Complications

Emotional Disorders

More than half of children with attention-deficit disorder have accompanying disorders, including anxiety, depression, and conduct disorders. Children with ADHD who experience anxiety or depression are also more likely to suffer from low self-esteem. One study found that 25% of children with ADHD have or develop bipolar disorder (commonly called manic depression).

Social Problems

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Anti-Social Behavior. Even if these emotional disorders are absent in childhood, the ADHD child's relationship with others is volatile, and he or she is often unhappy from a very young age. Research indicates that any ADHD boy or girl, particularly an aggressive child, has trouble getting along with others, and is less liked by his or her peers.

• ADHD children with the inattentive subtype are more likely to be picked on and to spend time alone.
• Children with the combined subtypes tend to have different problems. A best friend can turn into an enemy overnight when, for example, an ADHD boy does not perceive his friend's fearful response to over-aggressive roughhousing and fails to let up. The next day the ADHD child has forgotten the event; the ex-friend hasn't. This is a classic situation repeated time and again. When an ADHD child hurts someone, the child either may go into a state of denial or blame himself excessively. As ostracism, fear, and ridicule from peers persist from year to year, the unstable behavior, originally neurologic, becomes emotionally based. Unless this cycle is broken, serious adult problems can evolve.
• A 2000 study found that boys with ADHD are less likely than others to empathize with people in difficult circumstances. One speculative explanation is that this is a self-protective reaction to prevent negative feelings, which ADHD children are highly prone to all the time.

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