A child psychiatrist has opened up about a pattern she sees routinely where a neurodivergent child will struggle at school, and the adults around them mistake their symptoms for poor behaviour or a bad attitude.

Dr Anya Ciobanca, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at The ADHD Centre, says children who appear disengaged, inconsistent or emotionally volatile at school may be experiencing something far more complex than just a bad attitude.

“Behaviour is never the whole story,” she says. “When we approach a child with curiosity rather than judgement, everything changes.”

Conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can go undiagnosed for years because there are often misunderstandings over symptoms. For example, people might think kids who have it are just hyperactive, but there are also more subtle signs that can show up, like day-dreaming or emotional dysregulation.

Girls in particular are likely to remain undiagnosed until later life. Reviews suggest ADHD is identified more often in boys in childhood at a ratio of 3:1 (males to females), while the ratio appears to even out in adulthood at 1:1.

Experts previously told HuffPost UK this happens largely because there’s a gender divide in how ADHD symptoms are expressed (girls tend to demonstrate more inattentive symptoms), and social expectations on girls can lead to them keeping quiet, carrying on, and developing sophisticated masking strategies (sometimes at detriment to their mental health).

“There is a version of ADHD that looks, from the outside, like daydreaming or simply not caring,” says Dr Ciobanca. “But internally, that child may be working extraordinarily hard just to keep up. The effort of masking is immense, and it has a cost.”

In classrooms, children are often doing the best they can with a nervous system that’s working against them, but there are certain signs they might be fighting a hidden battle and need more support.

1. Avoidance of school or specific lessons – this might look like persistent reluctance or distress around certain subjects or transitions.
2. Difficulty starting or completing work – this is often mistaken for laziness, says Dr Ciobanca, but rooted in overwhelm or difficulties with executive function.
3. Emotional outbursts or withdrawal – this can look like frustration, tears or shutting down, particularly after school (also known as after-school restraint collapse).
4. Chronic tiredness or physical complaints of headaches, which can be linked to anxiety or sensory overload.
5. Low self-esteem, negative self-talk, and appearing to cope at school (masking) while falling apart at home.

One child Dr Chiobanca worked with had been labelled by her school as inconsistent and difficult to motivate. But in reality, she was overwhelmed and had developed a profound sense of shame around her difficulties.

Girls with undiagnosed ADHD are “more likely to blame themselves, turning their anger and pain inward”, according to the Child Mind Institute, which noted they’re also more likely to experience depression, anxiety and eating disorders than those without ADHD.

“Once we understood the underlying picture – the interaction between her ADHD, her anxiety and her environment – we could make meaningful changes,” says the psychiatrist. “She no longer had to spend every day just fighting to survive it. That freed up an enormous amount of energy for actually learning.”

With one in 20 children thought to have ADHD, Dr Ciobanca wants to see earlier intervention, more flexible teaching, and emotional wellbeing placed at the centre of education rather than its margins.

“Too much support comes too late. We cannot expect children to learn well when they do not feel safe,” she adds.

If you think your child might be neurodivergent (research suggests around 15-20% of people are), it’s worth exploring this subtly with your child. Dr Chiobanca advises parents to ask their children: “What’s the hardest part of your day?” as this can reveal more than questions about effort or behaviour.

It’s also worth speaking to your child’s school – specifically their class teacher or SENCO (a special educational needs coordinator) – if you notice a pattern of distress or avoidance. Months of avoidance or emotional dysregulation are a signal worth acting on, she notes.

The psychiatrist also urges parents to separate the behaviour from the child, as “struggling children often already feel like failures; they need to know you’re on their side”.

While NHS waiting times for diagnosis can stretch for months, it might also be worth considering a professional assessment. “ADHD and anxiety remain significantly underdiagnosed, particularly in girls,” says Dr Ciobanca.

Yet when children feel safe and understood, “they are far more able to learn and grow,” she adds. “That is the kind of education system worth working towards.”

The parents of a five-year-old boy who died after accidentally being exposed to an allergen at school have welcomed the government’s new allergy plans for schools.

On 1 December 2021, Benedict Blythe went to school, as normal, yet a few hours later, his dad Peter received a call to say he’d been sick. When he arrived to pick up his son, it became clear he was seriously unwell.

Peter began CPR until an ambulance arrived. Sadly, despite medical help, Benedict was pronounced dead in hospital just after lunchtime.

An inquest into his death determined the five-year-old died from an accidental exposure to cow’s milk protein, which triggered fatal anaphylaxis.

His parents, Helen and Peter, have been fiercely campaigning for safety changes in schools ever since.

The couple have worked with clinicians, coroners, charities and parliamentarians to highlight gaps in allergy safety in schools and push for national protections so no other family suffers a similar fate.

And now it seems ‘Benedict’s Law’ is set to make real change.

