Add / Adhd Dr. Thomas E Brown - 3. can a child not pay attention in school, but stay focused at home?

Hi Doctor Brown my name is Pamela. Hi Pamela I have an eight year old son who has been diagnosed with ADD I have taken him to a family pediatrician for about three years now complaining that the teachers are saying he can't keep still he doesn't pay attention in class, when I know that he can focus watching television program, playing video game or something like that but the doctor says that he doesn't have ADD because if he could focus longer than thirty minutes there is no way he can have ADD I think that your doctor is mistaken about that a lot people believe that if you have ADD you can never pay attention for more than just a brief time in fact everybody who has ADHD has a few things that they can pay attention too very well for a long time and it might be sports, it might be video games it might be sketching and drawing it might be lego constructions, but everybody who has ADD has a few things that they can really concentrate on a lot of times parents are bringing kids saying exactly the thing you are talking about teachers says that the kid can't pay attention for more than just a few minutes that's just not true because we heve watched him play these video games and she says that he is easily distracted when he is watching those video games and he is locked in that screen like a laser and the only way you are going to get his attention is if you jump in his face or turn off the TV and you talk with parents about that and they hear what the teacher is saying and it just doesn't compute but the fact is that everybody with ADHD has a few things where they can pay attention very well even though they have a lot of trouble paying attention to other things you say to them, why is this, what with this how come you can do it here and not there and usually what they will say is it's just easy if it's something I am interested in I can pay attention if not, I can't and most people hear that and they say, yeah right, congratulations, that's true for anybody, anybody is going to pay attention for something they are interested in than for something they are not which is true. but here is the difference people who don't have ADD if they have something that they have to do and they know that they have to do it they can usually make themselves pay attention, even if it is pretty boring. people with ADD, it is incredibly difficult for them to able to make themselves pay attention unless it is something that really interest them and it can make it look like it's a will power problem, because you can do it here and you can't do it there but the fact is it's not.