In our interactions with children, intentional thinking gets in the way of seeing the child for who he really is. Worse, the judgments we deliver on our children become the self-judgments they will carry into adult life. “I was a bad kid,” or “I was always trying to cause some trouble” frequently express the way adults with ADD recall themselves as children. The child sooner or later comes to see himself, as much as he may protest against it, through the negative opinion of the parent.
