How to Help Girls with ADHD
February 9, 2026
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How to Help Girls with ADHD
By Eve Kessler, Esq.
Many girls struggle with ADHD without ever being properly diagnosed. Instead of recognizing that ADHD in females looks different than it does in males, clinicians frequently mistake girls’ ADHD symptoms for a host of other concerns, including social-emotional issues, sleep problems, eating challenges, anxiety, depression, or mood disorders. As a result, their ADHD goes untreated, leaving them vulnerable to the lifelong challenges that often accompany untreated ADHD.
According to ADHD expert Dr. Lotta Borg Skogland, for girls to be correctly diagnosed and get appropriate treatment, they need to be armed with objective, personal data about their difficulties and strengths, and be able to communicate clearly to health professionals and teachers.
That’s easier said than done. Because girls have “masked and mimicked their entire lives to feel normal,” Skogland explains, “their self-awareness is often underdeveloped.” In addition, because emotional dysregulation (the inability to manage strong emotions) is the hallmark of girls’ ADHD, they are easily overwhelmed when asked how they feel or what they need, especially in stressful or intimidating situations, such as being questioned by a doctor.
In Their Own Words
Based on her research, Skogland illustrates how girls with ADHD describe their key feelings, often struggling to find the right words:
I’m different: I feel lonely, left out, rejected; I’m not likable; I mask to fit in, but I feel like a fraud; There has always been something different/wrong/off about me, but I can’t find the words.
I’m stupid: My brain fails me; I’m never good enough; I’m a failure; When I try to concentrate, my thoughts slip away or stop; When I try to relax, my mind starts working like crazy to solve world peace, or what happens after you die, or stuff like that; The risks I’ve taken make me freeze.
I’m hopeless: I can’t control or trust my emotions or energy levels—I make plans and I cancel them; There’s so much drama around me; I feel so ashamed of myself; I need to be really disciplined and controlled to do well in school and in life—I have to control what I eat, when I exercise, when I study, and how I act with friends, otherwise, everything turns to chaos; It’s no use asking for help anymore.
How You Can Help
To ensure that girls with ADHD are not misdiagnosed, Skogland maintains that they should be encouraged to explore their own ADHD profile, gather real-life information about themselves, and learn to share it clearly with health professionals, teachers, and others who support them. Following are Skogland’s recommendations for how you can help your daughters better understand and explain their feelings and behavior:
- Educate them about their medical history, including family history, because ADHD tends to run in families.
- Don’t try to normalize or minimize their feelings with comments such as, “Everyone feels like this,” or “Everyone thinks this is difficult and struggles sometimes.”
- Help them recognize and label their emotions and understand what triggers them (e.g., a bad night’s sleep, where they are in their hormonal cycle, negative effects of medication, being teased or rejected by peers, etc.).
- Teach them to monitor various lifestyle factors, especially those that cause them to struggle (social situations, work or school deadlines, remembering appointments, diet, exercise, stress, medication management, substance use or abuse, etc.).
- Assist them in keeping track of what helps them feel calm and successful (healthy routines and moderation, not responding impulsively and instead waiting and reappraising situations and responding when feeling emotionally anchored, medication, asking for a time out, taking responsibility, etc.).
This article is based on the ADDitude webinar, The Emotional Lives of Girls with ADHD, by Lotta Borg Skogland, M.D., Ph.D. Eve Kessler, Esq., a former criminal appellate attorney, is Co-Founder of SPED*NET and a Contributing Editor of Smart Kids.