Nurturing Islands of Competence: Is There Really Room for a Strength-Based Model in the Treatment of ADHD?

A mother of a child with ADHD told me she recently heard a speaker extol the virtues of ADHD; it should be considered a “gift.” She added that while the speaker ’s intention was to portray a more optimistic view of ADHD, she felt annoyed, as if her struggles as a mother of a child with ADHD had been minimized. With strong emotion, she said to me, “I’d like to see if that speaker would say ADHD is a gift if he stayed in my house for even 1 week. Maybe I’m blind, but I don’t see the gift.”