, masking the, you know, context of the situation. Okay. And how we adjust our behavior and our social behavior and our self-regulation based on the context we're in, you know, varies based on where we are. Okay.

26:06And that's well documented. So your child acting differently at school than at home is Mike. So perfectly articulated does not equal masking. You got it. Absolutely. So, uh, we are very excited to, uh, share these myths with you all and hear your feedback and hear your information. Spotify is great because you can leave comments right on there and questions. Obviously we have the Gmail account. You can send your questions and comments to at the, at the end of the day, this podcast and Ryan and I are doing this on our free time here right around the holidays.

26:37Uh, and it's really all about to help, help individuals and share information because, uh, I know in the past, Ryan and I have typed ADHD into the podcast app and Spotify. And there's really not a lot of, you know, uh, really quality stuff out there in terms of what actually helps and what actually moves the needle. So we would love to hear from you guys, share your feedback, share your information, and always thank you all for listening. And if you would like to see, uh, some of the citations we referenced in this episode, they will be in the show notes. So thank you for listening. We hope you found this helpful and we will talk to you soon.

27:08Thank you. Take care. Thanks for listening. To learn more about Mike's practice, Grow Now ADHD, please visit his website, grownowadhd.com. To learn about the services Ryan provides, please visit adhddude.com. You can find Mike on Instagram at grownowadhd and Ryan on the ADHD Dude YouTube channel. We'd love to hear your feedback or questions. So feel free to contact us at the ADHD Parenting Podcast at gmail.com. The ADHD Parenting Podcast and content posted by Grow Now ADHD or ADHD Dude are presented solely for general information

27:47and educational purposes. Our goal is to provide valuable insights and knowledge, not to replace professional services. Mike and Ryan cannot provide clinical consultation or free advice through social media or other forms of communication. The information on this podcast is not a substitute for professional advice. If you or your child have any medical or mental health concerns, please consult your healthcare professionals. How many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer?

28:18Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount. New vehicle discount. Storage discount. Legacy. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft. I thought it was safe. If that happens, LifeLock gives you a US-based restoration agent who will stick by your side from start to finish. Phone calls, filing documentation, preparing insurance claims, your agent handles it all.

28:48In fact, we're so confident restoration is guaranteed. Pour your money back. Isn't it nice to have someone like that on your side? Save up to 30% your first year at lifelock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.