Rethinking ADHD

Your child isn’t “too much.” They might be perfectly built for movement, curiosity, and hands-on learning and stuck in a system that treats those traits like a problem. I’m Dr. Enrico Dolcicore, and I’m digging into ADHD through a lens that many parents and teachers feel in their bones: the world changed fast, and kids didn’t. Less outdoor play, more screen time, shrinking recess, and longer sitting hours can turn a high-energy brain into a daily discipline battle.

We talk about what developmental neuroscience suggests about movement and the brain, including dopamine, attention circuits, learning pathways, and emotional regulation. When classrooms demand quiet compliance and delayed rewards, many kids with ADHD traits struggle not because they can’t focus, but because they focus best with novelty, challenge, and immediate feedback. We also unpack the confusing reality of hyperfocus, why some high achievers and entrepreneurs show strong ADHD traits, and how the same characteristics that make school hard can become real advantages later in life.

I share practical strategies for ADHD support at home and school: more daily movement, sports or martial arts, walking breaks, hands-on learning, shorter tasks, and clearer “small wins.” We also have an honest conversation about the diagnosis and medication pipeline, and why I believe facilitation and fit matter more than forcing kids into a box.

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Transcript

Why ADHD Labels Keep Rising

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Have you ever noticed that kids who get labeled with ADHD are often the same kids who are curious, energetic, creative, and constantly asking questions? Yet the system tells us those traits are a problem. What if these kids aren't broken? What if they are wired to move, explore, and build, and we're trying to fit them in an environment that was never designed for them? Welcome back to Living a Full Life Podcast. I'm Dr. Enrico Dolcicori, and this week we're talking all about ADHD, and more so the parents and teachers that help them each and every day be the best adults that they possibly can be, children and adults that they can possibly be. But let's get dive into this. I've been helping kids on the spectrum and with ADHD and ADD for almost 20 years. And according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, about one in 10 children in the U.S. have been diagnosed with ADHD. Boys are diagnosed twice as much as girls. The question we really should be asking is: are kids suddenly more disordered or has the environment changed dramatically? I've done lectures, workshops, been guest speakers at different symposiums, and talked for over the last 19 years about this stuff. And really, it all comes down to the same pain points of how the world has changed. There's less outdoor play, there's less physical activity, there's longer sitting times, there's more screen exposure than ever before, and there's more academic pressure at younger ages. The thing we need to understand, both as parents, teachers, facilitators for our children is that kids are built to move. As long as we understand that premise, I think the rest of this goes really well. Research in the field of developmental neuroscience shows that movement stimulates dopamine, attention circuits, learning pathways, and emotional regulation. In many classrooms today, the way it's set up is that kids are sitting for six to eight hours per day. Recess times are shrinking, PE times are shrinking, and movement is treated as disruption in the classroom. But biologically, many children, especially those labeled with ADHD, are wired to learn through movement, exploration, and hands-on activity. The classroom is where the mismatch is for these kids. 10 to 20% of kids, the classroom setting doesn't work well. And I think that's why there's been an explosion of homeschooling and other modalities to help children learn, which is absolutely phenomenal. And they then these kids thrive in those environments. But what if you're a parent that can't homeschool, which is half of the American population? Modern classrooms require long sitting times, quiet attention, repetitive assignments, and delayed rewards. But ADHD brains thrive with novelty, challenge, immediate feedback, and physical activity. A 2017 study published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology found that children with ADHD often perform better on tasks that involve movement or interactive learning. Many of these kids aren't incapable of focus. They simply focus intensely on things that engage them. Teachers are binded. I mean, they have to get through the curriculum, they have to get through the classroom structure. So sometimes that environment is the stress point for tasks open month in and month out. Believe it or not, in our society, if you look around many of the high achievers, many of them have ADHD. They just never were diagnosed. If they're older than 40, these things weren't diagnosed. If they're younger than 30, they may know that they have ADHD, or they were diagnosed later in life at 40. They're like, holy smokes, I have the ADHD. That makes perfect sense. It's not a surprise later in life because we can mold our environment as adults to accommodate our life and our brains. But kids can't. Research in Harvard Business School found that entrepreneurs show higher rates of ADHD traits than the general population. These kids grow up to be entrepreneurs because the mold doesn't work. It's uh pretty obvious. So traits often seen in ADHD is that they take risks, they are super creative, they have high energy, they have rapid idea generation, they're resilient, and they hyperfocus. What? I thought we were talking about ADHD, Dr. Enrico. How can people with ADHD be hyper focused? I thought it was a focus issue. Give kids and people with ADHD something