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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › What ADHD actually is
Friction is a delay you build while you are calm: the card left at home, the app deleted, a rule that anything over a set amount waits until tomorrow, one friend who knows the plan. It also helps to find something that gives a real lift and does not cost you afterwards, and that is worth genuine thought rather than a quick answer, since a gap with nothing in it fills itself.
Man was created hasty (Quran 21:37). Haste is named there as built in, which makes it something to plan around rather than something to be ashamed of.
الأنبياء
خُلِقَ ٱلۡإِنسَٰنُ مِنۡ عَجَلࣲۚ سَأُوْرِيكُمۡ ءَايَٰتِي فَلَا تَسۡتَعۡجِلُونِ
Man was created hasty: I will show you My signs soon, so do not ask Me to hasten them
Qur’an 21:37read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of choice impulsivity found that young people with ADHD show a stronger preference for an immediate reward over a larger delayed one, and treats that as different from simply acting too fast. It is a decent account of why the thing in front of you keeps winning. The studies were in children and adolescents and describe averages, so they explain a pull rather than predict a choice.
Patros CH, Alderson RM, Kasper LJ, Tarle SJ, Lea SE, Hudec KL. (2016). Choice-impulsivity in children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): A meta-analytic review.. Clinical psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
When an immediate reward is on the table your brain will take it, so the decision has to be made earlier, while it is not.
If a behaviour has become something you cannot stop despite what it is costing you, that needs proper treatment rather than self-management alone.
Many people who end up in trouble with the law have never had their ADHD recognised. Behaviour read as defiance can be the same difficulty with stopping and thinking ahead.
With children, practise the hard social moment rather than explaining it. Act out asking to join a game, or losing one, a few times at home where nothing is at stake.
Plenty of people with ADHD do far better in hands-on work than in another four years of sitting in a classroom. Wanting a trade is a reasonable read of your own mind, not giving up.