"What hurts me the most about my son is that he never sees danger anywhere"

Aniol is an eleven-year-old boy who is "intense, insistent, energetic, impulsive, social and sensitive", as his father, Xevi Huguet, describes him. At five months old he started crawling, at nine he started running straight away and when he was two he learned to swim on his own and climbed his first peak: Matagalls. "As time went by and he got older, he became more active, he had no idea of the dangers, he climbed everywhere (walls, stones, trees), he rode his bike very fast without braking... When he started school, in P3, he bit the collars and cuffs of his shirts, he never sat down, he got hit all over his body, he ran away, he spoke very loudly and very quickly, and this made him stutter", recalls his mother, Meritxell Verdaguer.

All these signs already indicated that Aniol could have a problem. Xevi, diagnosed with ADHD at a very young age, saw that his son could also have this disorder: "Everything fit: the way he reacted to dangers, the way he managed his nerves, the difficulty in concentrating and sitting still... and he reminded me a lot of me."

And, indeed, when he was six years old, the diagnosis of ADHD arrived and, with it, the strategies and treatment to make his day-to-day life easier. He continues to be unafraid of anything and never sees danger anywhere, a characteristic that makes many of his parents suffer; he finds it difficult to anticipate things, concentrate, and sit still for long periods of time, but, "as he has gotten older, and with the help of medication, Aniol has been able to control himself a little more," says Xevi.

The way he reacted to dangers, the way he managed his nerves, the difficulty in concentrating and sitting still reminded me a lot of myself.

With the psychologist , Aniol is undergoing reeducation to control this impulsiveness and other aspects that make his life difficult. And the medication , his parents tell us, "has meant a very positive change for him and for all the people who love him." Although they were initially reluctant to take it, they now see that "his essence has not changed at all, he continues to be an open, social, active child, but in a different way, with more ease in moving forward."

Living and growing up with ADHD

Family routines and dynamics with a child with ADHD often have to be adapted to their needs and shortcomings. This is exemplified by Xevi and Meritxell: "When Aniol was little, we never went to parks, because they were places with many children and potentially dangerous. We also didn't let him go to friends' houses, and we always preferred that friends come to our house. And when it came to leaving our two children with their grandparents, we did it separately, because the grandparents ended up exhausted. Oh, and about going to the cinema, the library or a museum, we didn't even talk about it until Aniol was older."

As for school, "luckily, Aniol has had teachers who have understood him very well and have been able to handle him," they tell us. Even so, there are some aspects for which he still needs support. "He gets tired quickly from activities and needs to get up. He also needs to have a plan for the day every morning, to know what he will do at each moment. And he has a hard time doing his homework in the afternoon, which is when he is most exhausted from work, and what he needs is to burn off energy, play football, run. This is one of the most complicated moments."

Aniol gets tired from the activities and needs to get up often. And in the afternoon it is very difficult for him to do his homework, because he needs to run, burn fat, play football.

Impulsivity is one of the main characteristics of this disorder, which often involves not detecting danger in some actions or situations. "He has made us suffer a lot, since he was born and until today. A constant suffering that he doesn't get hurt, that he doesn't get run over. And I suppose he will make us suffer even when he is thirty years old", predict his parents. On the other hand, one of the aspects that they see as a losing battle is the ease with which Aniol loses everything: sweaters, jackets, lunch boxes...

How to support children with ADHD at school?

Lack of information and social awareness

Often, the attitude of children with ADHD is seen from the outside as a sign of poor upbringing, and parents endure inquisitive looks towards them, who judge them for their child's behavior. "It hurts us a lot when other parents, especially when they don't know him, speak badly about Aniol" -they confess- "but, luckily, we have a very large social environment that has helped us a lot, and Aniol is a child who is loved a lot for his character and his way of being.

And there are people who don't really understand what it means to have ADHD, a disorder that goes far beyond "being a busy person." Xevi, who has been through all this before, knows it very well: "My son is unable to sit in a chair for five hours, he can't, it's impossible, and it's very difficult for him to do activities that require him to be still and focused . There is a lot of ignorance about ADHD." For this reason, Aniol's parents demand that awareness be raised about these realities and that some dynamics in educational centers be changed so that everyone can fit in and develop as a person.