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Just as you can’t will yourself out of the flu, you can’t coach someone with ADHD into doing better. Photo: iStock
Hear more from Dr. Sasha Hamdani’s during her ParentMap webinar, Wednesday, Jan. 21 live at noon PST and on-demand! Sign up online for this and other ParentEd Talks.
Originally on track for a career in the pediatric ICU, Dr. Sasha Hamdani quickly realized something wasn’t adding up. She loved medicine, but she couldn’t leave her patients at work. The emotions followed her home. The images replayed. She cried.
“It became clear pretty quickly that while I loved medicine, I needed a path that gave me permission to feel, and to use the emotional parts of my brain instead of trying to shut them off,” she says.
What once felt like a liability, Hamdani now recognizes as her calling. That emotional depth, paired with her own ADHD diagnosis in fourth grade, ultimately led her to a career helping kids and families better understand how ADHD brains actually work.
Hamdani is also the author of “Too Sensitive: Rejection, Resilience and the Science of Feeling Deeply,” a forthcoming book that explores emotional regulation, rejection sensitivity and what it means to feel deeply in a world that often rewards the opposite.
Today, her expertise is in high demand. More than 11 percent of children in the U.S. have ADHD; boys are diagnosed more often than girls. Parents are flooded with advice, tools and supposed fixes, many of them marketed aggressively on social media. Hamdani’s focus is different: helping families cut through the noise and build support systems that help kids thrive.
On Jan. 21, she’ll share that approach, from early symptoms to evidence-based treatments, during a ParentMap ParentEd Talks webinar.
If you’re raising a child with ADHD, here’s what she wants you to understand.
What kids with ADHD don’t need more of
Just as you can’t will yourself out of the flu, you can’t coach someone with ADHD into doing better.
“So many ADHD ‘solutions’ are built around the assumption that the brain just needs more discipline, more structure or more willpower,” Hamdani says. “We hear things like ‘just use a planner,’ ‘set a timer,’ ‘try a rewards system,’ or my personal favorite, ‘just try harder.’”
The problem, she explains, is that these strategies ignore the root issue: executive dysfunction.
“If someone struggles with task initiation or time blindness, telling them to manage their time better is like telling someone with a broken leg to run faster.”
Real support means addressing what’s happening internally: the emotional friction, overwhelm and shame spirals that so often accompany ADHD. “This is where the real change happens,” she says.
What inconsistent behavior really means
Growing up, Hamdani was labeled brilliant one day and completely forgetful the next, a pattern many parents recognize in their own children.
That inconsistency is often misread as laziness or lack of effort. In reality, it’s a hallmark of ADHD and a sign of cognitive overload.
“Inconsistent output isn’t a character flaw,” she says. “It’s often a regulation issue. Effort doesn’t always look the same when you’re neurodivergent,” she says.
She wishes caregivers and teachers had approached her struggles with curiosity instead of judgment, and named what was happening. Silence, she says, can be just as damaging as stigma.
“When a child knows something is different about how they think or feel but isn’t given language for it, they often internalize it as personal failure.”
It’s time to change the ADHD narrative
Whether you’re parenting a child with ADHD or navigating it yourself, Hamdani says the same reframing applies.
“ADHD is often treated like a behavior problem,” she says. “But it’s a neurological condition. If we keep focusing on compliance instead of regulation, we’ll keep missing the mark.
“My biggest hope is that people walk away with both clarity and compassion,” she says. “A better understanding of the ADHD brain, and a more forgiving lens for themselves and their loved ones.”
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