Alex Partridge as a child (left) and now (right).Today’s world doesn’t cater for ADHD. Children are expected to sit in a classroom all day and if they display their natural behaviour, they are branded “too much”.In fact, it’s thought kids with ADHD could be exposed to 20,000 negative comments by the age of 10; expressions like ‘Calm down!’, ‘Stop doing that’, ‘Sit still’ and ‘Why can’t you just be normal?’.As a child, I never felt comfortable in my own skin. After I finished watching a film, I would act like the main character for days or even weeks, until I got bored and moved on to something else. When I did interact with people, I found myself copying their mannerisms and their tone of voice. I even pretended to share their interests and hobbies. I altered who I was in order to appear likeable to whoever I was with.ADHD children have as much right to be their authentic selves as anybody else and that means they might fidget, move around and get lost on their way to places – and none of that behaviour needs telling off. The worst thing you can do to an ADHD kid is to try to turn them into a neurotypical kid or bring them closer to a neurotypical one.Paren