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Taking Charge of ADHD: The Complete, Authoritative Guide for Parents
From distinguished researcher/clinician Russell A. Barkley, this treasured parent resource gives you the science-based information you need about attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and its treatment. It also presents a proven eight-step behavior management plan specifically designed for 6- to 18-year-olds with ADHD. Offering encouragement, guidance, and loads of practical tips, Dr. Barkley helps you:
Make sense of your child's symptoms.
Get an accurate diagnosis.
Work with school and health care professionals to get needed support.
Learn parenting techniques that promote better behavior.
Strengthen your child's academic and social skills.
Use rewards and incentives effectively.
Restore harmony at home.
Updated throughout with current research and resources, this guide includes the latest facts about medications and about what causes (and doesn't cause) ADHD.
Make sense of your child's symptoms.
Get an accurate diagnosis.
Work with school and health care professionals to get needed support.
Learn parenting techniques that promote better behavior.
Strengthen your child's academic and social skills.
Use rewards and incentives effectively.
Restore harmony at home.
Updated throughout with current research and resources, this guide includes the latest facts about medications and about what causes (and doesn't cause) ADHD.
Audiobook
First published November 3, 1995
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About the author
Russell A. Barkley
71 books459 followersRussell A. Barkley (born 1949) is a clinical psychologist who is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina and an author of books on ADHD. Involved in research since 1973 and a licensed psychologist since 1977, he is an expert on attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and has devoted much of his scientific career to studying ADHD and related problems in children. His research interests include childhood defiance.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 166 reviews
October 28, 2019
Disclaimer: This is probably more a rant about my son’s ADHD than a review. You’ve been warned.
Not too long ago, while reading a description of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, I was struck by its similarities to my child. Having been around for 100% of his fetal development, I know I ingested nothing worse than Ramen Noodles, but the similarities led me to the suspicion that my son’s more concerning behaviors and traits are related to some type of early brain damage. This took me down a rabbit hole that led me back to his diagnosis of ADHD from 3-4 years ago, which then led me to this book.
I don’t know why the pediatrician who diagnosed him didn’t explain that there is so much more to ADHD than inattentiveness. I hadn’t realized how valid “Blame It on My ADD” could be. This book explained so much about my son’s behavior, so many aha moments. It was like watching the end of Sixth Sense and reframing all those scenes in light of the big reveal. Some of the bigger ahas:
* Pre-natal developmental problems are linked to ADHD. I have a pet theory about mold in the chronically flooded basement I lived in while pregnant, but this is not one of the known factors listed in the book. What I do know is that my baby was so small en utero that the doctor decided I must have been confused about my dates and pushed out the due date a full month (which made no sense because that meant I wasn’t pregnant when I took my first positive pregnancy test, but hey, I’m no doctor). Lo and behold, my son was born “early” and very small.
* Temperament in infancy and early childhood is connected to ADHD. People would tell me my colicky baby had to be in pain to cry so much, but I secretly wondered if he was just bored. He could never get enough stimulation. I became a human Disneyland ride, bouncing and pacing and swinging simultaneously to keep him happy. The study about ADHD children playing with each toy for less time really hit home. As a toddler (through NOW), he couldn’t (can’t) entertain himself for long. I remember one particular weekend rushing him from one activity to the next — the zoo, the park, several playdates, and more — and coming home exhausted only to find my 5-year-old couldn’t entertain himself for even the one unstructured hour of the day. Still waiting for that selective hyper-focus everyone talks about ADHD-ers having to kick in.
* Deficiencies in fine motor skills are linked to ADHD. Around age 4, he was concerned about who would spoon-feed him when his baby brother needed the same service. When he was starting kindergarten, I remember trying to explain to a teacher that he couldn’t put on his own jacket. She kept thinking I meant he couldn’t zip it, but he literally could not put it on. Another teacher warned me he would fail kindergarten if he couldn’t form more legible letters. (We moved, so I never found out if he progressed enough to pass that school district’s standards.)
* More than an attention problem, ADHD is an issue with self-regulation and executive function. I think the book uses the term “self-inhibition,” but it made more sense for me to think of it as “self-control.” I truly believe my son wants to be “good” but has cognitive deficiencies that make carrying out that resolve difficult. I remember his pre-school self staring wistfully at a mall Santa and saying, “Santa won’t bring me anything. I’m not good.”
* ADHD brains have difficulty processing long-term consequences. Only days before I read this, my son had tried to explain, when asked why he did X when he knew the consequence would be Y, “I’m not a future person. I’m a now person.” He wasn’t presenting it as an excuse, just an explanation. I don’t know if I’m mixing up this book with other studies I’ve read, but I guess ADHD brains don’t get much, if any, of a chemical rush of pleasure from anticipating a reward, making it more difficult to work towards that reward. This explains why all his sticker charts remained empty growing up. I assume it works the same way in reverse, where he doesn’t get the same reaction to anticipated negative consequences as everyone else does.