The government has shared that under new statutory guidance, schools will have to stock life-saving adrenaline auto-injector pens, teachers will undergo compulsory allergy awareness training, and every school will need to have a dedicated allergy policy.

The guidance is currently open for consultation and will come into force in September 2026.

Helen and Peter said: “We are grateful that the government has listened to us, and that as a result a new generation of children with allergies will, from September, enter a school system far safer for them.

“Our son Benedict died aged just five years old, from an allergic reaction in school that was not only preventable but treatable.”

They added that if Benedict’s Law had been in place when their son joined his school, “he may still be alive”.

Food allergy affects around 7-8% of children worldwide, equivalent to roughly two pupils in every classroom. What’s more, roughly 30% of allergic reactions in schools occur in children previously undiagnosed with an allergy.

Yet research commissioned by the Benedict Blythe Foundation, which the family set up in their son’s name, revealed that one in three schools did not have an allergy policy and almost half did not hold spare life-saving medication.

“As a family, leading the campaign for allergy safety in schools has been about remembering our son,” Helen and Peter continued.

“He was a kind, clever boy who cared about helping others – so knowing that for the first time schools will be expected to protect children with allergies like him from harm feels like a fitting legacy for Benedict.”

The Benedict Blythe Foundation caveated that while guidance sets expectations, it does not create an enforceable legal duty or guarantee consistent implementation across every school.

Olivia Bailey, minister for Early Education, said: “No parent should have to send their child to school worried that a life-threatening allergic reaction won’t be handled swiftly.

“We have listened to the families and organisations who have campaigned tirelessly on this issue, and we are acting.

“These new requirements will give parents the confidence that every school has the training, the plans and the equipment in place to keep their child safe.”

Tanya Ednan-Laperouse OBE, whose daughter Natasha died aged 15 from an allergic reaction, said she is “deeply grateful” that the government is taking action to keep children with food allergies safe at school.

Access to education, health and care plans (EHCPs) – which hundreds of thousands of children currently benefit from – is set to change, as part of the government’s overhaul of the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system.

An EHCP is a legally-binding document outlining the needs of a child and what support is required to meet those needs.

Currently, almost 640,000 children with SEND in England have one in place. But as part of the new plans, these documents will only be reserved for children with the most “complex” needs.

Understandably, parents who have fought hard to earn their children much-needed extra support through an EHCP are concerned by what this now means.

As part of the reforms, the government wants to put children with SEND into two main categories by 2035: Targeted, which is for those who are in mainstream schools and involves support from education, health and care professionals, where needed; or Specialist, which is for children with the most complex needs who are either attending a mainstream or specialist setting.

More than a million children with SEND will be legally entitled to a more “flexible” school-based support plan setting out a child’s day-to-day needs, this time called Individual Support Plans (ISPs).

Only those who come under the Specialist umbrella – meaning those with complex needs – will be entitled to ISPs and EHCPs, the latter of which the BBC noted is “the framework giving them legal entitlement to support”.

The government said the transition from EHCPs to ISPs for children without complex needs will begin from 2030. ISPs will be in place for children who are transitioning from an EHCP before they move to the new system, so there should be no break in support, it added.

The news has left parents with one key unanswered question, however. What constitutes ‘complex needs’?

In response to an Instagram post on the reform white paper, shared by @AutismDadcast, one parent said: “Big question – no definition or indication as to what complex needs looks like. Kept referring to it but who qualifies for complex needs and who’s deciding what that looks like?”

Another added: “How do they define children with the most complex needs?”

We don’t yet have a full definition. HuffPost UK understands more detail on this will be set out following the government’s consultation and work with experts over the coming year.

Broadly, though, it’s likely to refer to children who need more support than can be accessed through their local mainstream school and through ‘experts at hand’ (a team of local professionals like speech and language therapists, educational psychologists, etc, which schools will be able to draw from as part of the new reforms).

The NHS suggests that if a child has been “diagnosed with an illness, disability or sensory impairment and needs a lot of additional support on a daily basis”, they’re described as having complex needs.

“A child might have complex needs from birth, or after an illness or injury,” the service adds.

There has been some concern that children with conditions that present on a spectrum, such as autism and ADHD, might lose out on specialist support.

The i Paper highlighted that ‘Specialist Provision Packages (SPP)’ will be the new gateway to an EHCP, however also noted “children and young people with underlying needs linked to a condition which presents on a spectrum (such as autism) may not necessarily be supported by the same Specialist Provision Package”.

When pressed on this, education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the system will be “needs-dependent, not diagnosis-dependent”.

She told the i Paper: “Some autistic children do need a [Specialist Provision Package]. Other children with autism – with the right level of support within mainstream [schools] – can thrive, can achieve.”

For now, parents are once again left to wait for more clarity.