Boys and ADHD

This morning I was watching the Today Show, on NBC. They had an article on ADHD and school-age boys. I missed it, but went online and read the article about it there. One of the things that struck me was the symptoms of ADHD:

• Fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes.
• Has difficulty sustaining attention.
• Does not appear to listen.
• Struggles to follow through on instructions.
• Has difficulty with organization.
• Avoids or dislikes tasks requiring sustained mental effort.
• Loses things.
• Is easily distracted.
• Is often forgetful in daily activities.

My son, Daniel (who is now a kindergartner), has every single one of those symptoms and it only takes 6 of them to be diagnosed with ADHD. Here's the thing, I have every single one of those symptoms as well. Do I think that either one of us has ADHD? Nope! Not at all! It seems to me that those 9 symptoms pretty much describe any normal little boy. When I was in school, any boy that didn't act like that was considered a teacher's pet and was beat up. Why is it that many people can't seem to understand that little boys learn differently than little girls. As much as people would like believe differently, the two genders are different physically, mentally, and emotionally. There are some tasks that girls are better at than boys and there are some tasks that the opposite is true. I wish that people would just let little boys be little boys.