* ADHD is one ginormous sleep problem. I’d already learned that ADHD and sleep problems are connected, but this book further explained that those with ADHD move more physically during sleep as well as during the day, and they don’t have the same structured circadian rhythms as others. I’ve read elsewhere that when sleep problems are solved, ADHD symptoms go away entirely. But since ADHD causes the sleep problems to begin with…
* ADHD is a disability. I remember trying to explain to a therapist that our son was “high maintenance” and required a lot of energy from me. The therapist interpreted this as him having “special needs,” and I corrected her, but maybe that wasn’t the wrong way to put it. However, the author is firm that this particular disability requires MORE accountability of the disabled, not less, in order to mitigate the disability.
* ADHD is linked to Oppositional Defiance Order. My son doesn’t have an ODD diagnosis, but that would explain A LOT.
One thing the author did well was make me, the parent, feel validated. I’ve gotten so burned out on parenting books, with their condescending assurance that you were doing everything ridiculously wrong until you found this book. I was whining to my sister about this when she said, “Maybe all the normal parenting books don’t work because you aren’t parenting a normal child.” (Mind blown.) If this can be called a parenting book, it’s not a normal one, thank goodness. The author reassures us that we aren’t bad parents. One study is cited to show that the differences between parents of ADHD children and others is probably a reaction to the child, not a cause. The author walks a fine line between not blaming parents and showing it’s still within the parents’ power to make it better. (It was sobering to hear that the big distinguishing factor between whether difficult toddlers are later diagnosed with ADHD is the primary caregiver.) He even understands that parents have their own crap to deal with, with ADHD parents being more likely to have depression and anxiety and even ADHD themselves, something that “normal” parenting books never seem to grasp. When the author expresses understanding of how exhausting parenting an ADHD child is...strumming my pain with his fingers. He notes that parents of ADHD children have the same stress levels as parents of children with severe developmental disabilities. And I thought I was just a wuss. He even includes a chapter on how to take care of yourself as a parent, with the takeaway that your child doesn’t need you to be a martyr.
A lot of the parenting suggestions in the book rang true to me, such as:
* Reward and punish immediately so they can more easily connect their behavior with its consequence. (I think of this as treating them like Pavlov’s dogs.)
* Lecture sparingly. The kid probably isn’t listening anyway. If you have to lecture, keep it short and sweet.
* Never issue a command without enforcing it. So think carefully before issuing a command.
* Focus on one behavior at a time. Decide what the biggest problem is and work on that. I don’t know why I never gave myself permission to do this, but it’s very freeing to think I don’t have to address every problem at once.
* Don’t expect perfect grades, or homework perfectly completed. I already resigned myself to Bs, but I was still insistent that homework be perfect because it was done on my watch. Like several parents in the book, I’ve let homework impair our relationship. Grades are definitely not the biggest problem we should be working on, and if I’ve learned anything from parenting it’s that I need to save my strength for the battles that actually matter.
On the other hand, the suggestions for dealing with schools seem like helicopter parenting to me. Teachers do not get paid enough to do give as much individualized attention to my child as the author thinks parents should demand. However, that’s my perspective as the parent of a kid who’s bright enough (or at least at the older end of his class enough) to eek by despite his ADHD (albeit below his potential), and maybe I’d feel differently if he wasn’t doing so okay. It’s probably useful for students who already have IEPs, and maybe I’ll revisit that chapter if we ever get to that point.
I’m also a bit skeptical about reward programs, having set up and discarded many over the years. The nature of ADHD, as the author explained, requires bigger-than-usual rewards, so even small rewards have to be relatively large. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized he could be bribed, at 5, to not fight with his little brother for 24 hours in exchange for the backpack he wanted for school. But I don’t feel I should buy him a $10 something for every day he doesn’t hit his brother, and giving him tokens (e.g., sticker charts, money) to work up to a bigger reward has almost never worked with him. Further, often when I’ve offered him a reward and he doesn’t earn it, he’s thrown a tantrum about not being given the reward anyway, so I’m stuck with even worse behavior than I started with. I’m not sure how to apply a reward system in conjunction with other science that suggests too many rewards and even praise can backfire into entitlement and a lack of motivation to perform without an arbitrary/extrinsic reward. I don’t want to raise a Naomi Campbell: “I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.”
As other reviewers have noted, there is certainly a bleak, almost hopeless tone to the book. I’d been taking comfort that kids “grow out of it,” as evidenced by their frontal lobes developing into normal size by adulthood, but the author shatters this by observing that an increase in size is not necessarily an increase in grey matter. And sure, 50% of kids “grow out of” ADHD by adulthood, but according to the author only 10% of kids DON’T have a some sort of mental disorder (depression, ADHD, anti-social, etc.) in adulthood.
