We arrive home from another day of school and work. Danny, who has ADHD, runs up the steps. Samantha and Jesse take forever to get their stuff and go into the house. We step over Danny’s open backpack, wadded papers and broken pencils littering the floor, since once again, the zipper is open. The refrigerator door is open behind him when he turns to me, “Mom, there’s nothing to eat.” He pulls out a bag of chips from the pantry and goes into the family room to turn on the TV.

Does your child with ADD or ADHD seem to have more meltdowns, moodiness and anger issues than other kids do? If you feel this way, you are not alone. Children with ADHD are more prone to meltdowns for a number of reasons. Often the brain circuitry that regulates their emotions is dysfunctional. What this means is that it takes less to trigger an anger episode, and it can last for a longer period of time compared to other children. This is the result of their “brain difference.”

“If I didn’t put his homework in his folder, put the folder in his backpack and ask the teacher to get him to take it out, he would never turn in any homework,” says a mother of a son with ADHD.

“I have to sit right with her to get her to do her homework. It takes hours and by the time it’s over we can barely stand each other,” says a father of a teen with learning disabilities.

If you are nodding, crying or smiling, you know this role. These parents are literally stepping into their child’s brain and performing the executive functioning skills their son or daughter struggles to do on their own.

Nearly one in ten kids has ADHD, which means practically every classroom in America will have one to three kids with the disorder. That’s a lot of impulsivity, distractibility, hyperactivity and organizational/planning issues in one room. It’s also a lot of potential for behavioral challenges, conflicts and concerns, creating a perfect storm of issues for kids with ADHD and ADD—and the teachers responsible for educating them.

Homework can be difficult for most kids during the school year, but it can become a major challenge when you have a child with ADHD. But here’s some good news for exhausted parents: if you take the right steps now, at the beginning of the school year, homework hassles can be kept to a minimum. The key is to be organized and plan ahead to minimize the frustration your child is bound to experience around multiple homework assignments. Begin by tackling the two most important places: school and home.

The start of a new school year will be here before we know it—and for some ADD/ADHD kids and their parents, this time is often associated with added anxiety and stress. For children and teens with ADD or ADHD, summer can be a much–needed and most–appreciated break, with many taking a “drug holiday” from their medications and enjoying the freedom from school schedules and homework.

A diagnosis is an important piece of the puzzle when we try to help kids with disabilities learn how to function. Many parents are relieved when they get a diagnosis for their acting-out, “problem child” because they see it as a guideline for the future. They think, “Now we’ll know what to do; this is it—we’ll finally get our child the help he needs.” But parents are often left with the fact that simply having a diagnosis doesn’t necessarily mean they will be able to get help improving their child’s behavior, or get them the skills they need to learn in order to function successfully.

I often joke that kids with ADHD would make great politicians or lawyers, because they never give up a fight! Trying to cope with a child who argues at the drop of a hat can test the patience of any sane person. Not surprisingly, over the years many parents have asked me what they can do to make the arguing stop. What you can do is help your children turn their ability to argue into a positive trait rather than a negative one.

Imagine that you are living inside of a video game, where everything is coming at you at once and every sight, sound and sensation is a distraction. For a child with ADHD, getting through a typical day is something like that—and it explains a great deal about how they experience the world. Children with ADHD typically have impairment of functions such as concentration, memory, impulse control, processing speed and an inability to follow directions. If you’re a parent of a child with ADD or ADHD, this most likely sounds all too familiar.

“I never suspected my nine-year-old daughter’s inability to concentrate was due to ADHD,” said Diane, the mother of three girls. “She isn’t ‘hyper’ or noisy—in fact, just the opposite. Kayla is the middle child—she’s quiet and tends to daydream a lot. We were frustrated because she couldn’t ever seem to concentrate or get her schoolwork done...But we were still really surprised when our pediatrician finally diagnosed her with ADHD last year.”

For the parents of a child with ADHD, simple, everyday tasks turn into battles—from getting the child out the door in the morning to getting him to bed at night. My son was diagnosed with ADHD at age 6, so I remember what it was like to have a daily tug of war with an attention disordered child all too well. Parents look for help everywhere. They may read one book after another and hear a parade of behavioral experts speak who give them parenting tips that don’t seem to work. The more books they read and experts they seek out, the worse their child’s behavior seems to get.

All parents want to see their child as the smartest, most capable boy or girl on the block. So why would they want to have a label attached to them that often coveys just the opposite--such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? What a difference one word can make. Suppose we changed the last D in ADHD from “disorder” to “difference.”

Unfortunately, a diagnosis and medication aren’t always a solution. Medications that target behavior problems are at best a shot in the dark and at worst can have many undesirable side effects and alter the child’s personality. There is a fork in the road that many parents face daily: We have a behavior problem. Should I medicate my child?

Imagine this scene: Your 7–year–old won’t stop teasing his little sister. You give him a 10minute time out, but he refuses to comply and has a total meltdown. Or suppose you tell your 13–year–old to do her homework and stop texting her friend or else she will lose TV privileges for the week. She becomes upset and breaks your favorite framed picture. If you're the parent of a child with ADHD, this might sound all too familiar.