Does your child struggle to stay focused, finish tasks, manage restlessness, or control impulsivity?
Homework becomes complicated, comments from school pile up, tensions build at home — and the whole family ends up exhausted by difficulties that seem to repeat endlessly.
In adolescents or adults, ADHD often takes more discreet but equally disabling forms: mental fatigue, chronic disorganization, procrastination, emotional hypersensitivity, the feeling of being constantly overwhelmed despite the efforts made.
ADHD is neither a lack of intelligence, nor a lack of willpower, nor a parenting problem. It is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects specific brain systems — and it is best understood and supported when placed in context.
What ADHD does to the brain
ADHD mainly affects executive functions — the capacities that allow us to focus, organize tasks, regulate emotions, control impulsivity, and sustain mental effort over time.
Neuroscience shows that these difficulties are linked to particularities in the development and functioning of the brain networks involved in attention, self-regulation, and working memory. In children, this can manifest as significant distractibility, restlessness, frequent forgetfulness, impulsive reactions, or difficulty tolerating frustration. Over time, these difficulties can have significant repercussions on self-confidence, relationships, and quality of life.
The role of presence in ADHD
A dimension often underestimated in ADHD: the role that the presence of those around the person plays in the expression and evolution of the disorder.
The brain of a child or adult with ADHD regulates its attentional and emotional functions differently — but it remains deeply sensitive to its social environment. The quality of how they are perceived, the presence of a predictable and containing framework, the availability of a regulating adult: these are not simply contextual factors. They actively shape brain functioning.
A child with ADHD who feels understood, supported, and not judged is not, neurobiologically, the same child as one who accumulates negative remarks and experiences of failure. The caring and structuring presence of those around them — parents, teachers, therapist — is an active part of the support, not merely a backdrop.
This is one of the ideas explored in the blog articles, drawing on research in social neuroscience and the Brain of Presence project.
How I work
A tailored neuropsychological assessment (in person) helps to better understand attentional and executive functioning, identify specific difficulties, and guide the course of care.
Depending on the situation, support may combine parental guidance, psychotherapy, attentional and emotional regulation strategies, cognitive remediation, and certain neurofeedback approaches such as Play Attention.
The goal is to progressively help the child, adolescent, or adult better understand how they function, regain more stability in daily life, and develop strategies suited to their difficulties — within a course of support that also includes those around them when relevant.
To go further
Academic learning difficulties
Neuropsychological assessment methods
Two blog articles explore these questions in depth:
ADHD: when the brain struggles to regulate attention, emotions… and sometimes all of daily life
ADHD: when mental fatigue gradually weakens emotional balance