But it’s what I needed — realistic explanations and expectations, not empty platitudes or promises about what a wonderful gift ADHD is if only it were understood. Maybe I’ll want to read that type of book later, but right now I want to know what I’m up against.
It’s helped to remind myself, when hearing that ADHD teens are however-many-more times likely to crash a car or get someone pregnant, that 4 times a very small percentage is still a small percentage. (Side note: I thought it was a little hypocritical of the author to scare us about how much more likely our child is to do all manner of shenanigans, then later lecture us not to catastrophize about our teen doing those shenanigans.)
I would have liked to see more optimism about neurofeedback and neuroplasticity in general, with evaluations of the effectiveness of exercises for developing white and grey matter in the prefrontal lobe (e.g, piano, “brain games,” Brain Balance), but I realize this book was written a while ago. I’d love to see an updated version.
Not too long ago, while reading a description of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, I was struck by its similarities to my child. Having been around for 100% of his fetal development, I know I ingested nothing worse than Ramen Noodles, but the similarities led me to the suspicion that my son’s more concerning behaviors and traits are related to some type of early brain damage. This took me down a rabbit hole that led me back to his diagnosis of ADHD from 3-4 years ago, which then led me to this book.
I don’t know why the pediatrician who diagnosed him didn’t explain that there is so much more to ADHD than inattentiveness. I hadn’t realized how valid “Blame It on My ADD” could be. This book explained so much about my son’s behavior, so many aha moments. It was like watching the end of Sixth Sense and reframing all those scenes in light of the big reveal. Some of the bigger ahas:
* Pre-natal developmental problems are linked to ADHD. I have a pet theory about mold in the chronically flooded basement I lived in while pregnant, but this is not one of the known factors listed in the book. What I do know is that my baby was so small en utero that the doctor decided I must have been confused about my dates and pushed out the due date a full month (which made no sense because that meant I wasn’t pregnant when I took my first positive pregnancy test, but hey, I’m no doctor). Lo and behold, my son was born “early” and very small.
* Temperament in infancy and early childhood is connected to ADHD. People would tell me my colicky baby had to be in pain to cry so much, but I secretly wondered if he was just bored. He could never get enough stimulation. I became a human Disneyland ride, bouncing and pacing and swinging simultaneously to keep him happy. The study about ADHD children playing with each toy for less time really hit home. As a toddler (through NOW), he couldn’t (can’t) entertain himself for long. I remember one particular weekend rushing him from one activity to the next — the zoo, the park, several playdates, and more — and coming home exhausted only to find my 5-year-old couldn’t entertain himself for even the one unstructured hour of the day. Still waiting for that selective hyper-focus everyone talks about ADHD-ers having to kick in.
* Deficiencies in fine motor skills are linked to ADHD. Around age 4, he was concerned about who would spoon-feed him when his baby brother needed the same service. When he was starting kindergarten, I remember trying to explain to a teacher that he couldn’t put on his own jacket. She kept thinking I meant he couldn’t zip it, but he literally could not put it on. Another teacher warned me he would fail kindergarten if he couldn’t form more legible letters. (We moved, so I never found out if he progressed enough to pass that school district’s standards.)
* More than an attention problem, ADHD is an issue with self-regulation and executive function. I think the book uses the term “self-inhibition,” but it made more sense for me to think of it as “self-control.” I truly believe my son wants to be “good” but has cognitive deficiencies that make carrying out that resolve difficult. I remember his pre-school self staring wistfully at a mall Santa and saying, “Santa won’t bring me anything. I’m not good.”
* ADHD brains have difficulty processing long-term consequences. Only days before I read this, my son had tried to explain, when asked why he did X when he knew the consequence would be Y, “I’m not a future person. I’m a now person.” He wasn’t presenting it as an excuse, just an explanation. I don’t know if I’m mixing up this book with other studies I’ve read, but I guess ADHD brains don’t get much, if any, of a chemical rush of pleasure from anticipating a reward, making it more difficult to work towards that reward. This explains why all his sticker charts remained empty growing up. I assume it works the same way in reverse, where he doesn’t get the same reaction to anticipated negative consequences as everyone else does.
* ADHD is one ginormous sleep problem. I’d already learned that ADHD and sleep problems are connected, but this book further explained that those with ADHD move more physically during sleep as well as during the day, and they don’t have the same structured circadian rhythms as others. I’ve read elsewhere that when sleep problems are solved, ADHD symptoms go away entirely. But since ADHD causes the sleep problems to begin with…
* ADHD is a disability. I remember trying to explain to a therapist that our son was “high maintenance” and required a lot of energy from me. The therapist interpreted this as him having “special needs,” and I corrected her, but maybe that wasn’t the wrong way to put it. However, the author is firm that this particular disability requires MORE accountability of the disabled, not less, in order to mitigate the disability.