that they love, they will become more hyper-focused than people that don't have that hyperactivity in their brain because they become hyper-focused and isolated on something that they thoroughly enjoy. And it can be work, it can be a job, it can be a task, it can be things that they love. So the same traits that make school difficult can become superpowers in adulthood. So what do these kids actually need? And I think parents, this is mainly for you. The environment that helps them succeed most is with more movement. So schools that have sports programs, longer PE times, facilitate more PE, uh, have more options for these kids to get their hands on things or to move, do better, 20 to 30 minutes per day. Standing desks, walking breaks, sports, martial arts after school, uh putting them in sports after school and on the weekends, they do really well with this. Hands-on learning, they learn better with building, experimenting, and exploring, moving, moving, moving, literally moving their hands and grabbing things rather than sitting still and listening. Shorter tasks, if we need academic and auditory tasks, making them shorter. So long assignments overwhelm fast brains. They're on to the next. So break work into smaller wins, clearer goals, and immediate feedback. And with tutoring and doing things at home, you can control that environment. And then as parents, a great tip, a great tip. If you have these overachievers, that's what I call them. There's no ADHD in our office. We never, we've never diagnosed it, we've never treated a kid for it. It's nothing, it's hey achievers. These are these are kids that are reaching for the stars and don't even know it yet because they're kids. Uh, we follow their curiosity. And I highly, highly encourage parents to do that too. It will, it will take a lot of pressure off of you as well if you just put yourself behind them and follow their curiosity. It's quite amazing how far they can go with this and how in depth. And sometimes as parents, we look at it and we're like, man, they're really clinging on to this. It's not, it's their brain's super attracted to it, and they want to do that. Instead of shutting it down, the obsession might be where the genius lives. I love that. I really do love that quote. Now, why is the system built the way it is? Where we put kids in the classroom and we go get diagnoses and we get the diagnosis. And if we get the diagnosis, then it helps us with outside school therapies or medicines or you know, that it just seems like a revolving door. Well, well, we got to get the diagnosis because if we get the diagnosis, we can get the supportive aid that we need either in school, academically, or medically. And we're thinking about it all the wrong way. We don't need to medicate these children. What we need to do is facilitate these children. But the issue comes with parents' lifestyle. We're overworked. We're exhausted. We truly are exhausted. We want the best for our kids. But working longer hours, dealing with stress, navigating technology overload both for yourself and your children. When a child has limitless energy, it can feel overwhelming for each and every parent. But the answer may not be less energy. The answer may be channeling their energy in healthy ways rather than focusing on you being empty. Finding extracurricular activities, getting them out into groups. These things can free up some of your time too, as they thrive in a sport or an activity or an art that they enjoy doing a few times a week. That could be your salvage or refuel on your tank by doing this stuff. Some of the most innovative people in the world were kids who didn't fit the system. So instead of asking, you know, why can't this child sit still? Ask, where can this child thrive? Change the perspective. These kids are not broken. I did I help them often, and this sparked this uh podcast this week just because we had uh three families come in uh so quickly in two days uh with these kids. And you could mom's exhausted. It's usually mom that comes in. Some of the one family was mom and dad. You could see them, they're just they're drained. Uh, one had two kids, one had three kids, and the other had uh two kids, so two, three, and two. And they were helping the one you know that was struggling and coming on in saying, Listen, we've tried it, we tried everything. And these kids are not broken. They're energetic, curious, passionate, and driven. That's what's going on. And you're telling them, hey, go into that big building that's filled with box classrooms and sit in that desk for eight hours and listen to your teacher and be good and don't be disruptive. They may not fit into the system perfectly because the system's not perfect, but that might be exactly why they grew up to change the world. Remember that. Remember that. So, as helping these kids with ADHD, they are potentialless, is what I call them. They they have so much potential in there. And yes, the structures that we have for education are tough. So, what can we do with them with movement? The reason why therapies work well is because we take movement into our clinics and hyperfocus it so that the five, 10, 15 minutes of movement equals 30, 45, 60 minutes of actual movement, because we have brain-based and brain-focused movement to facilitate the right parts of the brain. Going out and playing some soccer and running and doing some turns and tackling and getting the ball or trying to steal the ball or kicking, light up different parts of the brain when we're doing that, but they're more of a sports mode brain, right brained activity brain. But when we do exercises in therapeutic office like OT or chiropractic, when we're in there doing those movements, we're lighting up both sides of the brain on purpose because of structured exercises that we want to do in 30-minute appointments rather than being outside for an hour. So parents