I was listening to a Podcast on ADHD and the women talked a lot about us realizing that our children's behavior is because they are immature, not becuase the want to misbehave.
What is your opinion? When I see our son who is 12 years old ( do the floss dance, jump around not stop) do what I thought was misbehaving, I now really need to think, is this how a 10 year old acts? I behavior is maddening.
My severe ADHD son is now 25 and is still very immature for his age in many ways. It never ceases to surprise me! I can only hope his emotional immaturity will grow in time as he gets older.
Hello, this is typical I believe. My 11 y.o. behaves more like a 6 y.o. I have to remind him that he is older now and should not behave immaturely. He has inappropriate laughing spells and laughs at things that are not funny at all. When he draws or writes it looks more like first grade work. He will also over-react to situations
My 12 year old son is the same way. I have to remind him alot and he is emotionally imature. He acts more be like a 9 year old. He also still believes in Santa and the elf which I am ok with ☺️
Funny, not really. Mine believes in both. It's at the point that I need to tell her, or she will find out at school, and he crushed or embarrassed.
I think that is correct. I can see my children being immature for their age. It seems one day my 17 yr old was a mature 8-11yr old. Now he's am very very immature 17 yr old. Go figure
I agree! I also think it is my responsibility to help her learn this and figure this out. She doesn't HAVE to just remain behind. We are helping her in therapy to advance to her age group in social appropriate behaviors which also includes appropriate behavior with me. Of course right now she and I are locked into a battle about a book report and finishing work or going to the zoo tomorrow....
My twelve-year-old grandson also acts more like a 9 year old. He talks like a 9 year old too.
Yep. 7 year old can be mature for his years (telling me the scientific explanation behind black hole’s gravitational pull) or he can run around screaming at the dog in Minion voice which is like a cheese grater on my ears. Fun stuff.
Check out Dr. Barkley’s video youtu.be/SCAGc-rkIfo
He talks quite a bit about the emotional immaturity of ADHD kids. Most are on the level of someone 3 years younger. Watch the whole thing if you haven’t already. It is extremely informative and helpful.
I could not agree with you more. My 14yr old acts like a 12yr old especially when she has not had her Stratera. It is hard to remember these kids are operating on a less mature level.
I believe it's a combination of immature behavior and misbehaving. Think of it this way, if your child didn't have ADHD would he/she be perfect? The answer is no. Children misbehave. They sometimes make bad choices because they are influenced by friends, because it's become a habit, because it's easier to lie than tell the truth, and many other reasons. Removing ADHD wouldn't all of a sudden create angelic children. Adding ADHD, however, complicates things because it adds impulsiveness, executive funtioning deficits, and possibly even more side diagnoses that complicate making choices.
my son is 11. he is the king of flossing! he is still not with his peers when it comes to social behaviors. he doesn't know when to stop and hes often too loud. i limit his exposure especially in the evenings. the meds have worn off and it is much harder to control himself. we talk very often about learning to stop when someone asks. i try to explain that it's annoying to continue when a peer ask you to stop. i worry that now that hes in middle school he will never make friends. by the time he catches his peers they will have moved on to other things..
I have b/g 13-year old twins. Both have ADHD and sensory integration. My son has relatively severe anxiety (meltdowns like younger kids). My daughter has recently developed anxiety. Both are less mature than their peers in multiple ways yet they are also more perceptive and advanced academically. So raising them is quite a challenge. I've have been trying to get a consultation with a psychologist who did a presentation for CHADD (Ellen Litman) on "Understanding Girls with ADHD." It is quite enlightening in that it's right on the mark for ADHD characteristics - girls w/ ADHD high impulsivity, greater high-risk behavior, greater risk for depression and addictive behavior, etc. She points out that a girl can be ahead academically by 3 years and behind socially/emotionally by 3 years potentially having a 6-year gap. While this may not be exactly true for my daughter, she is pretty close to this and we've been going through a rough patch for the last 3 years and it has really escalated in the last few months. (She now is showing signs of teenage issues - she's become withdrawn, hate her parents (us), and wants to be left alone.) Muy son has very few friends and mostly hangs at home on his computer. He really has no interest in making new friends...he gets anxious and finds it hard (yet he has so much to offer.) So yes, it can take a very long time -- easily into mid-twenties to reach emotional maturity (prefrontal cortex development - where regulation occurs as well). We're all in the same boat.
agree. My son was always several years behind his peers in emotional maturity, I would say for him close to five years behind. He is 27 now, perhaps still a little bit behind but it's not really noticeable now.
As many have already said - in general ADHD are a bit immature. I think Barkley even estimates it as 30%. But it’s also tricky, at least for us. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what is a tic, what is ADHD immaturity, and what is normal 6 year old boy (which they aren’t know for their amazing social maturity anyway.)
Though I do think it can very from person to person. For my son, he definitely presents immaturity in different ways - he still prefers Disney Junior, and is just starting to get over fears that are more in line with a younger child. But in other ways socially he seems more mature - though honestly immature probably won’t be more apparent until he is older.
I will say, one of my cousins with ADHD was ALWAYS very immature. I honestly kept forgetting he wasn’t the youngest of our cousins, as two who were younger than him seem so much older / mature. Even now, he seems more like someone in their 20s instead of 30s - but at least stillnwithin finctional adult territory.
behavior specialist 
Strategies for correcting behavior
Socially Akward Behavior
Behavior Great at school
Medication without behavior problems?