* ADHD is linked to Oppositional Defiance Order. My son doesn’t have an ODD diagnosis, but that would explain A LOT.
One thing the author did well was make me, the parent, feel validated. I’ve gotten so burned out on parenting books, with their condescending assurance that you were doing everything ridiculously wrong until you found this book. I was whining to my sister about this when she said, “Maybe all the normal parenting books don’t work because you aren’t parenting a normal child.” (Mind blown.) If this can be called a parenting book, it’s not a normal one, thank goodness. The author reassures us that we aren’t bad parents. One study is cited to show that the differences between parents of ADHD children and others is probably a reaction to the child, not a cause. The author walks a fine line between not blaming parents and showing it’s still within the parents’ power to make it better. (It was sobering to hear that the big distinguishing factor between whether difficult toddlers are later diagnosed with ADHD is the primary caregiver.) He even understands that parents have their own crap to deal with, with ADHD parents being more likely to have depression and anxiety and even ADHD themselves, something that “normal” parenting books never seem to grasp. When the author expresses understanding of how exhausting parenting an ADHD child is...strumming my pain with his fingers. He notes that parents of ADHD children have the same stress levels as parents of children with severe developmental disabilities. And I thought I was just a wuss. He even includes a chapter on how to take care of yourself as a parent, with the takeaway that your child doesn’t need you to be a martyr.
A lot of the parenting suggestions in the book rang true to me, such as:
* Reward and punish immediately so they can more easily connect their behavior with its consequence. (I think of this as treating them like Pavlov’s dogs.)
* Lecture sparingly. The kid probably isn’t listening anyway. If you have to lecture, keep it short and sweet.
* Never issue a command without enforcing it. So think carefully before issuing a command.
* Focus on one behavior at a time. Decide what the biggest problem is and work on that. I don’t know why I never gave myself permission to do this, but it’s very freeing to think I don’t have to address every problem at once.
* Don’t expect perfect grades, or homework perfectly completed. I already resigned myself to Bs, but I was still insistent that homework be perfect because it was done on my watch. Like several parents in the book, I’ve let homework impair our relationship. Grades are definitely not the biggest problem we should be working on, and if I’ve learned anything from parenting it’s that I need to save my strength for the battles that actually matter.
On the other hand, the suggestions for dealing with schools seem like helicopter parenting to me. Teachers do not get paid enough to do give as much individualized attention to my child as the author thinks parents should demand. However, that’s my perspective as the parent of a kid who’s bright enough (or at least at the older end of his class enough) to eek by despite his ADHD (albeit below his potential), and maybe I’d feel differently if he wasn’t doing so okay. It’s probably useful for students who already have IEPs, and maybe I’ll revisit that chapter if we ever get to that point.
I’m also a bit skeptical about reward programs, having set up and discarded many over the years. The nature of ADHD, as the author explained, requires bigger-than-usual rewards, so even small rewards have to be relatively large. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized he could be bribed, at 5, to not fight with his little brother for 24 hours in exchange for the backpack he wanted for school. But I don’t feel I should buy him a $10 something for every day he doesn’t hit his brother, and giving him tokens (e.g., sticker charts, money) to work up to a bigger reward has almost never worked with him. Further, often when I’ve offered him a reward and he doesn’t earn it, he’s thrown a tantrum about not being given the reward anyway, so I’m stuck with even worse behavior than I started with. I’m not sure how to apply a reward system in conjunction with other science that suggests too many rewards and even praise can backfire into entitlement and a lack of motivation to perform without an arbitrary/extrinsic reward. I don’t want to raise a Naomi Campbell: “I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.”
As other reviewers have noted, there is certainly a bleak, almost hopeless tone to the book. I’d been taking comfort that kids “grow out of it,” as evidenced by their frontal lobes developing into normal size by adulthood, but the author shatters this by observing that an increase in size is not necessarily an increase in grey matter. And sure, 50% of kids “grow out of” ADHD by adulthood, but according to the author only 10% of kids DON’T have a some sort of mental disorder (depression, ADHD, anti-social, etc.) in adulthood.
But it’s what I needed — realistic explanations and expectations, not empty platitudes or promises about what a wonderful gift ADHD is if only it were understood. Maybe I’ll want to read that type of book later, but right now I want to know what I’m up against.
It’s helped to remind myself, when hearing that ADHD teens are however-many-more times likely to crash a car or get someone pregnant, that 4 times a very small percentage is still a small percentage. (Side note: I thought it was a little hypocritical of the author to scare us about how much more likely our child is to do all manner of shenanigans, then later lecture us not to catastrophize about our teen doing those shenanigans.)