utilize therapy, movement therapy. Let's let's stop for a second. The drugs are not the answer for these kids. Do drugs work in some of the kids? It the reason why they work for those families is because they subdue the child correctly enough. This is horrible language, by the way, correctly enough to help the parents deal with it. I know that sounds horrible. Or it subdues the child enough for the teacher to feel like they can keep them in the classroom and teach them for the rest of the year. This is the truth. It's not that medications cure or help anything, they subdue and interfere with parts of the brain to change the outcome of behavior. We're we're drugging our kids and making them zombies to have an outcome for a result. Um, we're pumping GLP1s into people to lose weight so they look a certain way. It's the exact same thought process. We're looking at the result rather than what we're doing to the body. Um, and it has effects long term. Kids who get medicated lead to addiction, addictive personalities, OCD, depression, and higher criminal rates after because of addiction and where it can go with that and down the wrong wrong path and into other heavier medications or even drugs. That's that's the statistics that are out there. So when we look at all this, we want to help these kids through movement. If you're a parent that's just struggling and you're like, we we do the stuff, we move, they play the sports, they do the things, they're still not there, then adding therapy is going to be your best result. Finding someone that is well versed in ADHD that can help with your kids, light, light up the brain, map the brain properly. So we do thermography, static EMG testing, heart rate variability. X-rays don't play a big role in ADHD kids because they don't have a structural issue. They have a brain synaptic uh issue going on. And if we can get those synapses firing more controlled between the overactive and the underactive brain and the lobes, you get better dynamic between the brain, which uh changes the outcome of behavior. The behavior that ends up changing is because of control. The child learns the control and adaptive behavior moving into that. Very cool stuff behind the neuroscience and how this works. So, how do we do movement therapy? In our office in chiropractic, we don't have an hour to sit there, we don't have the space to let kids run around and climb a wall. In occupational therapy, they do have those spaces. So you gotta fit, you gotta find the better fit for the child. And we refer back and forth. I have a gray one here in our local area, and she refers to me when it's brain, when it's motor-based and when it's movement based. So when we have motor kinetic base, the chiropractic works well because the spinal adjustments are like 30 minutes of exercise. It lights up the brain, and then we use laser on the brain to hyperactive, activate the lower activated areas of the brain. I hope that makes sense over a podcast. But that's the trium POCO, and then we use vibration plates. So whether you stand on a vibration plate for two minutes or five minutes, that's equal to like 30 minutes of physical activity. And we speed up these appointments so these kids with ADHD can come into an appointment for 15 minutes and walk out the front door with a full hour of therapy that way. So we speed up the brain's movement and brain's adaptive ability through the therapies that we do with lasers and all this. We treat your kid like um like Superman, superwoman on a different planet with all the therapies that we do there to speed it up because we know time is dynamic for families. And by having shorter uh uh treatment times, they can actually do more treatment, which is great. They can actually come more often instead of going to a place for 90 minutes three times a week, cuts into the day, cuts into the night. Um, that's how we fit these in there. And the results are amazing. Within weeks, weeks, not months, within weeks, behavior starts to change, sleep starts to change, regulation starts to change. If we get to work with these kids over an academic year, those eight months, by the beginning and end, we've got C students becoming A students, and it's just so rewarding. I and I'm doing more of these podcasts because I just want to do more of this. That's where I what I enjoy. I love helping adults, but boy, you guys are all broken. Gee whiz, have you beat yourselves up? And we're here for you too. But the kids have their whole lives in front of them. It's just so rewarding to work with children because when when you do light them up and you do see the changes happening, not as it's only great for the families, but as a provider, you know they're gonna be your future. It's gonna be a future police officer that pulls me over going 90 miles an hour on I-4 and maybe not give me a ticket. Or it might be somebody who I might need later in life to help me with healthcare, or they're gonna be part of the community, they're gonna be part of our lives, they're gonna make big changes and make uh big splashes in their life and their in their future. So it's so exciting to watch that go. So if you need help, info at fulllifetampa.com, reach out to us. We'll find providers wherever you live. North Florida, Georgia, California, wherever you're at. I find uh a local colleague that I know in the area, they end up referring to the ones that are closest to the zip code that you gave me, and then you're in good hands, and usually you get one or two options and we and we connect you with the right people so that you can do it. We love doing that and we love answering questions for you too. So ADHD, is it really even a thing? Or are we taking super intelligent kids and putting them in a box? I think it's the latter. Have a great week. Stay well, stay healthy, keep doing all the things that you do, and we'll catch you next week. Same bat channel.