I would have liked to see more optimism about neurofeedback and neuroplasticity in general, with evaluations of the effectiveness of exercises for developing white and grey matter in the prefrontal lobe (e.g, piano, “brain games,” Brain Balance), but I realize this book was written a while ago. I’d love to see an updated version.
August 17, 2013
Hm. Don't know where to start on this one. Some chapters were certainly worth it. Others were very clinical and scary. Lots of statistics to make it Loud and Clear what kids and parents are up against. It was a good cautionary tale in some respects, validations about some of the things I'm already doing in other respects...and some good basic medical information. But, as a good friend reminded me recently, this isn't the book that is going to give me hope. This book will give me facts and truths. The hope I must find from the heart of my boy and my faith.
August 19, 2022
Barkley is an often quoted expert in the field. In fact, he even quotes himself in this book. Regularly.
While this may be a fourth edition, it’s very clear that this book’s views are mostly unchanged from the early 90s. The first half hardly mentions any studies later than the 70s and 80s, other than tiny additions of “many studies since have proven this true”. The rare studies he does mention that are less than 30 years old are his own work. I get the feeling Barkley has not questioned his older thoughts in many decades. The chapter on medication is, helpfully, clearly new. But then weirdly tacked onto the end of the book with no conclusion whatsoever to this very long and drawn out text. He just stops. His intro and first chapter circle around themselves, constantly restating the same points-perhaps some of those paragraphs should be cut and pasted at the end for some sort of actual ending to this.
This is also a very dark and somber take, full of statistics about the horrors of having a family member with adhd. They will be hated by all, fail multiple grades, and end up dying young seems to be his overarching thesis. I didn’t find any of the less known info that I was searching for. This focuses on your stereotypical wild and defiant boy with no descriptions of those who have higher than average intelligence and thereby are often undiagnosed bc they aren’t failing. Nor is there any discussion about how it manifests in girls. Not once is “hyperfocus” mentioned in any form, either.
On page 217, over halfway through the text, his vantage point and focus became crystal clear with the opening to a paragraph with “When my late fraternal twin brother, who had at least moderate levels of ADHD,”. Full stop. Late. Fraternal. Twin. This was my ahha moment. It definitely needs to be earlier in the text so we can understand why he’s so doom and gloom.
While this may be a fourth edition, it’s very clear that this book’s views are mostly unchanged from the early 90s. The first half hardly mentions any studies later than the 70s and 80s, other than tiny additions of “many studies since have proven this true”. The rare studies he does mention that are less than 30 years old are his own work. I get the feeling Barkley has not questioned his older thoughts in many decades. The chapter on medication is, helpfully, clearly new. But then weirdly tacked onto the end of the book with no conclusion whatsoever to this very long and drawn out text. He just stops. His intro and first chapter circle around themselves, constantly restating the same points-perhaps some of those paragraphs should be cut and pasted at the end for some sort of actual ending to this.
This is also a very dark and somber take, full of statistics about the horrors of having a family member with adhd. They will be hated by all, fail multiple grades, and end up dying young seems to be his overarching thesis. I didn’t find any of the less known info that I was searching for. This focuses on your stereotypical wild and defiant boy with no descriptions of those who have higher than average intelligence and thereby are often undiagnosed bc they aren’t failing. Nor is there any discussion about how it manifests in girls. Not once is “hyperfocus” mentioned in any form, either.
On page 217, over halfway through the text, his vantage point and focus became crystal clear with the opening to a paragraph with “When my late fraternal twin brother, who had at least moderate levels of ADHD,”. Full stop. Late. Fraternal. Twin. This was my ahha moment. It definitely needs to be earlier in the text so we can understand why he’s so doom and gloom.
February 22, 2016
I wish I had read this three years ago. This has become an invaluable resource for me in getting a gameplan together to manage my son's ADHD. I recommend this for anyone with a child who has trouble in the classroom. It doesn't touch on any learning disabilities, but gives plenty of arrows to point you in the right direction.
December 31, 2023
DNF. Okay I read 20% of this and I gave up. It reads too much like a textbook and it doesn't have current research information.
May 8, 2022
So very thorough, a tad overwhelming, but wonderfully helpful! I appreciated all the science, the data, the testimonials as well as all the shame-free, positive strategies. So very grateful to have found this resource.
January 31, 2019
The first third of the book was pretty good: insightful, not too bogged down, explained multiple aspects well, information that is glossed over or not explained in other texts... then the book got really repetitive for a while. It picked back up a bit at the end in discussing the medications.
A bit of teacher bashing, a lot of ignorance about how to speak up or be an advocate for your child's education, as well as the realities of education in a public school - I would like a better book about that. You can't choose your child's teachers in public school, interview them like candidates for a poorly paid job, and schools will rarely switch your kids class for lots of reasons, which doesn't really solve the problem or teach your child anything either - and a lot of pro-medicine/pro- pills solve all bias, but as a parent and a teacher, our daughter's medication allows her to be be herself and function, in a way she cannot without it, so I can understand this.
A bit of teacher bashing, a lot of ignorance about how to speak up or be an advocate for your child's education, as well as the realities of education in a public school - I would like a better book about that. You can't choose your child's teachers in public school, interview them like candidates for a poorly paid job, and schools will rarely switch your kids class for lots of reasons, which doesn't really solve the problem or teach your child anything either - and a lot of pro-medicine/pro- pills solve all bias, but as a parent and a teacher, our daughter's medication allows her to be be herself and function, in a way she cannot without it, so I can understand this.
April 26, 2012
Although there are some good chapters in this book, I found that the author assumed all children with ADHD had oppositional defiance disorder (ODD) and a large portion of this book was dedicated to behavior modification and increasing compliance. This book sets out to educate parents about ADHD, but it seems a bit misinformed about all aspects of the disorder. I did appreciate the chapters on how the medications work, and all the options available.
August 4, 2013
I found this book to be both informative and insightful. However, in my opinion, it also reads like a textbook and was at times a bit of a chore to get through.
April 4, 2025
This book does such a beautiful job of explaining the brain differences in people with ADHD. Some of the behavioral suggestions are completely outdated so I don't think it's the best book for helping your child develop better habits, but it is a great starting point if your kid was recently diagnosed. The testimonials also made me feel very seen as a parent of a highly reactive, sensitive child. I will be looking into his more recent works, as this book is pretty old now (it was recommended by the neuropsychologist who evaluated him, along with a slew of other books...but she gave us more recent behavioral modifications). There's a section on teenagers I skipped because we aren't there yet, but I'll probably revisit this.
June 6, 2023
Russella
The cover of this book looks like it says "Russella Barkley" - the spacing is all weird.
Well, that is what I notice.
That is the type of things we people with ADD see, and distract us from getting to the point of whatever we were going to make.
Anyways,
This was a great book on ADD and ADHD
I found this a great book to read during National AccessAbility Week - especially this year's theme:
Disability Inclusion: From Possibilities to Practice
Definitely check it out!
4.4/5
The cover of this book looks like it says "Russella Barkley" - the spacing is all weird.
Well, that is what I notice.
That is the type of things we people with ADD see, and distract us from getting to the point of whatever we were going to make.
Anyways,
This was a great book on ADD and ADHD
I found this a great book to read during National AccessAbility Week - especially this year's theme:
Disability Inclusion: From Possibilities to Practice
Definitely check it out!
4.4/5
July 22, 2025
I read this at the recommendation of my daughter's neuropsychologist upon her diagnosis with ADHD. Overall, this was very informative and gave me a lot to think about both as a parent and as a teacher. Some of it seemed highly repetitive and like it could have been 20% shorter. I bought the audiobook on audible and am glad I have this reference to come back to again. I won't be reading the whole thing again, but will definitely revisit certain sections as our journey with ADHD continues.
May 16, 2021
Very informative!
March 3, 2023
Super comprehensive
February 8, 2024
This man knows his stuff. If you have ADHD if you have ADD or if you know someone with it READ this book!!
July 15, 2019
I haven't read every page (yet) but this has been an invaluable resource in helping me understand the best way to parent my son.
September 25, 2024
Back in time (mid 1990's) this indeed was an authoritative guide. In the meanwhile this edition is outdated, of course. I don't know about the updated editions.
September 8, 2025
I didn’t read all of this because my son was already diagnosed, which is what the first several chapters are related to. The parts I hoped would be most helpful weren’t really that helpful for what I was looking for.
February 8, 2018
fantastic ADHD resource. I'm definitely a fact-based/science person, and if there's a why behind anything I want to know it. Some may feel this reads a bit like a text book, which it does at times, but, the information is valuable. As a parent without ADHD raising a child with ADHD there is so much to understand about this disorder & the disorders that can come along with ADHD that I never understood or knew because it wasn't a part of my life. Dr. Barkley explains why we see undesirable behaviors when raising a child with ADHD, the causes behind them and measures to take to help your child learn coping skills, and to help cause fewer conflicts at home ie. reward systems. Great suggestion in this book for all ages of ADHD young child through adulthood. Also, a whole lot about advocating for your child in a school setting when/if necessary, where to go for advice and what professionals to turn to for help. When we first got started with a diagnosis I knew nothing about any of these things, I should have picked this one up a while ago! This book had me nodding my head in agreement and highlighting passages that validated so much of what I see in my kid and myself as a parent to an ADHD kid.
December 20, 2020
I've read a few books on this topic (just starting my research) and I liked this book the best so far. I really dislike the self-help method of giving a lot of examples like "Here is Sally's Story" (snore). That method is NOT helpful and I find myself zoning out of the book and it's not helpful. Thankfully this book did not have any of that.
It's well researched and organized and very clinical. There are parts that might be too much for some people. There were chapters I skipped (adolescence) because they aren't relevant to me right now but at some point I will read them.
The book has some very helpful things in it and the huge chapter of resources at the end will be very helpful for further research.
The downside to the book is that it is not very hopeful. It's downright depressing, especially if you are at the start of your research on this topic.
It's well researched and organized and very clinical. There are parts that might be too much for some people. There were chapters I skipped (adolescence) because they aren't relevant to me right now but at some point I will read them.
The book has some very helpful things in it and the huge chapter of resources at the end will be very helpful for further research.
The downside to the book is that it is not very hopeful. It's downright depressing, especially if you are at the start of your research on this topic.
October 30, 2013
Best book that I've read on this topic. Recent science, excellent advice. One downside for me: less attention (ha!) to inattentive type than to hyperactive and combined types. Barkley is a blunt guy, calling the myths about ADHD "fallacies" and those holding them to be "scientifically illiterate." This is also the first book I've read that addresses the true seriousness of ADHD, that even the term ADHD (which he thinks should be changed) "trivializes the disorder, since it grossly understates the substantial and dramatic problems" it can cause. Kind of a bummer to read cuz ADHD ain't pretty, but I do prefer facts to fallacies, so I recommend it.
November 30, 2020
My understanding of ADHD was both incomplete and, on some points, way off base before reading this book. I had no idea that ADHD is really a developmental disability affecting executive functioning. The author draws from his decades of research and experience as a psychologist treating patients with ADHD to explain what it is and how to work with it. Highly recommend for anyone grappling with ADHD or trying to parent a kid with ADHD. And to those in the latter group -- I see you, the stress is real and it's not because you're a bad parent.
February 27, 2015
This book is based upon solid scientific research, but I was disappointed to learn halfway through that the author's techniques are thought to be ineffective for children with Type 1 ADD (Inattentive). I plowed through regardless and still manages to find some applicable nuggets of advice. Still worth the read for Type 1 parents if only for the background knowledge Barkley provides about the disorder as a whole.
January 23, 2014
I didn't like that they stuck fast to commonly used medical terms, like "minimal brain dysfunction" and "ADHD" even though not all cases of ADD include Hyperactivity, however I was extremely grateful for the medical explanations of what causes the inattention and for the many tips on how to use positive reinforcement to encourage attention and proper behavior.
February 19, 2015
This is the bible of ADHD resources. I appreciate how thorough it is, and how the author cites references and dates for every study, fact, or statistic. If you have a child with ADHD, this is a must read, must highlight, must memorize passages. There is a third edition out, and I highly recommend getting the most recent edition, as ADHD research is advancing all the time!
February 6, 2023
The information in this book was minimally helpful and presented in such a dry, boring way.
This book might be useful for those whose children are in the public school system. Although, the suggestions for how teachers could accommodate an ADHD student weren't very realistic.
Overall, I felt disappointed, frustrated, and like I wasted my time.
This book might be useful for those whose children are in the public school system. Although, the suggestions for how teachers could accommodate an ADHD student weren't very realistic.
Overall, I felt disappointed, frustrated, and like I wasted my time.
September 12, 2024
Barkley’s research changed the scientific understanding of ADHD, leading to better understanding and tools. But the book offers outdated techniques that approach ADHD as a series of behaviors to fix rather than offering understanding of how this different brain can be accepted and thrive in a world not built for it.
April 4, 2020
Information is now out of date.
January 18, 2026
Taking Charge of ADHD
2/5 stars
"Data insufficiently granular. Questions about authors clinical experience. Other books sold much better."
******
-129 references
-19 self-cited (14.7%)
At first blush, this appeared to be a good book, but there were several things that gave me pause:
1. This author is a PhD and not an MD, and I do wonder about his clinical experience. (PhDs are not allowed to prescribe medicine and must work in tandem with an MD / DO in order to treat patients.)
2. This book is nowhere near as well-sourced as I would expect it to be for what it is.
For a book that I consider just at the borderline of "well sourced," there are a minimum of 1.5 citations per page (three citations every two pages). By that metric, this book should have had around 500 citations--about a quarter as many as it actually did.
It really would have been more appropriate for it to have closer to 650--about a fifth as many as it actually did. (The author himself admits that there's more research done about ADHD than in the entire rest of the world combined.)
3. Exactly ZERO of his assertions are footnoted directly back to a paper. For example, p.110 has a slew of facts about the risks of adolescents with ADHD - - and nary a single citation that points back to a direct paper that we can evaluate. (And there should have been 8 to 10 citations just for that one page.)
4. There is a lot of repetition, which may be deliberate (for the purpose of helping the reader to remember).
Or it may be padding.
Or it may be that he has a case that he is overstating by repeating things a bit too much.
This book did sell very well, on one hand but on the other it is published on a no-name label.
This book is just chock full of information--but there's just no way for me to go back and independently verify that this or that paper says what he is saying that it does.
I have no reason to believe that he would lie, but for subject as important as this I might like to take a look at 5 to 10 of the papers just to get a deeper understanding of some of the finer points.
Verdict: I'm not going to finish this book.
At least, not before I can get another book that is better reviewed and on a better label.
Factoids:
(22) More than 20% of children with ADHD have set serious fires, 30% of engaged in theft, 40% drift into early tobacco and alcohol use, more than 25% are suspended or expelled from high school because of misconduct, four to five times as many citations for speeding, 2 to 3 times as many auto accidents, accidents that are two to three times more costly.
Medical bills are twice as high for ADHD children as typical children - - mostly from greater use of emergency room services and other outpatient Medical services.
(106) Adults with ADHD are four to five times more likely to die prematurely than others, often due to accidents or suicide.
2/5 stars
"Data insufficiently granular. Questions about authors clinical experience. Other books sold much better."
******
-129 references
-19 self-cited (14.7%)
At first blush, this appeared to be a good book, but there were several things that gave me pause:
1. This author is a PhD and not an MD, and I do wonder about his clinical experience. (PhDs are not allowed to prescribe medicine and must work in tandem with an MD / DO in order to treat patients.)
2. This book is nowhere near as well-sourced as I would expect it to be for what it is.
For a book that I consider just at the borderline of "well sourced," there are a minimum of 1.5 citations per page (three citations every two pages). By that metric, this book should have had around 500 citations--about a quarter as many as it actually did.
It really would have been more appropriate for it to have closer to 650--about a fifth as many as it actually did. (The author himself admits that there's more research done about ADHD than in the entire rest of the world combined.)
3. Exactly ZERO of his assertions are footnoted directly back to a paper. For example, p.110 has a slew of facts about the risks of adolescents with ADHD - - and nary a single citation that points back to a direct paper that we can evaluate. (And there should have been 8 to 10 citations just for that one page.)
4. There is a lot of repetition, which may be deliberate (for the purpose of helping the reader to remember).
Or it may be padding.
Or it may be that he has a case that he is overstating by repeating things a bit too much.
This book did sell very well, on one hand but on the other it is published on a no-name label.
This book is just chock full of information--but there's just no way for me to go back and independently verify that this or that paper says what he is saying that it does.
I have no reason to believe that he would lie, but for subject as important as this I might like to take a look at 5 to 10 of the papers just to get a deeper understanding of some of the finer points.
Verdict: I'm not going to finish this book.
At least, not before I can get another book that is better reviewed and on a better label.
Factoids:
(22) More than 20% of children with ADHD have set serious fires, 30% of engaged in theft, 40% drift into early tobacco and alcohol use, more than 25% are suspended or expelled from high school because of misconduct, four to five times as many citations for speeding, 2 to 3 times as many auto accidents, accidents that are two to three times more costly.
Medical bills are twice as high for ADHD children as typical children - - mostly from greater use of emergency room services and other outpatient Medical services.
(106) Adults with ADHD are four to five times more likely to die prematurely than others, often due to accidents or suicide.
August 18, 2024
The first part, detailing the biochemistry and DSM criteria for diagnosis was clear, comprehensive and largely bias- free. But the rest of the book really disappointed me. The author was much more authoritarian than authoritative, putting forth a plan of behavior as if these children were dogs being trained. He kept referring to ADHD as a disability, and referring to children’s “limitations“. There was absolutely nothing positive about having ADHD in this authors opinion. Or if there was anything positive, he failed to include it in the 300+ pages. As the mother of a child with ADHD I absolutely reject the concept of “limitations”. ADhD gives her no more limitations than she has from her asthma. The goal of treatment of her asthma is to make sure it’s well controlled so that she can participate in sports and run around outside and do all the things that a non-asthmatic 14-year-old can do. The goal of ADHD treatment is the same. The authorwas extremely regimented and treated the disorder as if it were a bug to be squashed. His tone was condescending throughout much of the book, at no point did I detect any desire to nurture these kids, to foster their strengths. In fact, the author very rarely allowed that these kids have any strengths. All of his plans and directions appeared to do nothing but quell the child’s creativity, keep them in line, bend them to the will of society. In addition, the book is subtly, but substantially sexist. Multiple examples are given where the mother is portrayed as weak or part of the problem. So much has changed in the last 20 years. This book should be removed from shelves because it is completely irrelevant and potentially dangerous in the way that it treats kids with ADHD.
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